Picking up from a wonderful post of the same title from the Blue Skunk Blog (http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2012/1/13/you-know-you-are-a-21st-century-librarian-when.html) and adjusting for working in public libraries.  Enjoy!

You know you are a 21st century public librarian when:

  • you get excited about getting a real life reference question
  • you lend more DVDs than books
  • you hand out more keys to the toilet than answers
  • you exercise your IT skills more than your reference skills
  • you do more HTML than cataloguing
  • you book more Wifi sessions than desktop Internet sessions
  • your professional development works mainly through Twitter
  • when answering a reference questions, you head to the Internet
  • your copier is used for printing from the Internet and virtually never for copying from books
  • you have nothing to do when the Internet goes down
  • your touch typing skill is the best thing you learned at school
  • your phone is used for music and the Internet, not so much for phone calls
  • you get more requests for staplers than reading recommendations
  • you are extremely familiar with the reset buttons on computers
  • some library users protest a noisy library more than you do (they need shushing classes)
  • you mention a character from the 20th century and the kids say ‘who?’ (in my case it was Charlie Chaplin)
  • you still love your job, even through all the decades of change!

Would love to hear what else has changed for your sector in librarianship.