I also feel it is a vital and noble calling. But fewer people share our views now, as compared to 1970. And like it or not, the prestige of a profession stron

I also feel it is a vital and noble calling. But fewer people share our views now, as compared to 1970. And like it or not, the prestige of a profession strongly affects the number of people who seek to enter it. Fewer will choose to become professional librarians when municipal library systems employ less with formal training, and task those who have it with serving the prurient interests of transients and homeless people. Sure, some of those people will also be helped to create electronic resume documents, and to access job boards, and to enroll in online education courses, and to generally make their lives better via access to information, and that is what librarians want out of the job, but they will also be crapped on--both by those who feel entitled to the services they provide, and by those who feel they are obsolete relics.