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I don't think the parent's point is that she's "not really a librarian" but that she's not just a librarian. In the sense that Usain Bolt isn't just a runner. A

by getoj 8y ago

I don't think the parent's point is that she's "not really a librarian" but that she's not just a librarian. In the sense that Usain Bolt isn't just a runner. An extremely prominent person in any field is (perhaps counter-intuitively) never going to represent the majority of that field. In that sense I suppose this phenomenon is called "understatement."

derefr 8y ago
My point was more that, in this case, she is “just a librarian”, because this type of thing is what being a librarian is supposed to mean—it’s just that most people suck at being librarians, kind of cargo-cutting the actions librarians have traditionally taken rather than looking around and trying to embrace the spirit of the goals librarians try to accomplish with the highest ROI possible for a modern context. When “librarian” was invented as a term, it referred to people like this. The same is true of Dennis Ritchie: he’s just a programmer—because the word “programmer” was originally invented to describe people like Ritchie. But by that same historical standard, most modern “programmers” aren’t; they’re just code-monkeys. The Usain Bolt example is different—Bolt really is an exceptional runner, rather than being a denotationally-central example of what it means to be a runner. When the word “runner” was invented, it referred to the lesser thing, with plenty of central examples; and by that yard-stick, Bolt is more like a “super-runner” or some such. (Similar to how the word “food” developed to refer to a category where the central examples were nutritionally merely-adequate, so now we’ve had to invent the word “superfood” for foods that are, like, really dang good at being food.)
- ggg9990 8y ago
  The word programmer was not invented to describe people who invented an operating system and then invented the canonical programming language for operating systems.
- upvotinglurker 8y ago
  > My point was more that, in this case, she is “just a librarian”, because this type of thing is what being a librarian is supposed to mean—it’s just that most people suck at being librarians, In my experience (working in an academic library and interacting a lot with employees of other academic libraries), most actual present-day academic librarians do not suck at being a librarian. They're not as high-profile as Jessamyn West, but neither are they "computer literate old ladies" -- they use computers constantly in their daily work and are at least aware of issues with digital privacy, copyright law overreaches, etc. I suspect anyone who thinks "computer literate old lady" is still the normative example of a librarian, hasn't interacted with many librarians lately (or perhaps has limited experience e.g. in a small town library).

by getoj 8y ago

derefr 8y ago

My point was more that, in this case, she is “just a librarian”, because this type of thing is what being a librarian is supposed to mean—it’s just that most people suck at being librarians, kind of cargo-cutting the actions librarians have traditionally taken rather than looking around and trying to embrace the spirit of the goals librarians try to accomplish with the highest ROI possible for a modern context. When “librarian” was invented as a term, it referred to people like this. The same is true of Dennis Ritchie: he’s just a programmer—because the word “programmer” was originally invented to describe people like Ritchie. But by that same historical standard, most modern “programmers” aren’t; they’re just code-monkeys. The Usain Bolt example is different—Bolt really is an exceptional runner, rather than being a denotationally-central example of what it means to be a runner. When the word “runner” was invented, it referred to the lesser thing, with plenty of central examples; and by that yard-stick, Bolt is more like a “super-runner” or some such. (Similar to how the word “food” developed to refer to a category where the central examples were nutritionally merely-adequate, so now we’ve had to invent the word “superfood” for foods that are, like, really dang good at being food.)

ggg9990 8y ago
The word programmer was not invented to describe people who invented an operating system and then invented the canonical programming language for operating systems.
upvotinglurker 8y ago
> My point was more that, in this case, she is “just a librarian”, because this type of thing is what being a librarian is supposed to mean—it’s just that most people suck at being librarians, In my experience (working in an academic library and interacting a lot with employees of other academic libraries), most actual present-day academic librarians do not suck at being a librarian. They're not as high-profile as Jessamyn West, but neither are they "computer literate old ladies" -- they use computers constantly in their daily work and are at least aware of issues with digital privacy, copyright law overreaches, etc. I suspect anyone who thinks "computer literate old lady" is still the normative example of a librarian, hasn't interacted with many librarians lately (or perhaps has limited experience e.g. in a small town library).