The Librarian Is In and Online

Jessamyn West writes:

"I am a librarian, first and foremost, but I always appreciate an opportunity to answer anyone's questions, especially if it pays. How many times have we wished we could put a tip jar out on the reference desk to supplement our income if we gave good reference? The plethora of fee-based question-answering services seem to be trying to do just that: take a service that is available for free and resell it "value added" to a public that is just looking for more things to click 'n buy. But are they really any sort of threat to traditional reference and librarianship in general? And if so, why and how? And what can librarians do about it?"

Perfectly written article!! Print this one out and save it in your professional reading file...Great job, Jessamyn.