Our reputation will play out in the social Web space as much as anywhere else. We need to get good at this.
BY STEPHEN ABRAM
I made an offhand comment a few weeks ago and it appeared to start an entire conversation on the Web, blogs and even Library Journal! All I said was something like: "Librarians cannot afford to be anonymous and generic. ... We need to state that we're pretty good more often. We want to be treated as professionals and far too many of us seem to hide under the cloak of anonymity. What other professionals--surgeons, nurses, dentists, tax preparers, accountants, and the like--won't tell you their name right away? Would you hire them or treat them as professionals if they remained anonymous? Would you find them and employ them if they had Web pages that described their services but didn't show their names, specialties, work projects and pictures? Why do I see so many library Web sites and intranet pages that display a wonderful range of services and so few images and descriptions of the professionals behind the services? Why do so many librarians blog anonymously? How can we expect to raise our professional profile if we don't remove the cloak and shyness and head out into the big world of professional services?"
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