My Job Doesn't Exist

I had a strange epiphany the other day (I must admit, though, that most of my epiphanies are a bit strange).

I come to the sudden, yet undeniable conclusion that my job doesn't exist. Or, at least, it shouldn't. It's not real, you see. Very little I do is real.

It's all Flashforward's fault. I was trying to explain to the characters in the TV show that they were creating self-fulfilling prophecies. They were collecting things to put on a board because in their visions of the future these things were on the board. But the problem with that is it becomes some sort of weird paradoxical cycle. The reason why the items were on the board in the future is because the items were on the board in the future. They could very well mean absolutely nothing, but they've managed to hook themselves into that existential cycle.

The characters in the TV show didn't listen to me (they never do), but I suddenly realised that I do exactly the same thing every day. You know, most people don't need the services I offer them until I tell them they do. Then, suddenly, they need something I can supply.

The world existed quite happily without iGoogle, EndNote, electronic databases, Delicious and LibGuides. No one really cared about all the wonderful tools they could have been using to do things they weren't doing.

Suddenly, an academic librarian like myself says: "but, wait, people need blogs! If they only knew how effective blogs could be, they would want them!" So, I invent a blog, tell everyone to look at it, convince them it's a Good Thing and something they not only Want, but Need... And now it's a part of my job to find things to put in blog posts.

EndNote and other bibliographic software programs are useful, but they aren't really necessary. I help people believe they need such things in order to study well. Then people need me to help them use EndNote. Or Google Docs. Or Connotea.

I'm finding the things we believe we will need in the future, then helping people need them today. And so much of my job is wrapped up in supporting things that, frankly, mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I feel like I'm training a unicorn to fly a spaceship - treading a strange line between fantasy and science fiction, and hoping nobody notices the fact that you don't need an interactive web-based guide to grow food for your children.

Truth be told, what we will really need in the future isn't any of these things. They'll all turn to dust before we realise it. No, the things we'll need in the future are the same things we needed in the past: the ability to cultivate food that will nourish us and build shelters that will keep us warm and dry.

These are things I can't do and can't teach anyone else to do either. But they're real. So much more real than most of what I do in my day.

Next time some librarian tries to tell you how useful the latest gadget is, tell them you're better off learning how to spin cotton into thread. It's true.

But, on the other hand, that gadget is probably really cool and quite useful, so still pay attention.