Wanted: Librarian. Book Lovers Need Not Apply.

As more and more librarians become "media specialists" or "information technologists," what happens to librarians who remain chiefly interested in collecting books, not in promoting information literacy? They get a bit jaundiced, writes Thomas Washington, the librarian at a school in the Washington area.

In an editorial for The Washington Post, Mr. Washington bristles at the notion that libraries should be helping students navigate "the digital forest of information overload" instead of getting people to the stacks:

The buzzword in the trade is "information literacy," a misnomer, because what it is really about is mastering computer skills, not promoting a love of reading and books. These days, librarians measure the quality of returns in data-mining stints. We teach students how to maximize a database search, about successful retrieval rates. What usually gets lost in the scramble is a careful reading of the material.

Mr. Washington's skeptical take on information-literacy training is debatable. But the piece is worth reading because of its underlying point: that bibliophiles may find modern library jobs unrewarding. Have the requirements for library work changed over the past decade, or is Mr. Washington romanticizing the past? –Brock Read