Did you know that thinking like a librarian has the power to transform lives?

I'm a librarian.  So, I get asked quite regularly, by everyone from taxi drivers to school leaders, why we still need libraries in the age of the internet.

And here's the thing - maybe we don't.  At least not in their present form.  But we need what is in libraries, and more importantly, we need people who think like librarians.

My premise is that all of us need to think like librarians.  If we do, we will begin to see transformation. 

As a librarian, my work revolves around three things:  people, stories, and information.  I believe this is true for most professionals.

Okay.  People. That's easy.  We all deal with people.  As IDEAS associates, we wouldn't do what we do if we didn't care about people and want to see them transformed.  And that holds true whether our work is dealing with balance sheets or teaching young children.

Stories. We all know the power of stories.  I love talking about the stories in books and movies, and I can tell you about stories that have impacted me deeply. We all love stories. Stories give meaning to our lives and shape our worldview, our perceptions of the world and reality.

That leaves information.  And probably about now, some of you are tuning out.  Information is boring.  Talking about information brings back memories of school and memorizing lists of dates before history tests. 

But I would suggest that information is the building block upon which lays the foundation for transformation.  This is why it is important to think about information like librarians.

What do I mean?  Let's start with what information is.  I called it a building block.  What does it build?  Just about everything. Quite literally. Someone needed various sorts of information to build the chair you sit on and the building you live in.  Everything we see around us has information built into its fabric.  Scientists keep discovering more and more information about God's complex and amazing creation. And then there are worldviews. Worldviews are created through the information we take in and process about our lives, experiences, relationships, and God.

We live in an information-rich world.  When I was studying library science in the 1980s, librarians were already saying that we were living in an information age.  But at that moment, before the internet moved out of the world of defense and onto our desktops, and certainly before it moved into our phones, information could be hard to find.

These days, information is easy to find.  It's everywhere.  We can Google it.  We get information on Facebook.

But here's the problem:  now we're drowning in information.  Studies show that 90% of the data in the world didn't exist two years ago.  Have you ever done a search on Google and gotten back over a million hits?  I certainly have.  Do you ever look beyond the first page of results?  The second page?  I confess that even as a librarian, I don't.  And so, we all miss information that's buried down on page 10 or 100.

Here's where thinking like a librarian makes a difference.  As a librarian, I believe the information needed is someplace out there; I just need to do more work to find it.

I can guarantee that most students don't dig that deeply to find information for assignments.  And what about the people who only have limited literacy or limited internet access on their phone? They often miss the information they need and want.

Does this really matter?  Maybe not, if you're looking to see who won the football match last night.  But what if you want to understand the test results you got from your doctor?  What if you want to know how to teach the child who is dyslexic?  What if you want to know how to increase the yield of your crops? 

All of these are questions that could lead to transformation.  All of these questions need information. 

But there's an added piece to this information puzzle.  When you get those pages of Google results (or conflicting bits of advice from the farmers around you or divergent opinions from doctors about your test results), how do you figure out what is "good" information - from a reliable source, accurate, true?

That's where you come in, a professional who thinks like a librarian.  You need to be there, in your professional role and as a community member, to help people find good information that they can understand at the time they need it.  They need someone like you, an expert in your field, who thinks like a librarian and leads them to the right information to answer their questions, who can explain it to them, and, yes, who can then tell a story to make it relevant. 

Whatever your profession, when you think like a librarian, you'll see information transform people's lives.

 About the Author: Libby is an IDEAS Associate and professional librarian. She currently resides in the Middle East and works with school libraries in Africa and Asia. Check out previous blogs by Libby: A Learning Professional, A Professional Learner and A Librarian's Pick for Children and Young Adult Reading.