From Melvil Dewey...

How many librarians does it take to change a light bulb ?
Just five.
One changes the light bulb while the other four form a committee and write a letter of protest because, after all, changing light bulbs IS NOT professional work !

OK, I did apologise when I started the presentation with this 'joke'. But I wanted to make a serious point. This isn't the time to be naval-gazing too much about what the ‘profession’ is, or isn’t. It's quite likely that in a time of crisis, it will become self-defining. Whatever it is that we do, that is uniquely done by us, or done better than anyone else, will become the crux of our ‘professional identity’. It won’t rest on qualifications or experience.

It will rest on whether or not our users can live without us.

I'd originally been asked to speak on the theme of “Embracing change” but over the period that I was preparing the presentation, the government and the media was regularly turning out stories about the wholesale closure of libraries. It seemed to me that this was going to need much more than the ability to embrace change. There comes a time for all of us when evolution will no longer do.

In thinking about what this meant, I turned to Melvil Dewey who, long ago, proposed that "The librarian must be the librarian militant before (s)he can be the librarian triumphant".

We’ve always needed to face up to the fight for recognition. Now we need to actively fight for survival. I wanted to see how we could be better equipped to do so.