This past week I’ve been preparing my presentation for the Canadian Library Association conference in Halifax. My topic is “Librarians are like detectives and other generative metaphors to rejuvenate the profession.” I’ll admit my title is a bit of a mouthful, but the idea is pretty simple: generative analogies – and other types of associative thinking – provide new insight, new possibilities, and new pathways.
My contention is that we need to be more expansive when we start trying to define exactly what we (librarians) do and what we bring to the table (wherever that table happens to be). I feel like we tend to be quite self-limiting as a profession – and yet if the CLA keynote by Frank McKenna is to be believed, we have a lot to offer the knowledge economy.
Generative analogies are not about wordsmithing a definition of librarianship; they’re about striking a bold and broad vision of the profession. In my session, I plan to challenge the participants to push their associative thinking. For example, how are librarians like dentists? What might we learn from dentists? I’m curious to see what the group comes up with.
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