Actually, some of the most enthusiastic Wikipedians I know are librarians.. In the Netherlands we even had a wiki project called Wiki Loves Bieb (Bieb is nickname for Bibliotheek or library):
Jane
2012/5/16 Lars Aronsson
<lars@aronsson.se>
On 2012-05-15 16:21, Andrea Zanni wrote:
I think that the world of libraries is gonna be next, but I see a lot of issues too:
libraries are in the middle of a disruption, the Internet has been really "though" on them.
library science are very short, poorly written and without references.
It's obvious that library school students aren't wikipedians, in the
way that soccer fans or physics teachers are. The free encyclopedia
attracts more textile craft and fashion nerds than librarians.
Sweden is a protestant and largely secular country, but the
Swedish Wikipedia has detailed articles about every Catholic pope.
Meanwhile, the list of directors of our national library has red links,
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_%C3%B6ver_svenska_riksbibliotekarier
I don't think the Swedish Wikipedia is unique in this.
Nemo mentioned that IFLA conferences are expensive to go to. Yes.
The problem is that we are considering the registration fee, instead
of negotiating the compensation for giving the keynote speeches.
Imagine a librarian in 1985 who receives a phone call from the future:
"Hello, this is a call from the future. We have the fully electronic,
free-for-all encyclopedia here, larger than anything you've ever seen."
Would the librarian yawn and ignore it, or be all excited and jumping?
Where exactly did we go wrong? If the largest encyclopedia ever is
not exciting to librarians, what planet is this? Why do we have to
push Wikipedia down their throats, one wikipedian-in-residence at a
time? Why aren't they tearing it out of our hands? I don't think it's
the Internet and all electronic gadgets that need explanation. It's
the library world that needs to explain what exactly they are doing.