Changes and Role Ambiguity

I realise that it has been an issue for awhile, but as it has raised it's head again, I felt I needed to sit down on the edge of your bed and have a talk with you.
There appears to be some changes happening, and I just don't want you to be unprepared for the future.

So, obviously I'm talking about the changing role of Librarians and Libraries and the uncertainty that comes a long with that.
I am going to quote the abstract of a research article here:
"Survey of 547 public library reference librarians compared to a similar study of teachers indicates that: 35% of librarians experienced burnout; burnout was high where role ambiguity and role conflict were present; role variable use in predicting burnout was statistically significant"

Sound familiar? ' you feeling like being a librarian in the digital age is wearing you down?
Now, like a good librarian should, I am going to give you the bibliographic information of the article...
Birch, Nancy. Perceived Role Conflict, Role Ambiguity, and Reference Librarian Burnout in Public Libraries. Library and Information Science Research, v8 n1 p53-65 Jan-Mar 1986

I'm sorry... what was the year published? 1986? You read it right.

What about this one by Liz Burke:
The future role of librarians in the virtual library environment. - Published in the Australian Library Journal over 11 years ago.

It's worth a read, by the way.

Librarians have always done the same thing, and will continue to do it into the future: Connect people with information. What librarians need is good learning networks and strong leadership. They need to have the discussions about what they are doing and how they do it best, and why.

New Librarians' Symposium 6

In February I went to NLS6 to talk about Social Media. Not just to say that "all the cool kids are doing it and so should we", but to show how to do it so that it has maximum effect. It is not enough to just have an account. The tool is not effective without super social media mastery.
So, how do you get support to invest time (and therefore money) in creating and maintaining relationships and networks via social media? Creating "the willing" is the first step.

More importantly: 
In a world where anyone can post anything online, libraries cannot participate in social media without letting go of the idea that they can control everything that is said about them. Often, libraries are part of larger institutions and bound by their rules. 

 How do we push the boundaries? 
How do we let go of the idea of the library as a "dispenser of knowledge" and join the dialogue?

View presentation here
Audio of the presentation is available here