Commitment, Realizing Potential, and Service

Just read my buddy Whitney's blog (:30 Librarian) ... she said:

What makes MCMLA a special event is not
the location and not the speakers, but the participants themselves. This group
includes major academic medical library directors, hospital librarians in
blazers and sensible shoes, movin' and shakin' outreach librarians, library
science students, and every other stripe and type of librarian you might hope to
find.

The tie that binds them together is a commitment to library services and a
forward-facing optimism that medical librarians are and will continue to be
important as long as we work hard and stay relevant. I'm often a hard, hard
cynic, and it is refreshing to drink of this optimism for a few days.

This reminded me of something I read from Max Dupree ... he was talking about how we should strive to make our organization places of virtual, philosophical, and face-to-face realized potential. His quote:

The driving force in our organizations, both for-profit and not-for-profit,
ought not to be goal achievement or asset management or quantifiable growth,
important as these are. Rather, our society badly needs organizations and people
that move relentlessly toward realizing their potential.

That is what we do ... good librarians (public, medical, academic, school, special, etc.) don't seek to control information, but to help our patrons realize their entire potential through access to and use of the stuff we collect, create, and sponsor. Makes me happy!