London: Reuters Online, June 23rd 2011.
""The whole thing about the silent shushing librarian is no longer a reality," said Nader Qaimari, of Cengage Learning, which provides teaching and learning materials to educational institutions and libraries.
"The new librarian has been on Facebook or Twitter longer than you or I have. They're the most socially connected people I've ever met."
With so much information online, librarians have become free guides to learning and are often the first people job seekers turn to if they have no computer at home. During the recession libraries have become centers for career counseling, financial literacy and small business development. ...
A 2010 study by the nonprofit OCLC Online Computer Library Center found that Americans hit by the recession are 50 percent more likely to visit their library at least weekly and are nearly a third more likely to visit at least once a month.
"Eighty-one percent of economically impacted Americans have a library card compared to 68 percent of Americans who have not been impacted," the report said."
