A librarian is a person who professionally works with information management. The professional duties of librarians encompass a wide range of activities, including the provision of access to information, the conduct of research, the creation and management of information systems, the creation, leadership, and evaluation of educational programs, and the provision of instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has evolved significantly over time, particularly in the past century, which has witnessed the emergence of numerous media and technologies. From the earliest libraries in the ancient world to the modern information hub, there have been individuals responsible for the maintenance and dissemination of information stored in data repositories. The roles and responsibilities of librarians vary considerably based on factors such as the nature of the library, the librarian's area of expertise, and the functions essential for the maintenance of collections and their accessibility to users. Education for librarianship has undergone a transformation over time, adapting to the evolution of its roles and responsibilities.
History
The ancient world The Sumerians were the first to train clerks to keep records of accounts. "Masters of the books" or "keepers of the tablets" were scribes or priests who were trained to handle the vast amount and complexity of these records. The extent of their specific duties is unknown.
Sometime in the 8th century BC, Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, created a library at his palace in Nineveh in Mesopotamia. Ashurbanipal was the first individual in history to introduce librarianship as a profession. We know of at least one "keeper of the books" who was employed to oversee the thousands of tablets on Sumerian and Babylonian materials, including literary texts; history; omens; astronomical calculations; mathematical tables; grammatical and linguistic tables; dictionaries; and commercial records and laws. All of these tablets were cataloged and arranged in logical order by subject or type, each having an identification tag. The Great Library of Alexandria, created by Ptolemy I after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, was created to house the entirety of Greek literature. It was notable for its famous librarians: Demetrius, Zenodotus, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Aristophanes, Aristarchus, and Callimachus. These scholars contributed significantly to the collection and cataloging of the wide variety of scrolls in the library's collection. Most notably, Callimachus created what is considered to be the first subject catalog of the library holdings, called the pinakes. The pinakes contained 120 scrolls arranged into ten subject classes; each class was then subdivided, listing authors alphabetically by titles. The librarians at Alexandria were considered the "custodians of learning". Near the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire, it was common for Roman aristocrats to hold private libraries in their home. Many of these aristocrats, such as Cicero, kept the contents of their private libraries to themselves, only boasting of the enormity of his collection. Others, such as Lucullus, took on the role of lending librarian by sharing scrolls in their collection. Many Roman emperors included public libraries into their political propaganda to win favor from citizens. While scholars were employed in librarian roles in the various emperors' libraries, there was no specific office or role that qualified an individual to be a librarian. For example, Pompeius Macer, the first librarian of Augustus' library, was a praetor, an office that combined both military and judicial duties. A later librarian of the same library was Gaius Julius Hyginus, a grammarian.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Christian monasteries in Europe are credited with keeping the institution of libraries alive after the fall of the Roman Empire. It is during this time that the first codex (book as opposed to scroll) enters popularity: the parchment codex. Within the monasteries, the role of librarian was often filled by an overseer of the scriptorium where monks would copy out books cover to cover. A monk named Anastasias who took on the title of Bibliothecarius (literally "librarian") following his successful translations of the Greek classicists. During this period, the lectern system, in which books were chained to desks for security, was also introduced. Classification and organization of books during this period was generally done by subject and alphabetically, with materials inventoried using basic check lists. Later in the period, individuals known as librarii (singular librarius) began more formal cataloguing, inventory, and classification. In the 14th century, universities began to reemerge which had libraries and employed librarians. At the same time royalty, nobles and jurists began to establish libraries of their own as status symbols. King Charles V of France began his own library, and he kept his collection as a bibliophile, an attribute that is closely connected to librarians of this time. The Renaissance is considered to be a time of aristocratic enthusiasm for libraries. During this period, great private libraries were developed in Europe by figures such as Petrarch and Boccaccio. These libraries were sponsored by popes, royals, and nobility who sent agents throughout Western Europe to locate manuscripts in deteriorating monastic libraries. As a result, Renaissance libraries were filled with a wealth of texts. While materials in these libraries were mostly restricted, the libraries were open to the public. Librarians were needed to plan and organize libraries to meet public needs. A tool to achieve these organizational goals, the first library catalog, appeared in 1595.
Enlightenment era
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