Our final chapter looks at the how media librarians are viewed by their colleagues, the journalists and programme-makers in the newsroom and editorial offices of the world's media companies. The author is a newspaper librarian and elder care columnist living in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. She is the author of Minding Our Elders (2005), speaks on caregiving issues, and has a blog and website, all under the brand ‘Minding Our Elders’. In her highly personal account, Carol Bradley Bursack recounts her unusual route from library fan, through life and non-media library jobs, to becoming a newspaper librarian. She gives an honest picture of the way that journalists view the library ‘help’ and how our status and image can improve when we demonstrate to the news-makers how valuable we are to them. The issues she touches on are increasingly relevant to the modern media librarian. No longer necessarily locked up in our basement morgues, today we attend editorial meetings, train people at their desks and provide expert advice on the spot.

This chapter may bring wry smiles of recognition to the faces of some readers. Never hungry for status, librarians tend to arm themselves against patronizing remarks and downright rudeness by hugging their superior knowledge, skills (and, often, qualifications) to themselves. This book aims to add to that armoury, not just by sharing advice and experience, but with a reminder of how important we are in creating the world's newspapers, magazines, websites and television programmes and making sure people can find them again. If we can celebrate our amazing abilities more loudly, perhaps our colleagues will finally recognize them too.

The librarian: larger than life – gatekeeper of knowledge

I was a quiet child, small for my age, fragile, contemplative, with little to say. My life truly began when I discovered books. I grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. Back in the early 1950s, Fargo was still a fairly small town. I'd hop on the city bus, ride downtown, and get off in front of an ornate brick building called the Fargo Public Library. I'd push through the fortresslike doors and enter the library as an artist enters the Louvre: with a reverent heart. I'd inhale the aroma of aging wood, cleaning wax and musty, seasoned books, feeling a kind of wholeness I felt nowhere else.