I’ve been in the position of children’s librarian for merely 5 months now, but have worked in the public library system for over 10 years, yet I have never had the question of ‘So…what do you really do?’ be asked as often as it has these past couple months. Yes, I’ve heard the infamous librarian jokes (I’m just checking you out…haha) to the, ‘you know, librarians are sexy’…but at some point, past all the fun and games, the person genuinely wants to understand what a librarian’s job entails. Having gone through two years of library school and breathing librarianship day in and day out, I’m often perplexed as to how other people do not know how important my job really is. I think it is hard for people to understand the role of librarian because we are pretty much a jack of all trades. We are librarians, teachers, therapists, advisers, researchers, performers and supervisors, just to name a few. Our role is to be part of the community and to influence the community. We are educated and experts. Not so bad, eh? So why then, do people laugh when they hear the term ‘librarian?’ Why am I embarrassed to utter my job title at a party? I think librarians need to start sticking up for themselves and their jobs and not let others laugh it off as if all we do is read all day. We need to not hide out in the corner, but be proud of what we do and how we help thousands of people everyday. We provide a wealth of resources for immigrants starting a new life, we provide programs in early literacy that help develop the little Einsteins of the world, we provide a safe place for teenagers to gather, we try to bridge the generation gap by introducing the elderly to technologies they once dreamed of as a child and we encourage those who read simply for the love of it. Memorize that next time someone asks, “So what do you do again?” and hopefully society will begin to see the true value in librarians.