It is a "Science" afterall!

While travelling to the De Lange Conference in Houston recently I was struck by two comments from fellow travellers (non-librarians) that I ran into.

The first was from a man sitting in front of me on the Washington - Dallas link. While waiting to get off the plane, we had various small talk and the inevitable "what do you do?" question. He was in Washington lobbying for human rights. When the "L" word came up he said, "Oh, so you must have studied library science."

On the way back, while having a snack at the La Bodega Winery (at the DFW airport - hmmm, maybe it's something to do with Dallas!!?). The conversation turned to work with my fellow diners. The woman next to me worked for a publisher in Chicago and again, with no prompting, she termed my profession "library science". As we continued to talk, discussing how more and more people are interested only in online products, the young bartender (an undergrad at a Texas university), chimed in how for her, if it wasn't online, it didn't exist and that those in "library science" (again her terminology) should realize that.