Dear All, I understand the pain behind seeing our own image being wrongly portrayed/represented or damaged by some one. Let us take it bit lighter and laugh for a while on being "Librarywalas" as shown in the add,it is really cute. First of all we need to develop tolerance and understand why we are wrongly portrayed/criticised/mocked at. Criticism or some one telling something about us should help to introspect our self and check whether the criticism/comments are valid, if they are valid then we need to change our self. If it is not valid then forget it, as it shows the level of the person who made that comment/showed something wrongly. But at the same time I feel this is the high time to do reality check. Let us recall our own experiences with Library/Library staffs in different environment (Academic library /Public library/Special) the way they behaved with us when we had been to them as user? how user friendly they were? In what way they supported users in finding the information on net/journal or book on self ? The user who passes through such experience may develop a kind of unfriendly attitude towards library/library professionals and when get a chance they show such things or express them. At the same time I am not generalizing it, as generation by generation Library professionals are changing themselves and becoming more customer/user focused , dynamic and developing multiple skills which are required for the survival of self and Profession. I also accept some of our friends suggestion on protesting but today is monster.com and tomorrow someone else will give one more add and with how many people you will protest? Can this protest changes the thinking of the people or our image in the society? But one thing can change our image in the society that is "changing ourselves" and becoming more dynamic, customer focused, user-friendly and more knowledgeable persons. Friends let us together move towards building right image in the eyes of users by: 1. Having self esteem. 2. Loving our profession( be comfortable with being a librarian). 3. Learning one new skill every quarter (once in three months). 4. Forming associations at local levels and sharing our experiences & knowledge with fellow professionals & linking these local associations with state & National Level associations. 5. Creating our visibility in the organization where we work. 6. Along with library activity let us involve in Knowledge Management initiatives, Open Access initiatives, education fair, book fair etc. 7. Learning more about e-resources & sharing such knowledge with fellow professionals. 8. Publish some newsletters relevant to your parent organization (electronic/Print-newsletters). 9. Do user surveys to check what user community feel about your services & about librarian. 10.Impress/influence on the mind of your organizational Heads about importance of information and how you can support them with the required information. 11.Learn more about customer relationship as we all learned a lot about technical aspects of library but forgot the user. Together we can make a difference !! Regards Emmanuel -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.