Most people I know think librarians are awesome. This may be an example of confirmation bias, since I know a lot of people who are librarians. And although I don’t work in a li brary anymore, I consider myself a librarian at heart. My first job, at age 16, was shelving books in my local public library. Thus, it’s unsurprising that I think librarians are awesome.

What is it about librarians that make them awesome? I think it’s more than the ability to find answers, locate authoritative information, or pull out the salient, often obscure, fact with lightning speed. Yes, librarians save people time. Yes, librarians can distinguish between the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to information sources. Yes, librarians can make sense of the sometimes-garbled request for information. Yes, librarians can recognize that the p erson who asked for information about Australia wasn’t thinking about a summer cruise to the Land Down Under but was actually con cerned about the effect of climate change on the kangaroo population.

It’s also true that when the word “library” is uttered, the most common assumption is that all libraries are public libraries. Recognition of academic libraries is more limited, but when it’s pointed out that universities support at least one, if not more, libraries, people nod their heads in agreement. More hidden are government libraries, libraries maintained by associations and non-profit organizations, and cor porate libraries. These are part of the special libraries sector.

What confuses people is that these libraries don’t necessarily employ individuals bearing t he job title of librarian. They might be infor mationists, which is becoming increasingly common in medical libraries. Other possible job titles include content curators, informa tion resource specialists, knowledge managers, research specialists, and information services managers. I’m tempted to add insight generators and concept organizers, but these may be job functions rather than job titles.

A substitute for the word “librarian” is fre quently the phrase “information professional.” This disassociates the function from the build ing. You can do the work normally considered to be that of a librarian without being physical ly tethered to a public, academic, or special library. But is an information professional syn onymous with a librarian? I think not. I believe that information professionals do work similar to what librarians do but push beyond some of the barriers intrinsic in the word “librarian.”

Information professionals could forge a path into consulting, investigate the effect of new technologies on the information world, develop stunning metadata, use deep learning and text analytics to uncover new information from old documents, and bring search to the next level. Anyone in an info-centric job could be consid ered an information professional. Yes, even those without an M.L.I.S. or equivalent.

The awesome sauce of librarianship must be spread around so that people without my confirmation bias recognize the value of the profession. At the same time, those within the library profession should recognize and learn from information professionals who may not share the same educational background but do share the commitment to providing high-quality, relevant, timely, and accurate information.