A library should be run by a trained librarian. That should be part of its vision statement.

However, let's face it. Not every library will to be run by a trained librarian. For various reasons, some libraries will be run by well-meaning people who were not trained to run a library in a professional manner.

This situation does have its advantages. It might make the difference between the library existing or not existing. It might mean the difference between getting enough funding or not having enough funding for the materials, documents, and resources in the library.

In some cases there may not be trained librarians available in a certain region. The library administration may have to make a serious decision whether to manage with an untrained librarian.

A mentor may help where no trained librarian is available. The mentor, who is a trained and experienced librarian, will be able to help the trainee, an untrained librarian, run the library.

A mentor or a coach may even join the staff on a limited basis in order to train the non-professionals to be able to carry out their work, either through active training or by example.

The librarian, of course, will not have the benefit of an academic course of studies, but she will be able to help the library run with a certain degree of efficiency and quality.

We thus have three levels of librarians.

1. One who was trained in a good academic program
2. One who has the assistance and who can lean on a mentor
3. One who has no training

In other words, we are not living in an ideal world. We don't always have the ideal people in the right place. That doesn't mean that we can't have a librarian at all. It just means that we must make some adjustments and work within our limitations.

That may seem to be a strange way to write a website about libraries, but isn't it the way we go through the rest of our lives as well?