Librarians and the formation of readers

The librarian as an educator of readers has lately taken relevance in library science studies, but such assumption has some main problems which are here reflected upon. Librarians are not lectors, but it is to them that the mission of forming lectors is attributed, an insufficiency due to his own education as library scientist who focus the study of documents considering its change value leaving aside its correspondent use value, which is what acquires signification in the act of reading. This turns the professional exercise of the librarian within the library in an alienation from his work object, the document, and inhibits his comprehension of the needs of users as readers. Countering this tendency, it is here proposed that the librarian assumes himself as a reader in order to be able to establish a reading empathy with users, and thus to contribute to put the library under the sign of the symbolic, which would complement and limit the technical order in which it actually operates.