For librarians and/or Gilbert and Sullivan fans

[freaktard]

Someone forwarded this to me earlier today. I got a kick out of it, so I thought I'd share it.

I know we have a few librarians on the boards. I don't know about Gilbert/Sullivan fans, but here goes:

I am the Very Model of a Digital Librarian
(based on the song "I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major-General" from
Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance)

I am the very model of a digital Librarian,
I seek out information zoological to agrarian,
I know each subject that is found in an encyclopaedia
I handle every AV tool and every type of media;
My online databases can locate each journal article,
In physics texts, I can define each elemental particle,
In atlases and online maps, I find the way to Timbuktu,
Identify each capital from Bogotá to Katmandu.
I navigate the Internet with speed and perspicacity;
Evaluate each website for its content and veracity:
In fact, in finding information, most utilitarian,
I am the very model of a digital librarian.

I quickly search the Internet or grab the right book off the shelf;
Then give the patron answers or I teach him how to search himself,
I speed through every database like Galenet, FirstSearch, Dialog,
My records are all organised, just try my on-line catalogue;
My homepage is a marvel of well-documented, helpful links,
It points to sites on modern jazz, hang-gliding and old Egypt's Sphinx!
I know just how to catalogue in Dewey and in L. of C.,
I know the best books you should buy and those you wouldn't want for free.
I get you quotes on hot new stocks and find addresses in a trice,
The latest news, a star's birthday, song lyrics or a cure for lice:
In fact, in finding information, most utilitarian,
I am the very model of a digital librarian.

When I can look up online all ephemeral material,
When I can get full text of every page in every serial,
When my computer translates every language and each dialect,
From Hindu texts in Sanskrit to Confucius with each analects,
When every book is digitised and indexed in my database,
When I'm the first librarian to travel into outer space -
And when I've indexed every site on every chromosome and gene,
You'll say a more computerised librarian has never been.
I'm working on an interface directly to the human mind,
So I can capture concepts that have not yet even been defined;
In fact, in finding information, most utilitarian,
I am the very model of a digital librarian.

Lyrics by Diane M. O'Keefe, M.S.L.S. (with some modifications by S. Derry,
M.L.I.S.) and Janet T. O'Keefe,M.L.S.

[Andara Bledin]

Heh. These days, most people would have to be told that it is to the tone of Animaniac's version, I Am The Very Model of a Cartoon Individual. (for those who don't know it, a slightly abridged version of the original as seen in the '83 movie version with George Rose)

Definitely a fun read, though.

A lot of the humor in the original is that as a "modern major general" he really has no experience or practice with actually doing anything you would expect of a major general. With such amusing lines of "When I can tell at sight a Mausser rifle from a javelin" and "When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery."

^-.-^

[lordlundar]

and of course, there's the reboot version