In addition, of course, there are librarians who teach others not only where information is but how to evaluate it and convert it to useful knowledge. Contrary to the librarian stereotype you may be familiar with, many librarians are very social or political animals. Librarians also have strong collegial relationships with librarians in other institutions in their state, in their country and in the world. These relationships strengthen one of the most valuable services a library can foster, that of resource sharing. Most people, if they think of resource sharing at all, think of it as interlibrary loan, that function of a library in which materials not owned by one library are borrowed from another to lend to a patron.
Resource sharing is much broader however.
The resource sharing practices of libraries during the last century have developed the largest bibliographic database in the world for providing both information about resources and access through interlibrary loan to those resources. Librarians' skills with the organization of information, how people look for and use information combined with their technical knowledge of computers and systems have made them increasingly important for work with the providers and publishers of electronic information. While some librarians negotiate deals with vendors to purchase products, others take on the role of helping vendors design usable web search interfaces. Librarians also help vendors organize the information in their databases in a logical fashion. You're probably wondering about now why I haven't mentioned distant learners once in this article.