Personal Trainer.

The article profiles Vibiana Bowman, a librarian at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. Vibiana Bowman enjoys spending time with young adults--"which is just as well since she has a few of her own, has done her time as scout leader, and now teaches proper research methods to students at Rutgers University-Camden. She first discovered how much this instruction was needed when she noticed her own kids cutting and pasting copy from the web into their papers. They weren't using a single resource other than the Internet and had no idea they were supposed to credit their sources. As library liaison for the Rutgers University/Rowan University/Camden County College Urban Campus Library Project, Bowman had to design bibliographic instruction sessions and produce web-based and print instructional materials to meet the much more varied needs of a wide range of students: 18-year-olds, senior citizens, and single moms going to school at night after a full day's work. Bowman is frequently invited to speak about bibliographic instruction and web-based learning. She's published articles on several topics, including how to get published. Bowman doesn't worry that the profession is threatened by the Internet, because, for her, librarians are more than mere dispensers of information. "The mind is a muscle that needs to be exercised," she says. Who better than librarians like her to be the personal trainers?