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Some professions have lower social weight than others, with strength and power below their demographic representati- on or the use of their services by the population. These can be referred to as minority professions. Archivists, librarians, documentalists, and (perhaps) museologists represent one such example. Some causes of minoritization are general to the profession (e.g., civil servants, auxiliary positions, or work mostly carried out by women). This article does not deal with these, but rather the circumstances in Spain that exacerbate this effect. Two indicators of minority professions are: (1) the absence of the profession from forums where problems and solutions in the world of information are debated, and (2) a low degree of attractiveness of such studies to young people. This article attempts to define the value that a profession contributes to society and analyzes the three elements of such minorization that have been considered particularly Spanish: the secondaryization of studies, the depolitization of professional associations, and the fragmentation of the collective. For each of these, approaches to facilitate the reversal of this professional decline are presented. The work ends with a final reflection on the negative impacts of not reversing this effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that despite the many changes being experienced by research and specialized libraries, and documentation centers, which cause them doubts about their future, there are some certainties that allow these centers to properly address their activities. It is proposed to distinguish between minor and profound changes and it is affirmed that, for information centers, the fundamental change has been to go from a situation in which information was scarce and the time to look for it abundant, to another in which time to look for information is scarce and information is abundant. This should help redirect the activities of the information centers -following M. Buckland- to stop focusing on the 'information-as-an-object' to concentrate on the 'information-as-a-process'. Two consolidated movements should help them to guide their future: the Open Science and the Digital Humanities. Some information products that reflect a change in the ways people approach and use information are examined: Museo del Prado's The Collection, Transcribe Bentham, eBird and Mapa Literari Català. Finally, the author recommends to documentation centers, and specialized and research libraries to guide their services to digitize their heritage collections in an enriched manner, to promote citizen participation, and to create and strengthen communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]