ALA 2010 Midwinter Meeting: LJVideos ofMarilyn Johnson
ALA 2010 Midwinter Meeting - American Library Association - Library Journal
By Francine Fialkoff -- Library Journal, 01/07/2010
LJ talked to Marilyn Johnson, who followed up her first book, on obituaries (The Dead Beat), with one on 
librarians: This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. After her mentor stopped laughing about the book's bestseller potential (although the previous one, also on an unlikely topic, was a best seller), he told her about a librarian he knew. "Everyone knows a librarian," she says, and "has a librarian story to tell." Don't expect a retrospective, however. This is about the librarians—and libraries—of today and tomorrow.
In this series of short videos, Johnson tells about some of the librarians she met, why she wrote the book, who its audience is, and what she hopes it will do. Library directors et al., check out the last two clips and play them for your boards and government officials. Johnson will be at Midwinter ALA at the ALTAFF Author Tea on Monday, January 18, 2–4 p.m. (stop by the ALTAFF booth for info/tix) and will be signing there as well as at the HarperCollins booth; the first chapter of her book is available online (it starts on p. 2), as is the LJ review.
Clip 4: I met so many librarians I could have written three books.... Clip 5: I followed librarians around.... Clip 6: Libraries were cooking along...[then] the economy crashed.... Clip 7: We're not going to be having the same conversation if libraries are shuttered....
Visit LJ’s ALA Midwinter Meeting News Channel for complete coverage of the conference, and be sure to follow us on Twitter.
