Annoyed Librarian   

There was a comment last week that invoked a tired argument in librarianship. Some librarians are willing to defend anything they happen to like - no matter how ridiculous - with the claim that it "gets people through the doors."

Consider the case of videogaming in libraries. Some librarians just come right out and admit that they're not interested in reading or the educational purpose of libraries, and that they see the library as a place to entertain children however children like to be entertained. Though their professional raison d'etre is similar to the person running the local arcade (if there are local arcades anymore), at least they're upfront about it. They like games. Kids like games. The library should entertain.

Then there are the librarians who don't really like the mass vulgarity infecting libraries, but they're willing to p...Read More

Comments (40)

A kind reader forwarded me something about radical reference group meeting of some kind in her area. I'm not sure if this meeting was affiliated with the "official" Radical Reference folks, but if not then they're conceptually related, along with the Regressive Librarians Guild and the Social Responsibilities Round Table. There are definitely differences among them. The Radical Reference librarians actually answer reference questions, while the Regressive Librarians Guild and the SRRT don't do much at all besides make radical librarians feel good about themselves. However, they're all dedicated to social justice and niceness instead of evil and things like that, but I find it hard to take these groups seriously.

It's not because I disagree with their goals, though I might. The goals of groups of the left are so disparate that it's hard to generalize. There have ...Read More

Comments (32)

This blog post came to my attention in a roundabout way and I'm glad it did. It's about a teen workshop supposedly from the Jericho Public Library on Long Island. I say supposedly only because it doesn't say the name of the library on the picture of the flyer and I can't verify it on the Jericho library website. It's not on their calendar of events, nor is it on their teen programs flyer. Unfortunately, the teen program flyer is for March / April, so it's not much help in general. However, it's a pity that I've already missed the class on scrapbooking and the...Read More

Comments (62)

It's nice to see librarians keeping up their reputations as safeguarding busybodies. Thanks to one particular busybody in Nazareth, PA, a seven year old boy who's been visiting the Nazareth library every two weeks for two years burst into tears while vowing never to go a library again. Way to go, "female employee of the Nazareth Library"!

The story is a bit complicated, but it seems a seven year old boy was very excited about joining the summer reading program at the Nazaret

...Read More

Comments (57)

I'm giving you a short one today, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm feeling a bit down in the mouth. Chip thinks I might have the swine flu, but I'm pretty sure he's not a licensed physician.

No, I'm giving you a short one because I want to take a survey of sorts. Some colleagues and I were arguing over what the criterion is for being a librarian. It's amazing how heated a silly argument could be, but we were all in disagreement.

Is a librarian anyone with an MLS? Would someone with an MLS, but who didn't work in a library or as a librarian, still be considered a librarian? My position was that just having an MLS doesn't make someone a librarian. One has to actually work as a librarian or in a library to be a "librarian."

But what about those people who do work in libraries, and who do high level work normally conside...Read More

Comments (86)

Some of you might have already seen this news story a kind reader sent to me. I'm finding the whole story a bit odd, and wondered what you all think.

Supposedly there's a shortage of librarians. You've heard this before, I know, but this time it's more specific. There's supposedly a shortage of librarians in Montana. That came as a surprise to me, because I didn't even know there were any libraries in Montana. I thought it was all mountains and moose. The Montana State Library thinks librarians are hard to come by. "The state library is currently running a media campaign promoting librarianship as a career. In past years the Montana State Library has also offered scholarships for Montanans pursuing library graduate degrees."

A media ...Read More

Comments (81)

Just a thought in passing before I begin. As is probably obvious to a lot of you, I get some of my blog fodder from LIS News (as well as Library Stuff, Library Link of the Day, my favorite newsy Twopointopian, and of course my lovely readers). Lately, I've been wondering what is up with posts like this one. Several by this guy have been "cross posted" to his own blog. W, as the kids today say, TF? LIS News is for LIS news, not for exploitat...Read More

Comments (78)

One of the odder events of the past week is probably Safe Library Guy praising the acting director of the ALA-OIF. I'm not sure what this means for her future at the OIF, but Chicago could probably get a week's worth of electricity if it could harness the wind power generated from Judith Krug spinning in her grave.

The fun library news of the week has got to be coming out of Florida (via LIS News). A county commissioner named Carlson down t...Read More

Comments (37)

The Seattle Public Libraries "are clarifying several rules and beefing up others in a reasonable attempt to improve the customer experience," according to this editorial (found via LIS News). I'm not sure what's more amusing - the stuffy, patronizing tone of the editorial or the comments following it.

We're told right off what libraries are and are not: "IF libraries were private living rooms, patrons could remove their shoes and shirts and doze off into blissful sleep. But Seattle Public Libraries are public spaces with rules that must be clear and easier to enforce." Perhaps, as usual, I'm in a minority here, but I don't think I ha...Read More

Comments (32)

By now you might have read about the kid allegedly running a library of "banned" books out of his locker at a Catholic school. (It's been making the rounds of blogs and lists and a kind reader sent it on to me as well.) It begins as a question on Yahoo Answers, but it's obviously a question that no one really wants an answer to: "Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?" In addition to being a fake question, the phrasing of the question is almost nonsensical. After all, if the behavior in question is actually illegal, then it's probably not okay. Compare: "Is it OK to run an illegal heroin sales operation from my locker at school?"

...Read More

Comments (25)

There seems to be some small protest over my last post, where I said libraries have civic functions and can't be run like businesses and aren't the high tech, high stress environments of big corporations, or something like that. Whatever I said. Anyway, there was a voice of protest from "Stressed out public librarian": "public libraries are governed by taxpayers in cities with huge budget deficits. Their staff is being cut because libraries are lower on the totem pole than police and fire services. In the meantime those larger numbers of unemployed people coming to libraries are being served by smaller and smaller staffs. If you think that makes for a low-stress environment I invite you to work a day at my reference desk." I'll decline the offer to work at your reference desk, but not because of the stress. Perhaps it's all relative, but let's be honest. How stressful...Read More

Comments (85)

So I mention a management guru I've never heard of and suddenly I'm besieged by him. A kind reader sent me the link to yet another Seth Godin piece, this one in Time Magazine's vapid feature on the "Future of Work." (The link was accompanied by one to this humorous skewering of said feature, if you're interested.) This sort of business prediction tripe is beloved of some librarians, including some librarians who might try to force their intentions upon you, so it might be worth checkin...Read More

Comments (21)