Annoyed Librarian
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Posted by Annoyed Librarian on November 18, 2009
I'm a little late in coming to this story about two library workers being fired for stupidity. In the past couple of weeks I've been so dazzled by other examples of stupidity in librarianship that it slipped past me.You're probably all kept up on your library news and this is stale stuff, but the story involves two women working for a public library in Kentucky who were supposedly trying to keep porn from children. One of the former library workers decided she wants to protect Kentucky's children from graphic novels. Considering the stuff children can probably see on the Internet at her library, maybe she should be more concerned with that problem. But then again, maybe she doesn't know about that Internet thing yet. She challenged the book (maybe the ALA got to add another tick mark to thei...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on November 16, 2009
When librarians turn to politics having nothing to do with library issues, they often look ridiculous. This is one of the main reasons I've always opposed the ALA getting involved in non-library issues. A library association speaking on library issues speaks with authority. On other issues, it just sounds like a blowhard. Decades ago various hippies and radicals and other intemperate librarians began infiltrating the ALA to try to use it as a mouthpiece for political radicalism on non-library issues. Most of them got co-opted and contained within the SRRT. The Regressive Librarians Guild is an even more radical group, but they're much too pure to be a part of the ALA. They've all been keeping much quieter in the last couple of years. I don't know if they're weary of thei...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on November 11, 2009
From Alaska, we get another depressing article on library woes, which asks the question, "Are local libraries in process of checking out?" Yes, that's bad, but at least there's nothing in the article about librarians breaking out of their shushing stereotypes.Library branches have cut back hours. The city has to choose between closing the library some or firing firefighters or something worse. Times is hard. The article does a pretty good job of laying out the issues, which is surprising in a news article about libraries. We hear nothing about stereotypes or the librarian shortage. Two things stuck out for me in particular. They're not related, but I want to mention them anyway. First, there was a statement by ...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on November 9, 2009
We got an exciting announcement a couple of weeks ago that if you're an unemployed librarian, you can join ALA at a discount. Yay!"Do you know, for example, that ALA has a special membership category at $46 for non-salaried library employees who make less than $25,000 a year or are unemployed?" we are asked. In fact, I did know that. I've known about the various rates for years, and have been taking advantage of them all along. For a few years, I used the student rate, which is currently $33/year. Unfortunately, the ALA will only let you be a student for five yea...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on November 4, 2009
A kind reader sent me a blog post by a cheerful librarian who didn't like it that the AL is so "negative" and that the blog and many of its commenters would make fun of a ridiculous library movement because the persons behind it were "passionate" and "enthusiastic." Supposedly, we need more passion and enthusiasm in librarianship. I was under the impression that we had lots of "passion" and "enthusiasm" but almost no culture of criticism. Passion and enthusiasm don't matter. What matters is the result. Librarians are prone to think that being bubbly and chirpy is somehow important. For a lot of us, being bubbly and chirpy makes you look like an idiot. Dance around enthusiastically grinning like a fool all you like, but your enthusiasm moves me not a whit. You can put on a happy face or direct your feet to the sunny side o...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on November 2, 2009
It was pretty obvious by the response to my last post that there are at least two sorts of librarians - those who value trite, vulgar, attention-seeking gimmicks that supposedly benefit the profession, and those who don't. I really shouldn't be so hard on those librarians who value the trite and vulgar. They really can't help themselves. They live in a world awash with vulgarity and self-obsession, and they don't have the proper moral compass to steer clear of them. Execrable rock videos, balloon boys, they're both part of the bizarre society we have developed in which the only value that matters is to get noticed, not to have anything worthwhile to say. One has to hand it to some librarians: they definitely know how to get noticed. They dress up trite gimmicks with glossy trappings and wave them in front of audiences of librarians, most of whom are good-h...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on October 29, 2009
In high school one of my boyfriends had a garage band. To be honest, he was kind of geeky, but thought the garage band made him seem cool. The band was abysmal, and to my classically trained ear sounded like a group of not especially coordinated baboons pounding kettle drums with baby rattles while screaming at each other. They were quite literally a garage band, since they rehearsed in his parent's garage and never got a gig. I and some of our long-suffering friends would occasionally stand around watching this bizarre spectacle and laughing (at them, not with them). They never got a gig, of course, because they were awful, but it was clear that the band members didn't realize how awful they sounded, and were clearly having fun even though no one else was.Flashbacks from high school ran through my mind when I watched this self-indulgent work of "art": the ...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on October 28, 2009
I was reading through some of the comments last week on library education - too many library school students, too few library jobs, and other fun topics - when I was struck by one suggesting that I, and many of my commenters, don't think much of online MLS programs. So I wanted to set the record straight on that one. I don't like online MLS programs. It's not that the programs are too easy. Library school is easy. It's the way of things and always has been. Online degrees just make the easy easier to get to. It's also not that the programs don't allow the same kind of relationship to a library as in-person programs. A lot of people earning online degrees are already working in libraries similar to the ones they want to work in. If someone wants to be a public or school librarian, they're just as well off working in a public or school library...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on October 26, 2009
My goodness, last week's post on the American Libraries propaganda article drew some sharp responses. Not that I play favorites among my readers, but some of my favorite responses were from a gushing, appalled library school student who hates this blog because it's so "negative" and "smug." Oh, and he thinks the AL is a "classist harpy." (Or perhaps he meant I'm a classical harpist, which is true.) I speculate that the student is a "he," by the way, from that particular phrase. After "harpy," perhaps he could call me a shrew or a bitch as well. These male library school students with apparently no library experience whatsoever go on aggressively about how everything's hunky-dory in librarianship are just being assertive. The AL disagrees just as aggressively, she's a "harpy." Nice. The arguments la...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on October 21, 2009
And still it comes. Apparently the job propaganda from the ALA will never cease. It seems to be on a mission to make sure there are too many librarians on the market and drive down salaries and working conditions for us all. Abetted by the library schools, of course, which can be cash cows for universities.Some of you might have seen this article in American Libraries. It's a puff piece about how distance education is the best education ever (!) written by (surprise, surprise) an administrator of online learning at a university with an online LIS program. The tone sounds like an infomercial. The number of people getting online degrees is "remarkable." We get a brief profile of a Drexel online LIS graduate who is "amazing." Everything is chee...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on October 19, 2009
Halloween is almost upon us. It's one of my favorite holidays. Every year I put my hair in a bun, don some thick glasses with library chains, and wear my dowdy librarian outfit as I venture out to parties. It's becoming as much of a Halloween tradition as carving pumpkins or pretending I'm not home when the trick-or-treaters arrive.We all have Halloween traditions. Down in North Carolina there's a Baptist church whose pastor wants to start a new Halloween tradition: book burning! A kind reader sent the story to me. It's all over the news right now, but I'll point you to this article because I love the last sentence. This pastor, and the fourteen members of his Amazing Grace Baptist Church, believe...Read More
Posted by Annoyed Librarian on October 14, 2009
The job market keeps getting better and better, unless you want to find a job that's actually good. Wait, maybe that means things haven't really changed. Regardless, I wanted to take a look at a couple of job postings sent on to me by kind readers, to get an idea of the wonderful opportunities out there. In Connecticut we find an ad for a librarian with one of the best job titles I've ever seen: Extremely Part-time Substitute Library Worker. You can't blame them for a lack of truth in advertising. They really lay it on the line. They want a librarian with an MLS and some experience willing to work whenever they might need help with no guarantee of any hours or employment. I have to say, this is at least more h...Read More
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