Annoyed Librarian

December 1, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (47)

Apparently there are a lot of librarians who aren't familiar with the idea of holidays. I've been lounging around the ancestral manse gobbling turkey and teaching my nephew to play gin rummy for a penny a point. The good news is that if he ends up as successful as my brother, I can fund my retirement with my gin winnings.

While I've been doing that, pathetic morons have been attempting to destroy the discourse community that is my comments section. I mean, really, don't you people have anything better to do than try to imitate other commenters? Or is it that you just don't like free speech? Or perhaps you're just too intellectually and morally stunted to behave any better? Probably a combination of all three. Oh well, there's not much one can do with people too unskilled to write their own blogs that anyone would bother to read and too stupid to go head to head with a pse...Read More
Industries: Legislation

November 26, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (164)

Despite all the great benefits from running libraries like businesses - from three martini lunches to government bailouts - we all know this wouldn't really work. Oh sure, go on about being "responsive" to the "customers" all you want, sensitive pony-tail man, but all this talk about libraries as businesses ignores that fact that libraries don't provide a product or service for money. Without that, we're missing two crucial components of the business experience: profitability ratios and incentives.

Though the phrase grates on my nerve, some librarians nevertheless like to talk about the "bottom line." In libraries, there is no bottom line. Without some way to gauge profitability, it makes no sense to talk about a business model. How would you really know if you were successful? Especially if you're trying to perform an actual public...Read More
Industries: Managing Libraries

November 24, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (99)

Now that we've all explored how the Annoyed Librarian has managed to make a mockery of the extremely important institution known as the peer-reviewed journal, let's move on to other targets.

I often notice in the comments section what I assume are the business librarians amongst us making the oft heard complaint that libraries are not run more like businesses, usually followed by the prediction that if libraries don't become more like businesses, they will become extinct!

So if libraries were run more like businesses, what would we see happening?

AT WILL EMPLOYMENT

This is always a good one. I realize a lot of librarians have at-will employment right now, but plenty others have the protections of civil service contracts, unionization, tenure, etc. However, if we got rid of all those selfish employment protections, then librar...Read More
Industries: Managing Libraries

November 19, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (139)

Once again one of the most controversial issues in bibliotek blogland is little old me. Everyone is so sweet to keep paying so much attention to me.

I've hinted for a while now that the Annoyed Librarian was finally going to be in print - genuine, old fashioned library 1.0 paper - and that day has arrived. There is now a special issue of the Journal of Access Services (Volume 5, Issue 4) devoted to yours truly. You can purchase the volume, or, better yet, just ILL all the articles and distribute the PDFs to your friends. The articles cover a range of standard AL themes, with some new stuff and some stuff from the blog brought together and revised into thematic essays...Read More

November 17, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (91)

To use a prison metaphor, it's clear that librarians dropped the soap decades ago.

The bibliotek blogosphere is abuzz with chatter about how OCLC and its evil minions are trying to "steal" our libraries. (If you want to explore the issue ad nauseum, visit this site.) When I first saw that line, I wondered if OCLC was planning to pull up a big truck out front and start packing our books into it. I'm not sure I'd have minded, because some of the areas are getting pretty tight and could use a good weeding.

Instead, it seems that OCLC is planning to change its policy on the use and transfer of WorldCat records, and we know how librarians hate change. The sticking point seems to ...Read More
Industries: Opinion