Annoyed Librarian

November 4, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (78)

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

November 2, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (69)

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

October 29, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (83)

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

October 28, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (52)

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

October 26, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (55)

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