Annoyed Librarian

November 18, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (37)

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

November 16, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (55)

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

November 11, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (45)

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

November 9, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (33)

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

November 4, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (82)

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