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  • Some Takeaways From 'This Book is Overdue'

    By Joshua Kim April 27, 2010 9:17 pm EDT

    I'm dying to book club This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, maybe we can start the conversation virtually.

    Some Takeaways:

    --I think if I were an academic librarian the book might be somewhat annoying. Johnson's strength and her weakness is that she is not a librarian, rather a librarian groupie. She has an outsider's appreciation for the librarian profession and the workings of a library. As an outsider, however, I think she misses some (if not most) of the big issues, challenges, and trends facing the discipline. This goes doubly so for the world of academic libraries. I hope that Johnson's passion and respect will inspire someone embedded in an academic library to write an account of this world for the non-specialist reader.

    --The more time I spend thinking about the library world the more I realize how little I know and understand. I'm not sure if my lack of understanding is due to my own limitations of perspective (coming from a teaching and technology background), or due to some inherent insularity of library culture. An example of my own lack of knowledge about library culture and structure is how struck I was by Johnson's description of the growing cadre of disruptive librarians. These are librarians, some of whom are academic librarians, who are engaged in challenges to the library and institutional status quo using online tools such as blogging and social media platforms. What surprised me is how much more diverse (and sometimes radical) librarians are compared to both my image and my colleagues in computing. The fact that librarians are so engaged in rethinking their profession and institutions probably would not come as a surprise to any librarian, but to an outsider this is an eye-opening notion. You will have to tell me if this observations means that librarians should be spending more time talking and engaging to non-librarians about their ideas and plans for change and re-invention, or if non-librarians need to spend more time hanging out with our colleagues (at library conferences, library blogs etc.).

    --My other big takeaway from This Book is Overdue is a new appreciation of the centrality of the moral code that motivates librarians. I had not fully grasped the degree to which librarians are dedicated to the the non-market distribution and availably of information. Nor had I fully understood the central librarian ethic of privacy and confidentiality. Does academic computing have anything comparable in terms of outlook and orientation. We have debates about open source, transparency, and open curriculum - but I don't think we have anything close to the cohesive philosophy that peoples access to information should not be dependent on resources, status or position that seem to be universal amongst librarians.

    For those of you thinking about reading This Book is Overdue, I'll warn you that the first half of the book is much better than the second. Again, I hope that my academic librarian colleagues do read the book, if only to discuss and make plans to write a better one.

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Comments on Some Takeaways From 'This Book is Overdue'

  • Posted by Barbara Fister on April 28, 2010 at 8:45am EDT

  • I enjoyed it a good deal, though at times - yeah, really? okay, if you say so. I think her enthusiasm and gee-whiz lack of seriousness was a tonic, though. And since I know some of the "characters" I was particularly interested in seeing how they would show up on the page.

    It's interesting that her previous project was the cheery topic of obituaries; clearly, this is no obituary for my profession, and it was a fun, breezy read.

  • Posted by Elizabeth on April 28, 2010 at 11:00am EDT

  • For the record, I haven't read this yet (although it is on my list), but it's very popular among many of the librarians I know and we have been discussing it.

    As for your question about perspective - I'm a firm believer that it is our job as librarians to reach out to other disciplines and try to get them to better understand what we do. (But that's also a very librarian-y thing to say.) There is a lot of preaching to the choir in the library world, and while it makes us all feel good about ourselves, it isn't doing anything to help preserve funding, or show how important we are.

  • Posted by TechieLibrarian on April 28, 2010 at 12:30pm EDT

  • Elizabeth has it right that a lot of outreach for libraries tends to go to the choir, I think while we do reach out more than used to be the case it isn't as effective as it might be. A lot of academic libraries also focus on faculty outreach more than staff, which while useful for instruction misses the benefits that collaboration can bring. I spend almost as much time with our instructional tech folks as I do staff many days, and it's been very fruitful. Mostly I find it's very easy for librarians to focus a lot of their debates inward and not fully involve others in our concerns. While getting more library training in classrooms is good, I suspect fair use debates could get a lot more of a college involved if they were more open.

    Librarians also have some very tepid cultural presences. While there's a lot of positive ones out there, especially in childrens' literature, most people have a very dowdy impression of librarians. Unless you count the numerous and about as problematic sexy librarian stereotypes. Either way you end up with something like this article from the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/fashion/08librarian.html. Which seems just astounded that librarians go out and have a drink. Egads! Next we'll be riding motorcycles bringing books to people while avoiding mutants in some grungy post-apocalyptic film.

    Professional ethics really are one of the best things about librarians though. The fact that they align with current hot topics in tech like privacy and universal access just makes working all the more fun.

  • Posted by cybrarian_ca on April 29, 2010 at 4:30pm EDT

  • I am a librarian, and I too confess to not having read this book yet. But a few points -

    Yes, the library profession spends a lot of time preaching to the choir, and that is slowing, with more and more outreach. But I have always suspected that one reason why our profession's work and how involved it can be aren't well known is because we have a whole ethic of trying to make information accessible to people who aren't librarians. No one who isn't a librarian, or doesn't know a fair amount about libraries, would necessarily have a reason to know all the back-end work is there, or how labor-intensive it really is. It looks easy, because we make it look easy, deliberately - and rightly so. That's one of many, many reasons, but I think it could be a contributing factor.

    Secondly, while we're aggressive and activist in some ways as a profession, unless it's in specific areas, do you hear a lot about librarians raising hell? No, and I know the stereotypes make us look deadly dull - but a lot of us (I'm including myself, as well as a lot - though definitely not all - of the librarians I've worked with and known for many years) are quiet on the outside, not the Type A larger than life personalities of say Wall Streeters or transplant surgeons (I've worked with them) or some other professions.

    Yet many of the most interesting, interested-in-life, eclectic people I know are in my own profession. I feel like it's almost the world's best kept secret of professions, and only those of us who worked in libraries (from whence most professional librarians do spring - many of us start out as shelvers or circulation clerks!) know about it. It's the only profession I can think of where no matter what your interest is, few people you work with will think it's nutty. It's a profession that tolerates a lot of diversity of interests, tastes, and ideas in most areas. And it's the only profession I've found (and I went through a few) where I have never, ever been bored. Frustrated, exhausted sometimes, excited, thrilled, curious, annoyed - anything else, but never bored. I've worked in libraries off and on for over 25 years, 12 of those as a professional librarian, and now many as a chief librarian. On the worst days, I have thought for maybe 10 minutes of doing something else. But everything else would have similar frustrations, with less stimulation, at least for me. So yes, we should be spreading the word, I think - this is the greatest work in the world. And I believe the need for us is growing - not lessening.

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