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 service, and not just try to get people through the door anyway possible? Businesses have gimmicks to get people through ...
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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 libraries could just fire all of their librarians whenever they experienced a "circulation downturn" and then hire them back when the libraries were ...
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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. The final article is completely new, and has little to do with any of the regular themes. "The Regressive Econometrical Confabulations of Accessibility: More Access Means More Work for You" is my contribution to the scholarly library literature. It has endnotes and everything! Now all those library school ...
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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 be number four: "Reasonable Use. Use must not discourage the contribution of bibliographic and holdings data to WorldCat or substantially replicate the function, purpose, and/or size of WorldCat" [emphasis added]. I read this and tried unsuccessfully to suppress a yawn. Some interpret this as ...
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My goodness there are some thick librarians out there, and that's saying something. Some of the respondents to my last post were so earnest and misguided that I decided to address the topic again. The oddest ones are the commenters who declare, "That's not funny!" Funny is always in the eye of the beholder, so I take those comments with a grain of salt. Less than a grain, actually. I break the grain into sodium and chloride, and take them with just the chloride. A lot of people just don't have a sense of humor, and then again I'm not always trying to be funny. This is the Annoyed Librarian, not the Comical Librarian. If you want the comical librarian, go read some of the blogs of my critics. Then there are the oh so earnest respondents who thought I was somehow making light of library closures in Philadelphia. "Oh, you're so mean!" Check out this comment, caps and all: "Your ATTEMPT at humor is NOT amusing. You COULD potentially be the Annoyed FORMER ...
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As reported right here in the Library Journal (boy, that sounds strange to me), the Philadelphia library system will be closing 11 of 54 branches and fire 111 people (or rather "111 positions will be lost"). I didn't actually read about it in the Library Journal, because I seldom read LJ, but one of my commenters last week mentioned it, and I followed up. That's the sort of library journalist I am. That's a lot of closings, and I wanted to know what was really going on. Sure, the mayor claimed it had something to do with a recession, but that might just be a nutty idea. Other cities are having recessions and they're not closing up so many libraries, so I suspected a conspiracy against libraries here. Because it's my duty as an impartial library journalist to bring the truth to light for the delectation of the huddled librarian masses yearning to breathe free - i.e., you - I covered up my superhero outfit with a tasteful business suit, donned some glasses to complete the ...
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