This is the most alarmist and misleading way possible to phrase this sentiment. Sharing information is technically eliminating privacy, I suppose, but it’s not as though there’s some sort of Privacy Reservoir out there that’s being drained by every Twitter post. In other words, you can’t eliminate the privacy of anyone else by creating a Facebook profile – so phrasing it in the way you’ve chosen makes little sense. Banal people exist, and technology allows them to moo and baa in a sterile little pen online. Who is it harming? What are you fighting against?

“They’re also the least private among librarians, always “sharing” with us and shamelessly promoting themselves. Those librarians certainly don’t value privacy.”

If privacy represents a virtue to you, I’d say that’s fine but it’s basically arbitrary – there’s nothing inherently moral or whatever about keeping to yourself. But if you’re saying that shame should be a virtue – that people should sit down and be quiet or face shame – then I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t think that’s entirely healthy.

The people who use our library use our services at the reference desk all day long. And yet, the powers that be here – the program planners, mainly – are looking to do away with the reference desk. It’s so very very sad.

For real.

This is not a troll post, just a statement of fact.

And if you knew me, you would know that I am incapable of sustained human contact.

It is why I became a librarian, I love books not people.

Librarians are generally recluses who travel from work to their small shack, where they live alone, tend their 10 cats, and plant a sensible vegetable garden.

Social life has past them by at the age of 17.

Because we are obviously faced with a choice between using index cards or using every single technological innovation that exists. And god forbid someone actually determines whether something is useful before demanding that every single library in the country use it and condemning those who don’t as luddites.

Privacy DOES matter to people. Take a look at epic.org, eff.org, ftc.gov/privacy, etc. People share things, but that doesn’t mean that they intend to give up control of their information.

Three sites with Alexa rankings of 129,302; 17,888; and 6,786, respectively. Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter are 2 and 12. A site that people gave their credit card numbers to, and which then proceeded to leak those credit card numbers, broke into the top 15,000.

Second, Facebook can be a very useful tool. Not only does it help friends communicate, it facilitates new friendships, new gatherings, and communications between people who share interests or values. It has also proven to be useful for political and social organizing and activities.

Third, when the AL talks about “desperate” people (paragraph six) I truly hope she didn’t mean to insult people who use Facebook as a means of connecting to people because they have difficulties (y’know, DISABILITIES) that prevent them from engaging in the “real” interactions that so many people take for granted. How many people with disabilities use Facebook and other social networking tools to make their lives better? I don’t know – I do know that a team at Carnegie Mellon University is studying it.

Perhaps the AL just forgot about us – people with autism, Asperger’s syndrome, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, anthropophobia, etc – and didn’t mean to insult a sizeable minority. I hope that’s the case, anyway.