You’ve probably seen this article on a videogame tournament to be held at the Sacramento Public Library. It’s called “Nerd Fest: Black Ops Tournament,” which gives you a pretty good idea of the lengths to which libraries will go trying to remain “relevant.” Apparently, this “Black Ops” is popular with gamers, who, like plebs at the Roman circus, glory in ultraviolent escapism. Videogames always seem sort of childish to me. I realize adults play them, too, but I assume that’s so they can get a sense of accomplishment and recognition in a virtual world they can’t get in the real one. The local chapter of Veterans for Peace and others are calling for the event to be canceled, thinking that libraries promoting violent war games is inappropriate, but the library director is having none of it. I do wonder about some of the defenses of the tournament, though. For example, according to the article, the director “said the Dec. 11 tournament at the library's ...
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By the time you read this, I will be comfortably ensconced in the ancestral manse preparing to gorge myself on turkey and cranberry sauce before taking a 10-hour tryptophan-induced nap. Ahh, Thanksgiving! It’s that time of year when we should give thanks for all our many blessings. So what is the Annoyed Librarian thankful for? Those of us employed should be thankful for that. Even a toxic job is better then being unemployed, especially if the claims in this article are true. It seems many employers will only hire people who already have jobs. How’s that for bitter irony. I’m thankful to have this Library Journal gig as well. Two years of blogging for LJ have bought me a summer house in the Hamptons and a BMW to drive myself there. Thanks to this exposure, I also just secured a seven-figure advance for my novel, Death of the Annoyed Librarian, a riveting cozy mystery set during an ALA Conference in Chicago. Life is sweet. Of course I’m also thankful for all the ...
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It’s such an exciting time to be a librarian in this fast-paced age of constant change! Or so I used to hear from librarians applying for jobs at my library, back when there were jobs available. Nowadays, the excitement has turned more to desperation. We used to get news articles about hipster librarians and tattooed librarians and other kinds of librarians much cooler than you. We’re still told how much the library is changing, only the tone is different. This article about libraries reinventing themselves is a good example. It starts out hipstery enough: Kathy DeGrego's T-shirt lets you know right away she isn't an old-school librarian. "Shhh," it says, "is a four-letter word." Ooohh, where can I buy that tee shirt! And the article’s fluffy, hopeful tone keeps up for just a little bit longer. “That spirit of bookish defiance has guided the makeover of the suburban Denver library system where DeGrego works. Reference desks and study carrels have been replaced by ...
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A reader comment last week really made me think about the value of the ALA as a professional association. Here’s the comment in full: And speaking of ALA, my professor just tried to sell my class on joining the organization. A summary of what she said: You should join the ALA - not because it's a nice thing to do - but because it is what makes us different from the people that work at the information kiosk at the mall. It's a professional organization, and that's what makes us a profession. It provides us with our standards and guidelines. ALA members are standing on the shoulders of people who came before in the last 150 years. That’s quite an interesting argument if you start to pull out the pieces. Let’s pull out the pieces. it is what makes us different from the people that work at the information kiosk at the mall Is that really the only thing that makes us different from working the information kiosk at the mall? If that’s true, I find it a little sad. The pay, ...
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The ALA Midwinter Meeting (do NOT call it a conference!) must be getting close, because the ALA Council list is heating up over the latest issue to call for condemnation by the American Library Association: the TSA implementation of full-body scanners. This is an important issue for American Libraries! Safe Libraries Guy already wrote about this, but things have gotten even stranger since his post. In that post, we see that someone wrote an ALA Councilor with the following question: I'm looking into Midwinter travel plans and am basically entirely freaked out that I have to choose between having a naked photo taken of me or being groped in order to fly to Midwinter.... What I'm wondering is: given its longstanding emphasis on privacy, does ALA have a stance on these issues?  And given its value of intellectual freedom, are they going to have my back if I face repercussions for speaking out? This is a curious question. What stand, exactly, should the ALA take on this? Are the ...
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There’s a serious inconsistency between library education and the job market. Actually, there are several inconsistencies, but today I’m pointing out just one. We seem to have developed a profession which is nationally competitive for the best jobs, but with an educational apparatus more appropriate to supply regional positions with unambitious locals. Now, no matter how smart or talented you are, or where you went to school, if you’re not willing to move for a job, your chances of getting a good one are reduced significantly. And yet, the salaries even for the best jobs are hardly competitive with comparable private sector positions. Despite there being so many fewer of them, a lot of library schools function like education schools do. Typically, education schools are there to give the education establishment imprimatur to whatever locals need it to teach in local schools. Rarely are they competitive. Their students and the students those students will teach are usually in ...
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