According to a Reuters article reporting a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll, Americans are “tepid about libraries.” More people try to buy locally produced food than regularly use their library, though it seems public libraries have slightly more support than George W. Bush would were he running against Obama for President, and that’s something I guess. From the article: “libraries, apparently, are on the wane. Two thirds of people said they never go to the library, or do so only once or twice a year.” What are we to make of that? I guess one question is what makes anyone think libraries are "on the wane" when there was no comparative historical data. It could be that two thirds of Americans have never used public libraries much. We could also reverse the phrasing of the report. One third of Americans say they go to their public libraries more than once or twice a year! Put that way, it doesn’t sound much better. I’m wondering if those statistics ...
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One of the big stories in Libraryland last week was Overdrive’s announcement that Penguin had suspended the availability of their ebooks from Overdrive and the “Get for Kindle” function,” followed two days later by the announcement that previously available Penguin ebook titles would be available for checkout, but not any forthcoming ones. Penguin was probably frightened into submission by the ALA statement made in the interim where the ALA President complained that  “this situation is one more log thrown onto the fire of libraries’ abilities to provide access to books – in this case titles they’ve already purchased.” Then she demanded that “Penguin should restore access for library patrons now.” When the ALA talks, people listen! Although according to the Penguin press release published in this Library Journal blog post, that availability might just be to the end of the year, where Penguin announced they would “withhold the supply of new ...
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A commenter last week caught my eye, mostly because I’m not sure what to make of the comments. Supposedly they are from the non-librarian mother of an underemployed LIS graduate, which is odd enough because you’d think the LIS graduate would be a more likely audience. The tone of the comments is defensive and very hostile to librarians.  I’ve found all sorts of things to criticize about librarians over the years, but the puzzling thing is what she chooses to attack. For example: “Our local librarian told me they hire the creme de la creme. Well her creme responded to my question about westlaw “How do you most efficiently search this database?” With “I can’t give you legal advise.” Oh really, sounds like the creme does not recognize a question a librarian should know.” By “local librarian,” one would assume she means a public librarian. At least, without more context that’s what I would assume. I suppose it’s possible that the local ...
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Last week there was a lot of excitement in the library world as the books of the so-called “People’s Library” at the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York were confiscated and partly destroyed by the police. The topic was covered in both the Library Journal and American Libraries, and though both accounts focus exclusively on the librarian perspective, the AL piece is as much propaganda as news. Besides the propaganda, the ALA also issued a press release: ALA alarmed at seizure of Occupy Wall Street library, loss of irreplaceable material. The title makes it sound like some precious archive was destroyed, instead of a bunch of ordinary books. If the People’s Library really included “irreplaceable records and material related to the occupation movement and the temporary community that it represented” as claimed, then the people running the library should have done more to protect them than leaving them in a park. No real library would do that. The ...
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Times are hard for new library school graduates looking for their first job. Here they are, shiny MLS degrees in hand, eager to enter the library workforce and contribute something to society, and no one is offering them jobs. What recent graduates might not know is that it’s always been hard to find jobs, especially jobs doing what you want to do in an area of the country you want to live. The profession goes through periods of bust and not quite so bust. In the 1960s, librarians were told there would be librarian shortages. In the 1970s there was a huge oversupply of librarians. Sound familiar? To find out just what’s going on, I dispatched one of my minions to scour the country and report on the status of new graduates, human interest kinda stuff that everyone likes to read about. Here’s the first report, a profile of a recent graduate and her struggles on the job market. I think we can all learn a lesson from it. Report from the Field Megan W. ...
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People with college degrees have a lower unemployment rate than high school dropouts, unless that degree is in library science. A number of kind readers have sent me stories on how badly library science majors fare in the workplace. First came an extensive spreadsheet from the Wall Street Journal based on U.S. Census Data, and then one of those clickbait articles from the Huffington Post based on the WSJ spreadsheet. Even the ALA Joblist Twitter Feed helped spread the news, tweeting that a “New report shows library science with 4th worst unemployment among 173 majors - 15%.” Brilliant marketing! You can sort the spreadsheet at WSJ and find out without clicking through the Huffington Post that Library Science has the fourth highest unemployment rate at 15% and the fifth worst median salary at $36,000. The links from readers are accompanied by appropriate comments, such as “Why would anyone go into our profession again?” or “Another reason not to go to ...
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