Title: This Books is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us AllAuthor: Marilyn Johnson
It should come as no surprise that I've flirted with the idea of becoming a librarian. It makes sense, right? I'd even told myself that if I didn't get into the MFA program this year, I'd enroll in an online MLS degree program instead. I could easily see myself making book recommendations to readers and cataloging books and leading story times and shushing people. According to Marilyn Johnson, while recommending and ordering and reading and shelving and shushing are things we associate with librarians, those graduating with MLS degrees today are much more likely to know their way around a database than a card catalog, and much more likely to dabble in Second Life than in, I don't know, crocheting or some other sedate pastime people might stereotypically associate librarians with. In fact, Johnson made librarians look risque, edgy, and even sometimes downright wild. While Johnson focuses a lot on the surprising lives of individual librarians who she meets during her research, her main focus is on the way that librarians are using technology to help their patrons get the information they need.
If her goal is to show how librarians use technology, and dispel the myth that most librarians tend toward being spinsters who like cats, she succeeds. However, the book is marketed in a way that makes it fall short of expectations. The back cover of the book includes quotes from Mary Roach, the master of smart and somewhat horrifying nonfiction (of Bonk and Stiff fame). I went into the book expecting it to be funny and snappy and a little disgusting, but it wasn't. So on the one hand, the association with Roach made me expect too much of the book. On the other hand, the title doesn't seem to fit, especially since the book dealt very little with physical books and not at all (to my recollection, it's been a few weeks) about the library as police-- tracking down and punishing overdue offenders. In fact, it seems like the book is trying to dispel the idea that that's what librarians are about. If the marketing of the book, the title and the jacket quotes, were more appropriate, I think I would have enjoyed the book more because my expectations would have been different. For an aspiring would-be (maybe) librarian, the book just made me think that I need to love computers at least as much as I like books to succeed in the profession.
1 comment:
This looks like an interesting book, but the cover copy sounds problematic. My husband finished an MLS a few years ago, and many of his classes were focused on technology. In fact, his degree (and many programs) are actually now called MLIS (masters of library and information systems). He still has dreams of being a cataloger but now actually works for a internet-based research company. When he was getting his degree we always got lots of questions about why you need a degree to be a librarian and what on earth they teach in classes. Some day I think I want to be a librarian too...
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