Apparently a study done in the UK says that being a librarian is stressful, really stressful. More to the point, people in professions known to be stressful — police officer, fireman — haev support structures in place to help them deal with that stress while people in other occupations like librarianship and teaching encounter high stress levels and don’t get as much help in dealing with it. [thanks paul, bri]
Tag: librarians
legal: don’t sell library property on eBay
This post could also be titled “why I had to dig 13 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary out of the dumpster instead of just getting them handed to me by the librarian who tipped me to their location” (it’s true!) In short, you can’t get rid of government property — including library books in some cases — any way you want, the method of disposal has to be approved. This is why some books wind up in the dumpster instead of the book sale. While it’s clear why this law exists, it has some weird side effects when enforced in this way. I’d like to apologize to Adam Romanik, it was a good thing you did, you shouldn’t have been treated this way.
google video find: davith stands up for his rights in the library
Local gay activist decides to make sure there are books on gay topics and themes in his library but finds the library already has a fairly balanced collection. Weird humor from BBC Three.
google video find: the world’s fastest librarian
The World’s Fastest Librarian, a film made by and for librarians. Coming soon to a conference near you (maybe?) but you can view the trailer on Google Video
librarians do and do not need to be coders.
When I said “librarians need to be coders” I mostly meant that they need to involve themselves in their technology. Science Library Pad has gone further and explicated this idea with a fancy diagram and some smart talk. Go read librarians 2.0 don’t need to be coders 2.0
Don’t try to build big complex systems. Live in the beta world. Get some chunk of functionality out quickly so that people can play with it. The hardest part is having the initial idea, and the good news is I see lots of great ideas out in the library blogosphere. I can understand the frustrations in the gap between the idea and running code, but I hope I’ve presented a bunch of areas above in which you can work to turn the idea into the next hot beta, without necessarily needing to code it yourself.
The systems world is not just buy/build. It’s buy, build, transform, collaborate, extend, transform, inspire, lead…