Category: librarians

why johnny librarian can’t code

Posted on by jessamyn

A thoughtful and amusing post from Caveat Lector. It’s not just that librarians can’t code, it’s that they can’t even agree that coding is what (some) librarians ought to be doing.

Librarians can’t code because too many librarians and library schools have their noses so far up in the air about computers that they are neither recruiting coders (which is purest, sheerest madness—why are we not using the exodus of women from comp sci to our advantage?) nor creating them.

Rivkah Sass—Librarian of the Year 2006

Posted on by jessamyn

Rivkah Sass, Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year for 2006, talks about what she’s done with Omaha Public Library, and where she’s come from. Of particular note: she came from Multnomah County Public Library in Portland, OR which has spawned other great library directors like Seattle Public’s Deborah Jacobs (and one of my favorite librarians and friend Sara Ryan)

Rivkah Sass is a librarian unafraid of, indeed energized by, risk, happy to force change, and rooted in a library philosophy of service and “give ’em what they want.” A teller of truth, willing to risk the consequences. A person boiling over with enthusiasm for people and passion for librarianship. Couple these with a career odyssey that has taken her to all kinds of libraries, both as manager and front-line worker, and you have the ingredients for an exceptional “Librarian of the Year.”

being a librarian “most stressful job of all”?

Posted on by jessamyn

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]