My friend Steve — who is married to a real live librarian — compiled a list of eleven graphic novel/comic titles that libraries should shelve. The idea caught on and now TangognaT [holy crap I never noticed that was a palindrome before!] has collated those lists into one uberlist.
Author: jessamyn
our work and why we do it
Sometimes people ask me what my job as an outreach librarian is like. I can now tell them that it’s a little bit like this, though not entirely, I also work at the reference desk
RIP Janet Foster, public librarian
RIP Janet Foster Danbury Public Librarian, the librarian who once said “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to have this much fun.” [thanks rebecca]
Cites & Insights updates via Atom feed
Walt has started a little blog page to post announcements when he’s done a new issue of Cites & Insights. It includes announcements and brief tables of contents. You can subscribe to the Atom feed if that’s what deweys your decimal.
can you see our culture by looking at our libraries?
For anyone who has ever contemplated the “cheeseburger in the library” dilemma [summed up thusly “If we’re just going to be everything the patrons want, why not serve cheeseburgers with our books and DVDs?”] you will enjoy
Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library: How Postmodern Consumer Capitalism Threatens Democracy, Civil Education and the Public Good. I’m about on Chapter 5.
Soon after I had begun working for a large, urban public library in 1992 I was invited to talk with an elderly administrator who was about to retire after a long career which she began as a children’s librarian. She was aware of my previous teaching experience and in the privacy of her office she explained to me that education was not the mission of the library. “I consider myself an entertainer,” she said, “not an educator.” But in fact she taught me a great deal, because she instigated a process of reflection lasting many years in which I have tried to understand the meaning of her words. What is the difference between education and entertainment? Did entertainment replace education as the mission of the library and if so, why? [lisnews]