Well Done! Salon.com Interviews Marilyn Johnson, Author of “This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All"
During the past several weeks, we've posted a couple of book reviews and interviews with author Marilyn Johnson about her new book, This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All.
Here's the Headline: "This Book Is Overdue!": Hot for librarian
and Sub-Headline:
The author of a new book talks about the secret lives of America's favorite -- and endangered -- disciplinarians.
When you first see those words you might automatically think (since you've seen them before), "Oh no, here we go again. Let the stereotypes begin for our profession. A profession that might not exist much longer."
But the good news is that Lipinski writes a clear and fair intro and asks good questions. Once again, Johnson does an amazing job answering them. She should be the keynote speaker at just about every library related conference and then hired to work for each of those organizations as their marketing director.
The interview is several hundred words and includes several exchanges. We're just going to include on of them here. The entire interview is worthy of your attention.
Free Range Librarian (Congrats Karen!) and Lipstick Librarian (Congrats Linda!) are both mentioned by Lipinski in his setup for the interview. Also, ResourceShelf friend (and reader) Stephen Abram is mentioned by Johnson as someone who looks like a CEO in a million-dollar suit. We would like to know if that's $1 Million/U.S. or $ 1 Million/Canadian? (-;
Salon: Aren’t libraries and librarians obsolete in the age of Google?
Johnson: Go to a library. Most people haven’t seen what’s happened. Since the '90s, libraries have become computer centers, Blockbusters and community centers, all in one. We have this illusion that you can find anything on the Web, that you can type in a keyword and the world will open up. But you can get a lot of garbage and wrong information, and many, many things get lost in cyberspace or do not appear in digital form.
As for librarians, they’re civil servants. They deal with all kinds of social welfare problems, from childcare to homelessness to people who can’t navigate the bureaucracy to get benefits or help finding a job.[See yesterday's post about the social worker who is on the full time staff of the San Francisco Public Library.] The buck stops at the library. If we keep cutting library aid, people who can’t figure out how to file for taxes, or how to use e-mail, are going to be out of luck. About 20 percent of the population is not wired; they don’t have Internet access or a smart phone. They can’t go to Starbucks and get Wi-Fi with their $4 latte.
What an amazing response.
Other Interview Questions Discuss
+ The image of the archetypal librarian
+ Librarian stalking
+ What goes on at an the ALA Annual Conference (Lipinski uses the phrase, "debaucherous goings-on")
+ Second Life
+ The Patriot Act, National Security Letters, and what happened with the Library Connection Consortium in Connecticut
During a time when several times a week (if not daily) we find multiple "bad news" articles about librarianship, not only is the book worth a purchase but this interview is deserves a place in your bookmark file (so you can get to it quickly). Or, use the old school method and print out the article. Then place it on a bulletin board and maybe even your refrigerator. (-:
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