I grabbed this photo from my Information School’s 75th anniversary website. Which I designed. A long time ago. Before I discovered that flexible CSS-layouts make everyone’s lives better.

Anyway, I love these librarians. The photo was from the “campus life” section, and I’ve just got to say: If you are in this photo or know someone who is, please let me buy you a Schlitz. Because that’s what they’re drinking. I know this through the magic of Photoshop.

So is it just me or was library school more fun back then? My classmates drank, don’t get me wrong, but we did it in a more serious, social-reform sort of way. You know, Mojitos and Cosmopolitans. These guys look like they just grabbed a case of beer after Intro to Cataloging and went to town.

ere’s some baby sloths. (thanks Kafkaesque)

These sloths remind me of the time I went to a residence hall library program with my friend Ryan “Galaxor Nebulon” Hughes. (Hi Ryan! Where the hell are ya?)

They had brought in a bunch of rainforest animals to the residence hall to, I dunno, promote reading or something. There were a bunch of snakes and fuzzy things, a scorpion, and a two-toed sloth. At the end of the program, the audience was invited to come up and pet the animals. Ryan decided that he should pet the sloth. Ryan HAD to pet the sloth.

I kind of lost track of Ryan after he went up to the sloth, and when I found him again he was bleeding. Ryan had been bitten by the sloth.

As you know, the sloth is the Slowest Mammal in the World. It is known for moving only 5 or 6 feet a minute. Yet here was Ryan, bleeding. “It looked so cute”, Ryan said. “When I saw it open it’s mouth, I thought, oh! it’s going to do something even cuter! I didn’t know it was going to BITE me!”

I believe to this day Ryan has a scar. From sloth.

Let this be a lesson to you.

here O where should this nice person go to library school?
I got this letter the other day:

I was thinking about applying to the Library and Information Science program at Wayne State University here in Detroit and was wondering if you had an opinion on their program? I’d love to go to U of M but I don’t think I’d get in nor do I have the money to go there. Just wondered if you knew or heard about Wayne State’s program.

Please keep in mind that I am not a career counselor, and am in fact a big web designer hypocrite who hasn’t spoken to a patron in years. If that doesn’t bother you, read on.

First of all: Nobody has the money to go to Big Expensive Schools like the University of Michigan. I certainly didn’t. My dear Partnerguy didn’t. None of our friends did, except maybe that one woman who wore expensive suits. The rest of us did three things: Took out Loans, Got Scholarships, and Worked Our Butts Off. Look, see? No butt.

Don’t worry about funding yet. Worrying about funding comes later and will represent one of the many delightful themes of graduate school. Worry about getting in first. Both schools are reputable and, I assume, have some sort of decent admission standards. Still, buck up little appleblossom. This ain’t rocket science. Write a decent essay, take the GRE a couple of times if you need to and cross your fingers. I’d apply to both schools just to cover your bases.

I suspect from the “here in Detroit” bit, that Wayne is geographically closer to you? This is nothing to sniff at, since driving to a distant city to attend class quickly becomes wearisome. If you are in a position to uproot and go to Ann Arbor, however, U of M is a great school. I have no complaints about my THREE years there (don’t ask). The library students I met were smart, funny, geeky and motivated. The interdisciplinary stuff was good for everyone, and you end up with all sorts of cutting-edge library and life skillz.

I don’t know much about Wayne because 1) it is a library school and I never wanted to be a librarian. Not a traditional librarian anyway, with the patrons, and the books and the reference. 2) it is in Detroit and 3) it isn’t as prestigious as U of M. I know this sounds mercenary, but hey, race you to the upper middle class.

If anyone out there can advise this promising young librarian about the Joys of Wayne State or any stuff I missed, please do.