Does anyone have any suggestions for preventing rural Michigan thugs from peeing on the back of my mom’s library building late at night? I suggested an electric fence but she won’t listen to me.
Good Librarian
To counter my last post, I just wanted to mention that a friend of mine has worked out charming stylized hand gestures which she uses when giving directions to various sections of the library.
The Worst Librarian Ever
It’s time to tell the story of The Worst Librarian Ever.
Once upon a time, I was a new employee at Cornell University’s Olin Library. One of my first assignments was to tour the campus libraries and get a sense of the place. As you can imagine, campus library tours are not as popular as say, bong hits at the Tri Delts. Often the tour consisted of three or four people. One ill-fated day, the Olin Library tour consisted of one person: me.
Two of the library’s head muckeymucks guided the tour. One of them, a stern grey-haired woman, will heretofore be known as the Worst Librarian Ever.
The tour proceeded, and the three of us wandered through various rooms. I feigned interest in an array of statistics. Finally we reached a popular section of the library nicknamed The Cocktail Lounge, a white 1970’s style reading room filled with comfy chairs and tables arranged for group work. Students sat reading, listening to music, and talking.
I was relieved. Here at last was a comfortable space where the real life of the library took place, away from the fluorescent back-rooms of library administration. I wondered what people were reading. A buzz of conversation filled the room.
My tour guide kept up her spiel about circulation and holdings, until The Worst Librarian Ever suddenly cut her short. “Excuse me” she said, striding away from our small group. A lone student lay across two of the comfy chairs with a book on his chest. The comfy chairs, which I suspect were chosen for the express purpose of being comfy, had put him to sleep.
The Worst Librarian Ever leaned over the student and poked him awake. I watched in horror as he woke with a start to stare into her blazing eyes. The Worst Librarian Ever, pausing for effect, raised her finger, pointed and said in a voice so terrible its echo caused students in surrounding states to drop out of Library School:
“Take your feet off that chair RIGHT NOW young man!”
I winced. The entire room winced. The student took his feet down and put on his headphones. Conversation started up again. The earth continued to turn.
Five years in the future, three of the students in the room find themselves voting down a library millage but can’t quite explain why. Ten years in the future, the young man will be arrested for soliciting a dominatrix to flog him with rubber stamps. Five minutes in the future, I place an emergency call to my friend the Excellent Cornell Librarian.
She explains that the Olin library is open 24 hours. She mentions that The Worst Librarian Ever works an average of 8 hours per day, leaving 16 hours for students to stomp around on the furniture in whatever manner they wish. She confides that in addition to damaging the reputation of librarians to a roomful of future-influential ivy leaguers by loudly eviscerating a fellow student for a trivial infraction, The Worst Librarian Ever didn’t even work in that library.
She was just, you know, helping out.
Librarians Rock on This American Life…sort of
Slobberingly-addictive radio program This American Life featured Michigan Libraries this weekend. I was painting the downstairs closet (braincell-killing homeowner goodness!) when I heard Ira Glass talking about librarians. I emitted a squee of pleasure, and cranked up the radio, leaving a bright white thumbprint on the volume knob.
Bill Harmer, the Teen Librarian of the Baldwin Public Library had the amazingly fucking brilliant idea to book a really good band, The High Strung (I went to college with vocalist Josh Malerman!) in libraries across Michigan in an effort to reverse the reputation of libraries as uptight, fussy places where No Fun Can Be Had.
Sadly, the segment showed how far we have to go on that front. Though Ira Glass lovingly described the concerts, many librarians and library workers came off sounding…well…like frumpy librarians. I winced when a woman addressed a group of 9-14 year olds with the globally-annoying “Hellooo boys and girls” and spoke to them in a sing-songy voice. I cringed when circulation workers plugged their ears at the icky rock music.
You could HEAR the sweater sets. Are we really that bad?
Still, it was a great idea, and it sounds like it was wildly successful. You should write to Bill Harmer and thank him for not being beaten down by the truncheon of public service and having such magnificent ideas.
For future reference, I’m thinking of putting together a handy conversion chart for librarians on How Not to Sound Uptight. Contributions are welcome. Here’s a start:
Instead of saying: “Hellooo boys and girls”
Say: “Hi you guys”
Lesson: Pointing out the diminutive age of your audience is rude. Singsong voices reveal your own insecurity.
Instead of saying: “Teens”
Say: Teenagers. People. High school kids. Yutes. Jailbait. Anything but “Teens”.
Lesson: Saying “Teens” makes you sound like a nitwit. You might as well grip a pipe and denounce Communism. I’m just sayin’.
New blog/site redesign
How did I spend my summer vacation? I updated my website! This weblog address has been archived, so if you want new stuff, move on up to librarianavengers.org. Grr!
New Site!
It all started at the South x Southwest conference this spring. I sat behind a fellow who had written a piece of weblog software called WordPress. The very mention of WordPress made the open-source and webstandards geeks at the conference go all gushy, so I figured it had to be pretty good software. Well. I installed it for a project at work and my heart went pitterpat. Great interface, tons of plugins, complete control over templates, open source, and a slick layout converted me.
Blogger has been good to me, but I’d like to experiment with this software. I’ll keep my old weblog up so your links will work (you will always be able to click on archives 2003-2005 in the right column to get to the ancient stuff), but this change of venue means you’ll have to update your RSS and bookmarks. I’m going to start writing about the books and media I’m consuming, in addition to the usual collection of rants, antecdotes, gloating about my cool job, and library related things.
Soon, I’m going to start writing about some of the nifty things we’re coming out with at my workplace, The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I’ve been able to watch and help build an insanely complex audio-video digital library over the last year, and I think there might be some stuff of interest to you guys from what we’ve learned in the process. We’re doing a big launch at the end of the summer, so I can show you the payoff then.
Thanks again to everyone who has posted and helped this site out along the way. Grouchy librarian kisses to all of you.
The good the bad and the furry: Choosing the Dog That’s Right for You
My ever lovin’ dog lovin’ friend Lizz brought this book over and we spend a happy hour snarfing at the clever illustrations and the Extremely Accurate descriptions of life with various dog breeds.
For example, this book suggests that if you are uncomfortable with the idea of a grown man going to the bathroom in your backyard, then the St. Bernard may not be the dog for you. Natch.
Transmetropolitan
My local comic book guy recommended this. I trust him because he has a huge fluffy dog and digs David Mack. I bought the first trade paperback and became so addicted that I am now spending $10/week there getting caught up on all of the issues. Curse your impeccable taste, comic book guy!!!
Transmetropolitan is, first, not work-safe. Librarians: keep this out of the children’s section or be prepared to mop up the exploded heads of your more conservative patrons. Transmetropolitan follows the adventures of gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem as he stomps through a futuristic distopia filled with two-faced smoking cats, Ebola Cola, and incredibly creative profanity. You’ll love it.