Loved This Book!

This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cyrarians Can Save us All.

Marilyn Johnson

2010 – Harper Collins

978-0-06-143161 (pbk)

I finished reading This Book is Overdue today on my way home. What a fun read. I recommended it anyone interested in the Library world especially those who want to know about the digital side (which I assume is everyone). It’s an easy read and had me very much looking forward to my NYC commute. Here’s a few of my favorite pieces, I won’t give the whole book away.

Marilyn Johnson ropes you in with talk of an old lawless town and how its library is functioning on a giant scale in Second Life. Second Life has an entire chapter dedicated to it later in the book, and as someone who hasn’t been near Second Life, I’m not oddly captivated by the whole idea.

Anyways- Deadwood, South Dakota.

This is where the book starts. How can someone not keep reading? You’re a sneaky one Ms. Johnson. Getting the reader hooked early.

After reading the chapter I felt obligated as a library person to check out the Deadwood Library Website. While there isn’t much to see on the site itself, it makes me want to check out the Deadwood Library collection all the more in Second Life. The chapter also made me want to go to Deadwood and be a part of the reenactments, so take that as you wish. What I’m trying to say while getting very much distracted in the regularly forgotten awesomeness that is South Dakota, is the Deadwood Library, according to Marilyn Johnson’s book has an amazing digital collection in Second Life.

Next Point – Sickness…

Information Sickness.

I learned about this in passing in my Digital Libraries class last semester at Rutgers. Marilyn Johnson seems to share the sentiment of it being a humorous idea, while at the same time, in a weird way being absolutely plausible in some fashion. The idea comes from Ted Mooney’s novel Easy Travel to Other Planets. While I have not read this book myself, it seems that there is a character who comes down with information sickness having taken in too much information and they lose their mind or control of it or something to this affect. Like I said, I haven’t read the book; all of this is secondary information. Marilyn took a gander over at NYPL in the very building I spend much of my time, so perhaps on a slow day I’ll meander down that way and take a gander of my own. See what all the fuss is about.

The book goes on to talk about catalog upgrade nightmares and the realities of being a front line librarian including a section dedicated to poo, which was especially funny and upsetting.

More upsetting were the changes for the New York Public Library. While I have mad love for this library, I am very much a new comer to the city and The Library. The changes that went down were kind of outrageous and detrimental to the researchers of the library and the writers who used the collections as inspiration. Interestingly, I think the library has learned what it has lost in a way. For the centennial celebration, The Library hosted hundreds of writers over night to help write a book inspired by the collection and marketed the idea as revolutionary (see Find the Future). However a chapter in Marilyn Johnson’s book shed light on how the library had actually been doing this on a much greater scale where specialists and reference librarians noted for their greatness were helping writers get what they needed and become inspired. This service must have not been publicized very well, because surely there would have been uproar with the shifts away from these aids. It’s these types of things that have academically minded people flocking to The Library and why people think so highly of NYPL.  Now it seems the library is trying to reverse the damage while at the same time making it seem like something new and not really hoisting themselves back to the standards they once held. This is great publicity for the library but only mildly exciting for fans of books and those who write them.

On a lighter note, I was exposed to the American Kennel Club Library, which I now have on my top libraries to visit. Very excited it's not far.  

Her descriptions of Book Cart competitions at ALA conferences and the over all bad-asses that Librarians tend to be - Very enjoyable.

So- thank you Marilyn Johnson. I’m glad to have been exposed to the wonders of Libraries, Second Life, eccentric librarians and the bureaucracy that often overshadows the greatness of the libraries through your book. This Book is Overdue is certainly much more positive, fun, informative, ADVENTUROUS, and I encourage you to check it out.