Thursday, July 12, 2007

Read on!

Check out this post by Maggie, the Ultimate Southern Librarian, about the importance of librarians reading. It seems completely bizarre that it needs to be said, but apparently it's becoming common for librarians to not enjoy books! I know of one librarian in our system who admits to not liking reading much, and we were quite shocked when she said it. But Maggie's story in the post and those of people commenting are dreadful. The access to books is my main job perk, for heaven's sake! And one of the main reasons I wanted to be a librarian. I blame library schools - they seem to be taking the library out and putting "information professional" in and it makes public librarianship seem second class. Just my opinion, of course, but I definitely noticed it when I was in library school 8 years ago and I bet it's worse now.

So, read on, librarians and other booklovers, read on!
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a manager at my library, and myself and the other two managers are voracious readers. The rest of the staff? Read two books for our every one :) Lunch in the staffroom is the greatest because everyone has a book and is reading - I've never worked anywhere else where there's such respect for the people who have their noses in a book!

July 14, 2007 at 7:08 a.m.
tinylittlelibrarian said...

Our branch is pretty reader-heavy, too. We're always recommending books to each other or a few of us will all have the same book on hold.

July 15, 2007 at 1:24 p.m.
maggie moran said...

Thanks for the post and link!

I do so wish I could find a group of readers to swap stories with during lunch. I tried to start a book club for librarians and various staff in our public system and the area school system. The night of our first meeting a had five RSVPs but only one person showed. We had a lovely time, but decided all the hard work (wine/cheese/chocolate) wasn't worth it. :(

July 19, 2007 at 6:50 a.m.
tinylittlelibrarian said...

That's too bad! :(

Programming is such hard work. It's hard enough for kids, but for adults it can be really bad. One of our branches has a book club for patrons, but it's in the rural, rather small-town-ish part of the city, so I think they have better luck there with community events.

July 19, 2007 at 1:54 p.m.

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