This Book Is Overdue! by Marilyn Johnson

And all those librarians who have been helping put this country to work-showing stressed patrons how to navigate government services, create resumes, find jobs-are being let go, right and left. Library use is soaring as library funding is being cut. (Google’s great, but it can’t possibly replace trained humans.) The new technology and tools were challenging librarians in interesting ways, and the presence of public computers and wifi in libraries meant librarians had even more ways and means to make themselves useful.īut the economic troubles have affected the mood in libraryland. I began researching this book in 2006, when there was a lot of optimism and excitement in the field, in spite of the pervasive illusion that Google puts a librarian in everyone’s computer.

I encountered the Connecticut Four, the library group that challenged the Patriot Act, when I happened to stand next to one of them at a benefit and he plucked a bit of cellophane off my husband’s suit.Īmong the librarians you spoke with, did you mostly find optimism or pessimism regarding the profession’s future in the digital age? I also submerged myself in several ALA (American Library Association) conventions and one called Computers In Libraries before I succumbed to information sickness. Library Journal was a wonderful source every year it designates the young “Movers and Shakers” who are reshaping librarianship, and more than one of my subjects received this honor. I did not have trouble finding great librarians I had trouble choosing among them all. I asked all sorts of librarians to recommend colleagues who they felt were doing visionary work, and they flooded me with suggestions. Librarians are the most organized, networked, literate people around, and they love to help. How did you go about finding the many libraries and librarians you wrote about? What’s it like to be a librarian in the digital age? Lots of librarians are charging into that wild frontier and reshaping and reinventing the profession, and I wanted to talk to them before they hit the obit page, or I did. The explosion of information and information delivery systems meant that library science was exploding, too.

You can read about all sorts of work in the obituaries, from rocket scientists to mule divers, but the obituaries for librarians made me feel as if I were missing some extraordinary people at a crucial moment in their profession. How did you jump from that subject to writing about librarians?

This Book Is Overdue! by Marilyn Johnson