Librarians not so dangerous afterall

Two posts ago, I wrote about a librarian in Montana who supposedly received a letter informing her that she'd been added to a "Watch List" for ordering two books through Interlibrary Loan.

Apparently that story was not quite true. The writer of the blog who originally told the story has a new post about it.

Unless of course the librarian was "shushed" by the government! heh heh heh. Okay, I'll stop with the silly conspiracy theories now.

Give your employees a librarian.

Stephen Abram links to this article in a recent blog post. Amongst all the other wonderful office gift ideas to give is:

A librarian. Yes, I know, much of what you need is available online and your staff Googles with the best of them. Still, corporate librarians operate with a level of nuance and finesse that technology can't match. They can uncover sources so obscure as to be practically nonexistent. And they know what's what--they not only tell people what is known but also warn them what isn't.

Excellent.

Librarians are DANGEROUS!

I am forever posting about articles and blog posts that my friends send me. But that's because they send me such fascinating things, like this blog post [thanks Paul!] about a librarian in a tiny little library in Montana.

To sum up the story: Said dangerous librarian orders obviously sketchy books written by Joel C. Rosenberg, receives books along with a note that she's been added to a "Watch List" for ordering them, and is told she needs to go into the big city before she can order more books.

I'll remember that, since I'm the librarian at my institution who is in charge of ordering books and articles from other libraries.... Hope none of our students go requesting anything crazy!

Gotta watch out for those librarians! As Michael Moore said, librarians "are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them. You know, they've had their budgets cut. They're paid nothing. Books are falling apart...."

Never Too Late to Return a Book?

Really? I'm not so sure. 47 years late?

Actually, it's a pretty cute story. I want to know how he came up with the amount of fines that he did.

New Drugs from OLD Books

This is just so cool. The Arizona Daily Star has an article about a grad student reading about an herbal remedy for diarrhea in a 17th century book, testing it, and finding that it does in fact work. They are hoping someone will develop it into a drug.

I wonder how many other great herbal remedies (and possible future medications) are buried in historical texts.

[Found in American Libraries Direct newsletter, 1-3-07]

Everytime We Touch... in the library

Wow, a friend [thanks reyn!] sent me this link to a YouTube video of "Everytime We Touch" by Cascada. That definitely happens in my library. Daily.

Excellent.

BookSwim

Apparently books will soon be swimming around the U.S.!

BookSwim claims to be the "Netflix for books". According to the site, it plans to launch the service on February 14th - Happy Valentine's Day, book lovers!

Not sure what I really think about this. The website is certainly unimpressive, and they are soliciting for investors on the homepage (not that there are any other pages to the site) . Who's behind this? What will it cost?

I will be very curious to see if it sinks or "swims".

Miscreants in the Library

A friend [thanks Elizabeth!] forwarded me this article: Lock the Library! Rowdy Students Are Taking Over

I work at an academic institution, so we don't encounter this problem. However, I remember it all too well from my days at a public library. They had to hire a separate employee to work in the afternoons JUST to watch the teenagers who arrived after school. It was insane.

Closing the library for a few hours after school doesn't seem like the answer, but many things have been tried and few, if any, work.