On Video Games

Over the last few days I’ve had a few people ask me about possibly building a circulating video game collection at my library.  And much to my surprise I’ve wound up as someone who is strongly against the concept.
I think games are great for libraries and I would love to start this collection, but I [...]

Bookless

I’ve avoided talking about the Cushing Academy bookless library bruhaha thus far.  Mostly this is because there is really nothing that hasn’t been said elsewhere.  But also because I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the situation.  The mere thought of a bookless library makes me shudder, but on the other hand libraries really [...]

Review: Dark Entries

It’s been said elsewhere but it bares repeating, Dark Entries marks the low point in publisher marketing this year.  A little history is needed for this.  A few years back when Denise Mina was writing Hellblazer she managed to connect Vertigo with her friend, bestselling writer Ian Rankin.  Before too long word started to leak [...]

Ageism

The other day an article on ageism in the library profession made the rounds on Twitter, and generated quite a bit of conversation.  Long story short, there is a lot of ageism in the profession.
As the converstaion went on a few trends became apparent:
Employers are resistant to hiring young librarians for fear that they will [...]

Going Public

I Twittered this earlier, but it certainly bares repeating.  The Berkshire Eagle has finally decided to cover our budget cuts, and our hours reduction in particular.  Although as a commenter points out, the article never mentions what that reduction is (a gold star to the commenter who guessed we’ll be closing at 5, albeit only [...]

On Decertification

The word is finally out.  In a report in the Boston Globe, nine Massachusetts libraries have been decertified by the Mass. Board of Library Commissioners due to the recession (four were named in an earlier article).  In Mass. decertification means that those libraries are inelligble for state aid and for membership in the regional resource [...]

Changes

Since starting this blog I’ve been trying to write five posts a week (Monday-Friday).  I no longer feel that I can sustain that pace.  Partly, a lot of what I say here is just recapitulating the content of my Twitter feed.  But mostly I’m thinking that fewer, but better posts will be preferable to my [...]

Loving What You Do

In keeping with my theme this week of rhetorical diatribes, how important is a librarian to have a well rounded knowledge of the culture around them.  That’s a long winded way of asking must a ya librarian read Twilight?
I don’t think anyone would argue that a librarian must be able to relate to their patrons, [...]

On Collection Development

We spent a large portion of today running through our collection development policy, and the process left me with some thoughts worth exploring further.  Mainly I feel that such policies are problematic in that they need to serve two diametrically opposed issue.  On one side they exist to guide the selection of materials, for which [...]

#Malibtweetup

So what happens when 6 librarians who only know one another from the internets get together?  And will it make a good premise for a reality TV show?  Those were the questions answered at Monday night’s first ever Mass librarian tweetup.  
So, what do librarians talk about over drinks?  The answer turned out to be [...]