Liscarians
April 21, 2016 8:37 AM Subscribe
"That term—library anxiety—is hardly a household name among students, but say it to a college librarian, and he or she will know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the feeling that one’s research skills are inadequate and that those shortcomings should be hidden. In some students it’s manifested as an outright fear of libraries and the librarians who work there. To many librarians it’s a phenomenon as real as it is perplexing.
"'Why would anyone think we are intimidating?' writes Michel C. Atlas. 'What is intimidating about a master’s-prepared professional earning $35,000 a year?'”
"'Why would anyone think we are intimidating?' writes Michel C. Atlas. 'What is intimidating about a master’s-prepared professional earning $35,000 a year?'”
I used to tell students to go the library, go right to the ref librarian, and ask for help in whatever the student was after. They are paid professionals and can save lots of useless poking about. And by so doing they would make the librarian feel needed and important.
posted by Postroad at 8:41 AM on April 21, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Postroad at 8:41 AM on April 21, 2016 [7 favorites]
I blame the original Ghostbusters.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:41 AM on April 21, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:41 AM on April 21, 2016 [8 favorites]
When I was a kid I had that popular culture intimidation of librarians being shushers, but now that I'm an adult and spend time in the local public library I realize that they are actually people with the patience of angels being harassed by an unending stream of alternatively baffling and aggressive weirdos. The intensity of some of the conversations I overhear sometimes makes browsing the nonfiction aisles a more fraught experience than I would like.
posted by selfnoise at 8:44 AM on April 21, 2016 [31 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 8:44 AM on April 21, 2016 [31 favorites]
I had no idea. I am a librarophile.
posted by kozad at 8:49 AM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by kozad at 8:49 AM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
It really hurts, as a librarian, to hear parents yelling at their kids, "Shut up, stop running or the librarian will yell at you," or "The librarian's going to be mad at you if the books are late." I don't want to perpetuate another generation of library avoiders, people who say "yes" when I ask as kindly and helpfully as I can if they know how to use the self-check machines, who go on to stare haplessly at the screen for five minutes before I look up from the other five people in line.
I think the public library is, for many young people, a place of last-minute projects, parents scolding about procrastination, where three weeks of delayed failure comes home to roost; it's hardly surprising if that carries over to college.
posted by Jeanne at 9:01 AM on April 21, 2016 [20 favorites]
I think the public library is, for many young people, a place of last-minute projects, parents scolding about procrastination, where three weeks of delayed failure comes home to roost; it's hardly surprising if that carries over to college.
posted by Jeanne at 9:01 AM on April 21, 2016 [20 favorites]
I blame the original Ghostbusters.
UHF
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:11 AM on April 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
UHF
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:11 AM on April 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
I can tell you that as a doctorate-educated, highly interdisciplinary person, my fear is not of librarians, but of drinking from the information firehose. I have a deep feeling of inadequacy when it comes to doing lit reviews. They just make me feel hopeless. How am I supposed to report on all the literature that's out there on a topic? If I stick to my own field, I'm terrified I will look provincial to outsiders.
I wish librarians could help me with that, but it's a pretty existential terror.
posted by gusandrews at 9:22 AM on April 21, 2016 [6 favorites]
I wish librarians could help me with that, but it's a pretty existential terror.
posted by gusandrews at 9:22 AM on April 21, 2016 [6 favorites]
In my university days when I was a better looking fit young man I made heavy use of the reference librarians on my subject floor only to later discover that they, all gay men, thought I was hitting on them and they apparently told their community friends. It made for 4 and half years of strange glances, whispers and peculiar comments in a small university town. It did probably help me get into classes I wanted though -thanks Bronski Beat look-alike registrar guy!
You just never know what can happen when you interact with reference librarians!
posted by srboisvert at 9:24 AM on April 21, 2016 [18 favorites]
You just never know what can happen when you interact with reference librarians!
posted by srboisvert at 9:24 AM on April 21, 2016 [18 favorites]
Well, I know what I'd like to have happen when interacting with a reference librarian but so far no after-hours smooching in the stacks. Alas.
posted by Bella Donna at 9:27 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 9:27 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
people with the patience of angels being harassed by an unending stream of alternatively baffling and aggressive weirdos.
This is the perfect description of my career.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:30 AM on April 21, 2016 [6 favorites]
This is the perfect description of my career.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:30 AM on April 21, 2016 [6 favorites]
I used to be an intimidating librarian and had the comparative desk enquiries statistics to prove it.
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:35 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:35 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
If I was a Master's-prepared professional making less than $40K per year, I think I'd be pretty pissed off, which I guess is why I assume reference librarians will be as well.
(OBVIOUSLY, these are generally sharp people who know what they're signing up for, and I'm mostly kidding about this.)
posted by ColdOfTheIsleOfMan at 9:42 AM on April 21, 2016
(OBVIOUSLY, these are generally sharp people who know what they're signing up for, and I'm mostly kidding about this.)
posted by ColdOfTheIsleOfMan at 9:42 AM on April 21, 2016
This is what I found out after, finally, at age 50, and becoming a second career librarian (my dream job realized at last!) Most librarians love libraries but not people.
After working in one for 5 years that was my experience. Nice places to hang out but not to work in.
Lots of meanness, pettiness, jealousy, put downs - eventually I had to quit. Sadder but wiser.
For some reason I thought people who worked in such hallowed places would be better, nicer, more well adjusted, etc. Nah - just the same as everywhere else and even worse.
posted by Tullyogallaghan at 10:03 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
After working in one for 5 years that was my experience. Nice places to hang out but not to work in.
Lots of meanness, pettiness, jealousy, put downs - eventually I had to quit. Sadder but wiser.
For some reason I thought people who worked in such hallowed places would be better, nicer, more well adjusted, etc. Nah - just the same as everywhere else and even worse.
posted by Tullyogallaghan at 10:03 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
I still work in one and I still love libraries, petty politics be damned. I'm here not for the politics but because I love the profession and yes, by far most of the people in it.
posted by blucevalo at 10:08 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by blucevalo at 10:08 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
"I used to tell students to go the library, go right to the ref librarian, and ask for help in whatever the student was after. They are paid professionals and can save lots of useless poking about. And by so doing they would make the librarian feel needed and important."
I tell my students that reference librarians are paid professionals that are much better at helping them with research than I am.
Also, I mention that we'll fire the librarians if the students don't use them. (Tongue in cheek!)
posted by oddman at 10:25 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I tell my students that reference librarians are paid professionals that are much better at helping them with research than I am.
Also, I mention that we'll fire the librarians if the students don't use them. (Tongue in cheek!)
posted by oddman at 10:25 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hey gusandrews, I'm an academic reference librarian and I do help faculty with lit reviews. You should ask the librarian for your subject. And tullyogallaghan, I became a librarian in my fifties and have not regretted it for a minute. I'm sorry you had that experience. What kind of library did you work in? I doubt you'd find too many college reference librarians who don't genuinely enjoy working with students and faculty.
posted by mareli at 10:28 AM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by mareli at 10:28 AM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
I think the public library is, for many young people, a place of last-minute projects, parents scolding about procrastination, where three weeks of delayed failure comes home to roost; it's hardly surprising if that carries over to college.Yes! I think this, or variations of it, are probably a factor. I learned really loathe research papers in 6th-7th grade. As far as I could tell they weren't about learning new things, they were about learning how copy encyclopedia articles. ("It's supposed to be a factual report - don't draw any of your own conclusions or inject your own opinions, just report on the facts from the book. But you can't copy things, that's plagiarism. So take what the book says and change the words around to make them your own.")
Plus, although the librarians where I grew up were always nice and helpful, it was a pretty small library, so nine times out of ten if you went to the counter and said "I have to write a school report about X" you'd wind up with the encyclopedia anyway. I don't recall ever consulting a librarian at my college, not from intimidation or anxiety but because I'd been conditioned to think that it usually wasn't worth their time or mine.
posted by usonian at 10:45 AM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
'What is intimidating about a master’s-prepared professional earning $35,000 a year?'
Is this supposed to be ironic? It reads in both linked pieces as straight... going up to someone who's professionally educated and telling them that I don't know how to use an index is actually pretty intimidating. "Hello, I'm ignorant" is something I think most people are averse to saying, even if it's the best path to not failing a course.
As for as making $35K a year goes, it's not so much intimidating as I feel bad for bothering you with my trivial problems when clearly you do too much work for not enough money.
Librarians are nice and all but even as a middle aged dude who has the luxury of knowing everything there is to know I still find them a little off-putting through no real fault of the librarians.
posted by GuyZero at 11:00 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
Is this supposed to be ironic? It reads in both linked pieces as straight... going up to someone who's professionally educated and telling them that I don't know how to use an index is actually pretty intimidating. "Hello, I'm ignorant" is something I think most people are averse to saying, even if it's the best path to not failing a course.
As for as making $35K a year goes, it's not so much intimidating as I feel bad for bothering you with my trivial problems when clearly you do too much work for not enough money.
Librarians are nice and all but even as a middle aged dude who has the luxury of knowing everything there is to know I still find them a little off-putting through no real fault of the librarians.
posted by GuyZero at 11:00 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
As for as making $35K a year goes, it's not so much intimidating as I feel bad for bothering you with my trivial problems when clearly you do too much work for not enough money.
To anyone who ever worries about this: imagine a person who has spent the bulk of today, and the previous day, and the week before that, saying "The bathroom is upstairs, the keys are on the upstairs desk," and "Please use language that's appropriate for the library" and "I'll put more paper in the printer." And imagine this person thinking "Please, please ask me an interesting question." It doesn't have to be a very interesting question. I spent a very pleasant half-hour with someone once looking up pictures of vintage washing machines. If it is more interesting than "Where are your tax forms?" I will be DELIGHTED to help.
(At the same time... sometimes I find it shocking how badly I get treated at libraries I visit as a patron, and sometimes I find it shocking how badly patrons get treated at my own library. My library's ONE Yelp review contains a detailed account of the children's librarian yelling at a child for something comparatively minor. Even very well-meaning and non-burned-out staff can have trouble seeing things from a patron's point of view. So there's still a lot to be done on the librarians' part to set our own house in order, customer-service-wise.)
posted by Jeanne at 11:23 AM on April 21, 2016 [25 favorites]
To anyone who ever worries about this: imagine a person who has spent the bulk of today, and the previous day, and the week before that, saying "The bathroom is upstairs, the keys are on the upstairs desk," and "Please use language that's appropriate for the library" and "I'll put more paper in the printer." And imagine this person thinking "Please, please ask me an interesting question." It doesn't have to be a very interesting question. I spent a very pleasant half-hour with someone once looking up pictures of vintage washing machines. If it is more interesting than "Where are your tax forms?" I will be DELIGHTED to help.
(At the same time... sometimes I find it shocking how badly I get treated at libraries I visit as a patron, and sometimes I find it shocking how badly patrons get treated at my own library. My library's ONE Yelp review contains a detailed account of the children's librarian yelling at a child for something comparatively minor. Even very well-meaning and non-burned-out staff can have trouble seeing things from a patron's point of view. So there's still a lot to be done on the librarians' part to set our own house in order, customer-service-wise.)
posted by Jeanne at 11:23 AM on April 21, 2016 [25 favorites]
I feel terrible for everyone involved, frustrated librarians and frightened users alike, but to me it's totally alien—as a book-loving foreign-service brat who changed countries every few years, libraries were literally my home away from home, and to this day when I enter a library, even if it's completely new to me, I feel a great wave of peace enter my soul. I could probably spend the rest of my life in a library perfectly happily.
posted by languagehat at 12:16 PM on April 21, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by languagehat at 12:16 PM on April 21, 2016 [13 favorites]
Someone I know who teaches research writing to undergraduates always begins by telling them, "The #1 most important research skill is: ask a librarian." She has a librarian come to visit her class and requires the students to go have a conversation with a librarian as a requirement for the class.
posted by straight at 12:18 PM on April 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by straight at 12:18 PM on April 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
Is this something I would have to have a Blazecock Pileon to appreciate?
posted by ostranenie at 12:20 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ostranenie at 12:20 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Jeanne, oh, yes, that about the asking any question more interesting than the ones we get all the time.
When I was in library jobs with much more walk-in traffic than my current one, the thing I'd say pretty regularly besides "Your questions are what lets me have my job. Yay questions!" was "The thing you are going to ask me is almost certainly more interesting than the thing I'm currently working on, I'd love to help!" It comes off pretty well.
(My current job is only about 15-20 in person library questions a month, so they sometimes come in flurries, but mostly they feel like "Yay, I get to talk to a person I don't see all the time.")
The thing I find fascinating is that I can't actually spend much time in libraries I don't work in before people start asking me if I'm a librarian. (And it's when I'm doing things like browsing shelves or looking things up in the catalog or using the self-check machine not, you know, talking to librarians about professional topics.)
I am always friendly about it, and say "Actually, I am a librarian, but I don't work in this library." and then sometimes I answer their question if it's really quick (on the 'click that link' or 'that button will check it out, yep' level), and otherwise I point them at the nearest librarian.
On a more serious level - there's a fair bit of library research that says for a lot of people the idea of starting research is the most anxiety filled bit for people, and it makes sense to me that talking to librarians would be part of that.
When I was teaching information literacy regularly, I made a point of telling people that, and that it was okay to feel nervous (which often visibly helped) and that I often felt nervous starting a project too, and here's what I did to help (figure out what I needed to accomplish, made some notes about it, gave myself time to flail a little with topics and ideas, that I'd learned that the way my brain worked, I had a better time if I got an assignment, then gave it a couple of days to sit in the back of my head when I had time for that, and then started the research, and they should find the thing that worked for them that let them get their assignments done.) And then I'd talk about citation as a way to demonstrate what you're adding to the conversation (even with 9th graders), which also made a lot of people feel more at home with the idea.
posted by modernhypatia at 12:43 PM on April 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
When I was in library jobs with much more walk-in traffic than my current one, the thing I'd say pretty regularly besides "Your questions are what lets me have my job. Yay questions!" was "The thing you are going to ask me is almost certainly more interesting than the thing I'm currently working on, I'd love to help!" It comes off pretty well.
(My current job is only about 15-20 in person library questions a month, so they sometimes come in flurries, but mostly they feel like "Yay, I get to talk to a person I don't see all the time.")
The thing I find fascinating is that I can't actually spend much time in libraries I don't work in before people start asking me if I'm a librarian. (And it's when I'm doing things like browsing shelves or looking things up in the catalog or using the self-check machine not, you know, talking to librarians about professional topics.)
I am always friendly about it, and say "Actually, I am a librarian, but I don't work in this library." and then sometimes I answer their question if it's really quick (on the 'click that link' or 'that button will check it out, yep' level), and otherwise I point them at the nearest librarian.
On a more serious level - there's a fair bit of library research that says for a lot of people the idea of starting research is the most anxiety filled bit for people, and it makes sense to me that talking to librarians would be part of that.
When I was teaching information literacy regularly, I made a point of telling people that, and that it was okay to feel nervous (which often visibly helped) and that I often felt nervous starting a project too, and here's what I did to help (figure out what I needed to accomplish, made some notes about it, gave myself time to flail a little with topics and ideas, that I'd learned that the way my brain worked, I had a better time if I got an assignment, then gave it a couple of days to sit in the back of my head when I had time for that, and then started the research, and they should find the thing that worked for them that let them get their assignments done.) And then I'd talk about citation as a way to demonstrate what you're adding to the conversation (even with 9th graders), which also made a lot of people feel more at home with the idea.
posted by modernhypatia at 12:43 PM on April 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
> The thing I find fascinating is that I can't actually spend much time in libraries I don't work in before people start asking me if I'm a librarian. [...] I am always friendly about it, and say "Actually, I am a librarian, but I don't work in this library." and then sometimes I answer their question if it's really quick (on the 'click that link' or 'that button will check it out, yep' level), and otherwise I point them at the nearest librarian.
I could say the same thing, substituting "bookstore clerk" for "librarian." For years after I stopped working in bookstores, customers would assume I worked in whatever bookstore I was browsing in and ask me for information. If it was easy and I felt like it, I'd help them, but it sure was weird.
posted by languagehat at 3:39 PM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
I could say the same thing, substituting "bookstore clerk" for "librarian." For years after I stopped working in bookstores, customers would assume I worked in whatever bookstore I was browsing in and ask me for information. If it was easy and I felt like it, I'd help them, but it sure was weird.
posted by languagehat at 3:39 PM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
For years after I stopped working in bookstores, customers would assume I worked in whatever bookstore I was browsing in and ask me for information
this happens to me all the time! it must be some visible cue, like the way we methodically/efficiently browse. or just - I dunno - how *cool* we seem (ha). (I guess some might suggest it's how we judgmentally raise our brows when we see an especially egregious piece of dreck).
posted by j_curiouser at 3:52 PM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
this happens to me all the time! it must be some visible cue, like the way we methodically/efficiently browse. or just - I dunno - how *cool* we seem (ha). (I guess some might suggest it's how we judgmentally raise our brows when we see an especially egregious piece of dreck).
posted by j_curiouser at 3:52 PM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
I absolutely loved my local library, which was one of the old brick Carnegies (the west-side library in Colorado Springs, to be specific) with lots of stone work, including two huge pillars flanking the big double-doored front entrance, and as embodied in the persons of the librarians, it seemed to love me right back; after going there for less than a year, when I went to check out my 3 book limit for the third or fourth time that week, the librarian working the desk plucked my card out of my hand, tore it in half, and issued me a new adult card on the spot.
But I accidentally almost killed myself there one weekend when I was 10. It was Sunday and the library was closed, but I was ineluctably drawn up the stone steps to peer through the window into the dark and cool-looking afternoon sun-shafted interior, and then I looked up and thought about how I'd been telling myself how easy it would be to climb up between one of the pillars and the wall all the way to the top, which was about 25 ft. off the ground, by bracing my back against the bricks and putting my feet against the pillar and essentially shrugging myself upwards.
And it was easy! I reached up and touched the flat surface at the top, but as I started back down, on the first iteration as I transferred my weight to my left foot in preparation for moving my right foot down, the canvas of my nearly new Keds knock-offs ripped away from the sole on the left side right at the ball of my foot. I lurched sharply to the left, but caught myself; the shoe did not come off and I managed to recenter my foot inside, and then inched excruciatingly slowly downward, moving my feet barely three inches at a time and keeping my left leg as perpendicular to the pillar as I could.
When I got to the bottom I was exhausted and just kind of slowly crumpled down onto the stone and slept for a little while (one of my signature actions back then). My parents lips thinned as they noticed yet another pair of shoes destroyed within days of purchase after I got home, but I didn't tell them how, and for the next year and a half they would not buy me any shoes except extremely sturdy little engineer's boots, which I hated. But I still loved the library; maybe even more after that.
posted by jamjam at 4:15 PM on April 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
But I accidentally almost killed myself there one weekend when I was 10. It was Sunday and the library was closed, but I was ineluctably drawn up the stone steps to peer through the window into the dark and cool-looking afternoon sun-shafted interior, and then I looked up and thought about how I'd been telling myself how easy it would be to climb up between one of the pillars and the wall all the way to the top, which was about 25 ft. off the ground, by bracing my back against the bricks and putting my feet against the pillar and essentially shrugging myself upwards.
And it was easy! I reached up and touched the flat surface at the top, but as I started back down, on the first iteration as I transferred my weight to my left foot in preparation for moving my right foot down, the canvas of my nearly new Keds knock-offs ripped away from the sole on the left side right at the ball of my foot. I lurched sharply to the left, but caught myself; the shoe did not come off and I managed to recenter my foot inside, and then inched excruciatingly slowly downward, moving my feet barely three inches at a time and keeping my left leg as perpendicular to the pillar as I could.
When I got to the bottom I was exhausted and just kind of slowly crumpled down onto the stone and slept for a little while (one of my signature actions back then). My parents lips thinned as they noticed yet another pair of shoes destroyed within days of purchase after I got home, but I didn't tell them how, and for the next year and a half they would not buy me any shoes except extremely sturdy little engineer's boots, which I hated. But I still loved the library; maybe even more after that.
posted by jamjam at 4:15 PM on April 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
After years and years spent in libraries where the librarians were wonderful people, I finally ran into a grouch--who turned out to be one of the kindest people I have ever met. I met them on a bad day when the illustrious BoD had booted the library cat out the door without telling the staff until it was a done deed. The library was a poorer place to visit after that.
I also think the library was a poorer place after they moved from the old Carnegie building. The roof continually has problems (roof leaks) in the new building. Original construction and repair let to the lowest bidder. How stupid is that in a building full of books? The old building makes a neat home for the historical museum though.
I enjoy the convience of reading digital books on Overdrive, but I miss the sense of peace and calm inside a library, as well as the tactile experience of handling a book and turning the pages. The grouch died several years ago--I miss him every time I go in to the public library.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:29 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I also think the library was a poorer place after they moved from the old Carnegie building. The roof continually has problems (roof leaks) in the new building. Original construction and repair let to the lowest bidder. How stupid is that in a building full of books? The old building makes a neat home for the historical museum though.
I enjoy the convience of reading digital books on Overdrive, but I miss the sense of peace and calm inside a library, as well as the tactile experience of handling a book and turning the pages. The grouch died several years ago--I miss him every time I go in to the public library.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:29 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hundreds and hundreds of hours spent browsing the stacks of the humanities libraries of my university, and it wasn't until the last semester of my undergrad degree that I discovered the special collections library (tucked away in the back corner of the basement of the library). Forever grateful to the prof of an incredible English lit class. He finagled us a field trip to special collections and we got to examine all sorts of cool stuff. Such was my excitement that I promptly changed the topic of my big paper for that class so that I could spend more time in special collections. The librarians were so delighted to have someone using the materials!
posted by bluebelle at 7:30 PM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by bluebelle at 7:30 PM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
I love Special Collections! I was very fortunate to have many of my professors tell us that "reference librarians are your best friends" and some of the coolest conversations I've ever had were with them. One of them, we talked about their dissertation on wine, and the other, we talked about all the different ways we could research the Rodney King Riots and artistic production during the time. Honestly, sometimes I wish I had less classwork, so I could've spent more time independently reading in the library. Losing access to the university library is really my only real regret from finally graduating from college :(
Also, a lot of libraries are woefully understaffed and under-inspired. My local county library is designed in an awful, brutalist manner, the curation is non-existent, and the librarians look like they're just biding their time, and it's in a very large, very well known Silicon Valley City. I absolutely hated how whenever I looked up anything of interest in that library, that the most they had was of a 3rd grade level...it was horrendous.
30 minutes over, the next county library has won several national awards, is in a bright and airy new space, and has some of the finest curation I've ever seen. I think it's important to think on a larger scale about how important it is to fund and support the expertise of librarians and the libraries themselves, and how the trickle down effect also doesn't apply to them as well.
I would not be surprised if the lack of a very good library, with expert librarians, really affects people's relationship to libraries. Also, the access to libraries through public transportation as well...
posted by yueliang at 9:30 PM on April 21, 2016
Also, a lot of libraries are woefully understaffed and under-inspired. My local county library is designed in an awful, brutalist manner, the curation is non-existent, and the librarians look like they're just biding their time, and it's in a very large, very well known Silicon Valley City. I absolutely hated how whenever I looked up anything of interest in that library, that the most they had was of a 3rd grade level...it was horrendous.
30 minutes over, the next county library has won several national awards, is in a bright and airy new space, and has some of the finest curation I've ever seen. I think it's important to think on a larger scale about how important it is to fund and support the expertise of librarians and the libraries themselves, and how the trickle down effect also doesn't apply to them as well.
I would not be surprised if the lack of a very good library, with expert librarians, really affects people's relationship to libraries. Also, the access to libraries through public transportation as well...
posted by yueliang at 9:30 PM on April 21, 2016
loved my local library...the west-side library in Colorado Springs
this is my library! 719 represent.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:29 AM on April 22, 2016
this is my library! 719 represent.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:29 AM on April 22, 2016
Here are the 10 most common questions you are asked if you work in a public library:
1. Where's the bathroom?
2. What's the name of this library?
3. Do you have a photocopier?
4. Do you have a scanner?
5. Do you have a fax machine?
6. Can I print something?
7. How do I print something?
8. Can I have a guest pass for the computer?
9. Do you have wireless?
10. What's the wireless password?
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:31 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
1. Where's the bathroom?
2. What's the name of this library?
3. Do you have a photocopier?
4. Do you have a scanner?
5. Do you have a fax machine?
6. Can I print something?
7. How do I print something?
8. Can I have a guest pass for the computer?
9. Do you have wireless?
10. What's the wireless password?
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:31 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
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