Collection Development for My Random Life.

I love that reading an interesting book can make you late for work…  it almost did for me this week,  especially because it is from a favorite author (Aimee Bender).

I wonder how many work hours are lost to reading either through lateness or wasting time while on the clock? Perhaps if workers couldn’t read they would work harder?

You are reading the blog… www.l1brar1an.com

Tags: reading

My Maverick Bar: A Search for Identity and the “Real Work” of Librarianship | In the Library with the Lead Pipe.

My colleague Kim has written a great reflective piece on what it is to be an academic librarian today. Her personal take is to connect libraries with Knowledge. Yes, Knowledge with a capital “K”.

“I see no work in librarianship more real than the collection, protection, and dissemination of Knowledge, and the empowerment of others in means to acquire it”

For me, I feel that librarians would fine great value in undertaking more deep reflection like this. I have heard more often then I would like to hear that there is no need for theory in librarianship… that there is no such thing as a philosophy of librarianship. I think to some degree we, as a profession,  have lost sight of what it means to be a librarian and what it means to do the work of a library. Instead of simply the management of resources, personnel, access points and budgets as the constraining influences which provide the direction a library should take, we definitely should dig deep and figure out what the purpose of library is, and should be, even if this goes against the prevailing thought of “keeping up appearances” or “return on investment”. Not only should we make libraries relevant… or perhaps Relevant (with capital “R”), we also need to make libraries meaningful… er… Meaningful.  This Meaning is not only to the individual patron, but to the community, society at large, as well as the profession and discipline of librarianship. One of the only ways I know to tap into that is to be reflective and truly philosophical in order to provide the truest insight into the direction of a library and the meaningfulness of the work and activities that occur within its purview.

Kudos to Kim for a great post.

Tags: coherence, context, librarians, libraries, meaning, philosophy

So I was wearing my “Reading is Sexy” pin this weekend and this lady clerk at the convenience store says, “You must read a-lot!”

Well, obviously!

You too, can be this sexy… just pick up a book.

From: www.l1brar1an.com … of course!

Tags: reading