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How Librarians And Cybrarians Can Save Us All
Harper
February 2010
On Sale: February 1, 2010
288 pages
ISBN: 0061431605
EAN: 9780061431609
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Buried in info? Cross-eyed over technology? From the bottom
of a pile of paper and discs, books, e-books, and scattered
thumb drives comes a cry of hope: Make way for the
librarians! They want to help. They're not selling a thing.
And librarians know best how to beat a path through the
googolplex sources of information available to us, writes
Marilyn Johnson, whose previous book, The Dead Beat,
breathed merry life into the obituary-writing profession.
This Book Is Overdue! is a romp through the
ranks of information professionals and a revelation for
readers burned out on the clichÉs and stereotyping of
librarians. Blunt and obscenely funny bloggers spill their
stories in these pages, as do a tattooed, hard-partying
children's librarian; a fresh-scrubbed Catholic couple who
teach missionaries to use computers; a blue-haired radical
who uses her smartphone to help guide street protestors; a
plethora of voluptuous avatars and cybrarians; the quiet,
law-abiding librarians gagged by the FBI; and a boxing
archivist. These are just a few of the visionaries Johnson
captures here, pragmatic idealists who fuse the tools of the
digital age with their love for the written word and the
enduring values of free speech, open access, and
scout-badge-quality assistance to anyone in need.
Those who predicted the death of libraries forgot to
consider that in the automated maze of contemporary life,
none of us—neither the experts nor the hopelessly
baffled—can get along without human help. And not just any
help—we need librarians, who won't charge us by the
question or roll their eyes, no matter what we ask. Who are
they? What do they know? And how quickly can they save us
from being buried by the digital age?
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