Category Archives: Librarians

Seriously?

Librarians for Palin? Are you high? She threatened to fire one of us for not doing her bidding and you think this is the sort of person who deserves to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? When that heartbeat … Continue reading

Posted in Librarians, Politics, The Election That Will Never End | 2 Comments

To Librarian or Not To Librarian

Reader Anon writes: I was hoping I could pick your brain a bit. I’ve been thinking about getting a grad degree in library/information science. It would be a second career after nine years as a journalist. Would you mind if … Continue reading

Posted in Librarians | 1 Comment

Not-So-Balanced Libraries

Previously on The Invisible Library: After discovering that a two year old blog post of mine had been citied in a book on how to make libraries work better in the web 2.0 world, I wondered aloud about the context … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Librarians, The Land of Suede Elbow Pads, Web 2.Oh Really? | 2 Comments

Where Are Blogs Bred? In the Heart Or In the Head?

Last night, I was searching Amazon for something completely unrelated* and happened upon this book, Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change, by Walt Crawford. The author is trying to find the middle ground between the old school library way … Continue reading

Posted in Books, By the Power of the Interweb!, Librarians, The Land of Suede Elbow Pads | 2 Comments

Robbing The Cradle Of Civilization

Like everyone and everything else in Iraq, the National Library and Archives have had a rough go of it since the Occupation: The sacking of the library that began April 11, 2003, was a bad one. The current Director of … Continue reading

Posted in Librarians, Library News, War! | Comments Off

“You Keep Using This Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.”

There was an interesting discussion over at Boing Boing earlier about libraries and how they handle books on the occult. Cecile Dubuis wrote a master’s dissertation for University College London titled “Libraries & The Occult.” I’ve only read bits of … Continue reading

Posted in File Under: Unicorns, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means, Librarians | Comments Off

Great Moments In the History of Technical Services

Greatest History Ever: 537 B.C. The National Library of Babylon, finally switching to papyrus, ceases maintaining its clay tablet shelflist, but is unable to discard it for nostalgic reasons. Two years later, under seige by the Persians, the city finds … Continue reading

Posted in By the Power of the Interweb!, Librarians | 3 Comments

Checking Out a Library Ghost

Via a commenter over at Phil Plait’s blog (where he’s discussing a wing ding of a doomsday prophet) I found this story of a Spooooky Library Ghost: MOREHEAD CITY –There are strange things happening in the stacks of the Morehead … Continue reading

Posted in Librarians | 5 Comments

The Endless Library

James Grimmelmann has written a paper outlining a coherent information policy for Borges’ Library of Babel.(PDF version here) He compares it’s vastness and multitudes, which contain not just all books in the universe but all possible books (including impossible and … Continue reading

Posted in Librarians, Literature | 1 Comment

And Take Your Flappers With You!

Not satisfied with mangling facts and figures about Google, Information Retrieval Systems or the Internet in general, in his latest rant, Michael Gorman sets his sights on the big fish: Wikipedia. It’s really always been about Wikipedia for him. Trashing … Continue reading

Posted in Librarians, Library News, Michael Gorman Vs. The World, Technology | 2 Comments