This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All |  | Author: Marilyn Johnson
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
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Rating:  67 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0061431605
Dewey Decimal Number: 021.2
EAN: 9780061431609
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Product Description
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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Showing reviews 1-5 of 67
 Made me want to go to library school February 18, 2010
Shannon Okey (Cleveland, OH USA)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
I have a weakness for librarians and information science people in general but this book pushed me closer to the edge (I even started looking at the application forms for our local school of library science). Far from being out of touch with today's information needs, librarians are forging ahead on our behalf in ways a lot of us don't even know about. The story of the librarians who defied the Patriot Act and FBI nonsense to keep their patrons' reading lists out of the hands that don't need to have them was fantastic -- a high point of the book. In addition, I felt real sadness when the author described the more obscure departments of the New York Public Library scheduled for closure. In short, this book will give you a peek not only into the current activities of information professionals today, but a hint of what's to come.
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a librarian! February 20, 2010
Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA)
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
I'm not sure why I picked out Marilyn Johnson's This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. Perhaps it's because my two best friends are librarians. Or it could be because I've always had a secret desire to be a librarian myself. In any case, I have a new appreciation for libraries and librarians. Johnson got the idea for this book while writing her first book, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries. In her research, she discovered that the most interesting obituaries were of librarians.
Traditionally, librarians were considered to be bookish, inhibited, dull, anti-technology and concerned mostly with shelving and cataloging books. The librarians of today are tech-savvy, cutting-edge, quirky, innovative, outgoing, and helpful. Modern librarians have to think outside the box (or the book, for that matter). "The profession that had once been the quiet gatekeeper to discreet palaces of knowledge is now wrestling a raucous, multi-headed, madly multiplying beast of exploding information and information delivery systems." Johnson chronicles how libraries and librarians have changed over a few short decades. I first thought this book was written primarily for librarians, but was I wrong!
Just as librarians have changed, so have libraries. Instead of musty, quiet places housing collections of books and periodicals, libraries today are active, exciting places with computers, cafes, programs, book clubs, films, art shows and displays. It was librarians who had the vision for these changes. Perhaps the most cutting-edge are the virtual libraries of today. Found on the internet, these libraries are run by actual librarians (using fake screen names and avatars). One of the most famous is run by the Alliance Library System in Illinois. Two months after a call for volunteers, A Land of Lincoln was created offering "a virtual, historically accurate, 1860s White House, replete with period furniture; a Civil War graveyard; a Union encampment; the village of Lincolnshire...Abe's Springfield home, recreated from the original plans; and a plantation like the one where Mary Todd Lincoln spent her early life." There are also links to period information including recipes, popular novels, Lincoln cartoons, etc. The things that can be created in virtual libraries are mind-boggling.
While there was much humor to be found in this book, one sobering chapter detailed how four Connecticut librarians stood up to the government and the Patriot Act (and won).
Johnson gets bonus points for mentioning my great-great uncle, boxer Iron-Jaw Joe Grim. While she claims that he was the worst boxer in the history of boxing, his claim to fame was not his won-loss record but the fact that no boxer could knock him out--until late in his career.
Johnson writes that librarians today are "information professionals, teachers, police, community organizers, computer technicians, historians, confidents, clerks, social workers, storytellers." After reading This Book is Overdue, I will never look at librarians in quite the same way.
A Love Letter to Librarians February 15, 2010
Andrew Shaffer (Davenport, Iowa)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
THIS BOOK IS OVERDUE! is a book that is, well, overdue. It's a celebration of librarians and all that they do: Research, civil liberty defense, and dozens of other tasks beyond the scope of checking books in and out. It's a love letter to the profession that should open a lot of eyes to what goes on behind librarians' stereotypically thick-rimmed glasses.
The book is more humorous and informal than the subtitle, "How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All," suggests. It took a couple of chapters for me to realize that this isn't an academic defense of librarians--there is no thesis or supporting evidence to be found. Instead, Marilyn Johnson takes the reader on an informal jaunt through the weird and wacky world of librarians with the tone and style of a memoir.
After I finished the book, I realized that Johnson never did answer the question in the subtitle. How WILL librarians save us all? Because they're awesome, according to the author. That may not be the substantial evidence that every reader is after, but it doesn't diminish the fact that THIS BOOK IS OVERDUE is, as Publisher's Weekly writes, "a must-read for anyone who's used a library in the past quarter century."
I loved this book! March 22, 2010
Margaret Dybala (Pearland, Texas United States)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Almost everyone has a stereotype that comes to mind with the word "librarian." For some, it is a stern lady, in cat-eye glasses, saying "SHSHSHSH!" For some, it is a wonderful, magical person who led story hour back in elementary school. And for others, it may be a memory of the remarkable person who gave incredibly helpful assistance during a research project, explaining the tools while providing the information.
Truthfully, there are librarians in all these categories. More and more, they fulfill new roles (or old roles restructured) that envision them not as gatekeepers so much as wonderful guides, proactive in the extension of library and educational services online,guardians of personal privacy for their users, and just generally all around interesting people.
I loved the little vignettes in this book about some of the charming library eccentricities that go with a profession that has always had a sense of humor about itself. I also loved the stories of the truly heroic activities of some librarians to bring information to communities around the world, and also to protect our fundamental rights as citizens.
I particularly loved the little section on weird stuff that happens in libraries. I worked as a reference clerk when I went to college, and I can tell you that you just wouldn't believe what goes on in libraries. People are truly strange sometimes. All the librarians I knew had a rather compassionate take on most of it.
My favorite personal librarian stories? When I was around 5 yrs old, we knew a wonderful elderly military base librarian who sent over 1,000 christmas cards each year to former patrons who had shipped out. She was a grandmother surrogate to all these young sailors who adored her. Later, when I worked in libraries, I remembered her interaction with me and I always tried to be patient with children -- giving them the same sort of keep-busy supplies she would give me while my mom browsed.
Second: when I took my first lit course in college and had no idea how to research a paper (pre-web days). It was a librarian who took me in hand and showed me the journals, explaining to me how I would use them. She was wonderful.
Finally, I just loved how this book is put together. The author obviously loves librarians and their work. I recommend this book very highly to anyone who loves libraries and who might be interested in the future of libraries.
This book must be checked out by everyone! March 12, 2010
Patricia A. Murphy (Michigan)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson should be read by everyone who has ever worked for a library, in any capacity...and then it should be read by everyone who hasn't, but who has ever been in one. This book proves how inestimable libraries and librarians are to the public and that a library is much, much more than a building with books. It - and they - are the best value we have and must be treasured as such. By all means, buy this book. Read it and pass it around!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 67
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