A biblioblogger visits the local branch library
Wed 7 Jun 2006, 9:25 pm
If you know who shameless self-promoter and alpha geek Cory Doctorow is, and/or you read boingboing, you may find the little skit Cory Doctorow visits a Radio Shack funny. I know that I did. (If you don’t know who he is, skip it. It’s one big inside joke.)
As soon as I read it, I thought, “I need to rip off pay homage to this funny scene by re-writing it as ‘A biblioblogger visits the local branch library.’”
It’s meant in fun, and I’m not trying to parody any one of us in particular: l’biblioblogger c’est moi, as Flaubert never said.
A biblioblogger visits the local branch library
(SCENE: a small suburban branch of a public library. BRANCH LIBRARIAN is at the reference desk. BIBLIOBLOGGER enters with laptop.)
BIBLIOBLOGGER: Hey, I’m a new librarian in town and thought I’d stop by and introduce myself. Perhaps you know my blog, Library 3.0 Has a Posse? Where can I get the feed for your library blog?
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: I’m afraid we don’t have a blog.
BIBLIOBLOGGER: Oh, you have already moved on to podcasting, then?
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: No, I do our webpages in Microsoft FrontPage.
BIBLIOBLOGGER: (chokes) Whoa! Maybe someday that will be old skool, but right now that is just perverse. We’ll hop on #code4lib and get you hooked up with a Drupal-based open-source CMS portal authoring environment that validates to XHTML 1.1 but is fully backwards-compatible and future-proof.
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: Thanks?
BIBLIOBLOGGER: (opening laptop) Don’t mention it. Hey the wi-fi signal in here is weak.
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: I’m sorry, we don’t have wireless.
BIBLIOBLOGGER: OK, well, let me run my Portable Firefox from my USB drive on one of your public-access computers…
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: We don’t allow patrons to use USB drives. The IT guys won’t let us. MySpace and IM are blocked, too.
BIBLIOBLOGGER: Say no more. I understand. Just give me a Google Map to the IT guy’s home and I’ll get Sauers to rub him out. When are people going to realize that if they don’t “get it,” they are going to “GET IT,” know what I mean? I’m sure you are on Flickr though?
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: Yes, I have to apologize for that, we were supposed to have someone come in to look at the lights last week.
BIBLIOBLOGGER: No, not “flicker”–Flickr! It’s where you can share photos of all the great activities you are doing here. I’ll show you the photos of my Livin’ Large Print hip-hop night for seniors program at my last library. Have you thought of having a Marshall Stacks in the Fiction Stacks heavy metal night here?
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: I don’t think we are zoned for that…
BIBLIOBLOGGER: Ajax del.icio.us OPML Creative Commons radical trust mashup widget!
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: What?
BIBLIOBLOGGER: I didn’t say anything. So just how much does your OPAC suck?
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: Excuse me?
BIBLIOBLOGGER: Oh, don’t be self-conscious about it. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, OPACs gotta suck. Man, the last library I was at, we had the suckiest OPAC to ever suck! I was gonna replace it with a wiki and just let the users catalog the collection.
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: We do have some online innovations here. We allow patrons to pay fines online via PayPal.
BIBLIOBLOGGER: You still have fines? I’m sorry, my friend, but the Cluetrain is about to pull into the station, and you are looking like Anna Karenina, if you get my drift.
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: Ah! A literary allusion! Yes, I understand perfectly, though I’m not flattered.
BIBLIOBLOGGER: Hey, don’t take offense. Tell you what, I’m doing a thing in Second Life tomorrow called Exhuming the Paleolibrary that is designed for people just like you. Have your avatar ping my avatar and we can have Second Lunch.
BRANCH LIBRARIAN: That sounds…fascinating.
CODA:
BIBLIOBLOGGER: Um, where is the bathroom?
- License:
- File under: Blogs and blogging,Library
- Comments? 28
Man, I wish I had people like that coming up to me in the library!
Comment by joshua m. neff — June 8, 2006 @ 6:20 am
Mmmmm… second lunch… :)
See! I told you that you were funny! OMG, that just made my morning! You really should be writing satire with the Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette folks.
But it really is true that we can get so out of touch with what the majority of librarians are doing. If I went to my local library and asked them about blogs (much less any of that other stuff!), I would definitely get a lot of blank stares. Hey, as long as they’re doing their best to meet the needs of their patrons, I don’t care what tools they use to get there.
Comment by Meredith — June 8, 2006 @ 7:51 am
Steve, that cracked me up! Hot tea, right out the nose!
Meredith, I guess my comment would be are we supposed to be in touch with librarians or users.
Comment by K.G. Schneider — June 8, 2006 @ 9:08 am
Thanks, all.
I’d say we need to stay in touch with users and fellow librarians. I was saying to Laura Crossett via IM the other day that I thought that “suck” or “sucky” was attaching itself to “OPAC” like an Homeric epithet: you have your rosy-fingered dawn, your resourceful Odysseus, and your sucky OPAC. But that might not be the best place to start with someone who hasn’t been following the discussion on the blogs and email lists. You gotta know your audience.
Which is not to say that the current state of library catalogs is not one of rampant suckitude.
Comment by Steve Lawson — June 8, 2006 @ 9:22 am
Totally hilarious!
As long as librarians are in touch w/ the needs of their paticular users and trying meet them, and making some effort to see what other folks are doing, everything is cool. What works of the most innovative libraries/ communities is definitely not going to work everywhere.
Comment by dave — June 8, 2006 @ 9:47 am
O.k., kind of an aside, but riddle me this: how is it that when *I* used the term “suck” with OPACs, ALA got indignant mail (from male librarians no less) about my “language”? Is this a gender thing going on? Do you ever get called on that term?
Comment by K.G. Schneider — June 8, 2006 @ 9:51 am
Karen, I remember many years ago Berke Breathed got indignant mail about a character’s use of “sucks” in Bloom County. “What,” the reader wanted to know, “should I tell my child who says ‘sucks what?’” Breathed’s answer was something like “Sucks rocks. I thought everyone knew that.”
Actually, I do try to watch my language around here, given that the blog is hosted by my library/college. A quick search shows that when I use that word, I’m almost always quoting someone. The exception? You guessed it: in referring to the OPAC. Modern-day epithet, I’m telling you, and you are responsible, KGS.
Comment by Steve Lawson — June 8, 2006 @ 10:03 am
Karen, I never thought “sucks” was a naughty word, but I must’ve been wrong, because someone in your comments (not mentioning any names) starred out the word as if it were a curse word.
Maybe we should just shorten it all to “OSUCs”? Like, “My library’s OSUC needs a serious upgrade!”
Comment by joshua m. neff — June 8, 2006 @ 10:10 am
And another thing (she said, eyes roaming wildly, spittle forming at the corners of her mouth…): your piece is drop-dead funny but much of the humor comes from recognizing that the “opac sux” message hasn’t really resonated throughout LibraryLand just yet. I have had directors proudly trot me to their brand-new hideously nonfunctional catalog. “What do you think,” they ask, and I sez, sez I, “Why is the relevance ranking so poor?” Ah, but look at the acquisitions module, and the this, and the that…
So what may seem ubiquitous to us has barely begun to filter down. Part of good marketing is repeating a statement to the point of saturation. By that time you’re sick of it, but that’s not the point. :-)
Comment by K.G. Schneider — June 8, 2006 @ 10:33 am
Being as Illinois is also known as the “Sucker State” (and I forget exactly why) … I can assure you that all of our OPACs suck.
I just not sure, though, that better “first try” L2 functionality is gonna help ma and pa sixpack find the older best-seller they *know* must be on the shelves.
Comment by Bob Watson — June 8, 2006 @ 11:51 am
Hey, where’s the link love, Lawson? (I just had to throw that alliteration in there.) I was taught not to say “suck,” but clearly, I’ve fallen.
Good stuff!
Comment by Laura Crossett — June 8, 2006 @ 4:03 pm
Link love? You mean my imaginary friend Laura Crossett? Like that?
Comment by Steve Lawson — June 8, 2006 @ 4:14 pm
Oh! I feel so valued now!
Comment by Laura — June 8, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
Oh, let me borrow the Living Large Print dance night–well, afternoon–for my ward of geriatric patients. Much enjoyed, though some of it goes past as though seen through a glass darkly…
Comment by Laura's mom — June 8, 2006 @ 5:24 pm
Karen,
You asked “are we supposed to be in touch with librarians or users” – the answer is both. I think that by keeping up with other librarians and making connections in the field you will have access to more resources. This means you can better serve your users. Also, if your users are not the kind to share or provide feedback, other librarians can tell you what their users are asking for.
Steve – great post!!
Comment by Nicole — June 9, 2006 @ 8:28 am
Thanks, Laura’s mom. If you do the Living Large Print night, be sure and take photos.
Comment by Steve Lawson — June 9, 2006 @ 9:39 am
Can you puhleez email your post to the IT goddess at MPOW without implicating me? I just got shot down for wireless (difficult and expensive it turns out?) . My suggestion that staff “blogs” (and I use the term loosely even though they are on Blogger) could allow staff comments met with stony stares all around. Well, at least I know it’s the good fight, and somewhere, someone is rooting for me and my little library’s customers.
Comment by lislemck — June 10, 2006 @ 10:50 am
My library mostly isn’t up on current trends, but you won’t find many there who don’t agree that our OPAC sucks. :D
Comment by Cheryl — June 11, 2006 @ 11:18 am
Oh, and Steve, I made a button for you: http://freerangelibrarian.com/2006/06/my_opac_sucks_button.php
Comment by K.G. Schneider — June 12, 2006 @ 11:10 am
Excellent. Just as much fun, similar context, substantial food for thought for any librarian: “Rainbow’s (sic) End” by Vernor Vinge.
Comment by R Bruce Miller — June 12, 2006 @ 1:44 pm
How funny! I just printed out a list of sites we aren’t using in our library that I think our students would love – Pandora, Flickr! just to name a couple, but unfortunately I have to get support from our Ref. Librarian and our Director – both suggested we let our Mass Communication Dept know about these resources rather than include them on our website!
Comment by Joanie — June 13, 2006 @ 11:33 am
Joanie, you may have already thought of this, but you could take photos at your library’s next event, or of the next new display, etc. and post them to your Flickr account. Then make a group with the photos and nice descriptions and everything and show the boss how easy it is to make a mini-online-exhibit or PR piece.
If that advice gets you fired, you will find this comment to be mysteriously missing from the blog.
Or maybe you need a new job with a more with-it Director: Bruce, are you hiring at Merced?
Comment by Steve Lawson — June 13, 2006 @ 1:34 pm
Ooh! Thanks for the mention! I kept not reading this and should have done so earlier. A thousand mia culpas…
Comment by Michael Sauers — June 14, 2006 @ 8:35 am
Sure thing, Michael. Glad you don’t mind being cast as the enforcer. I’m sure you wouldn’t really rub anyone out. Maybe wipe out their hard drive with your suspicious little USB drive, but not actually kill anyone. Right?
Comment by Steve Lawson — June 14, 2006 @ 9:25 am
Maybe wack them upside the head with my jumpdrive but without the intention to kill ;-)
Comment by Michael Sauers — June 14, 2006 @ 9:27 am
This is a painful truth for me to swallow. As a small rural library’s director, and a digital immigrant from a third-world country (57 yrs old from Northern New Hampshire), I see myself in the branch librarian’s ignorance and resistant attitude. To experience through humor, wincing, just how wide the gap is between my seat-of-pants skills and limited resources, and you wild and crazy and sophisticated bloggers out there is daunting.
Comment by Jay, Yikes' mom — June 28, 2006 @ 1:50 pm
Aw, I hope I didn’t write the branch librarian to sound resistant. I thought of him/her as someone who just isn’t a radical trust mashup widget kind of person. S/he might be an expert in local history or have a gift for readers’ advisory or be able to read a story in a way to enchant a roomful of kids or raise bucketloads of money. I believe it takes all kinds of librarians to make a successful library.
And too much “wild and crazy and sophisticated” can be enough to make you want to throw up.
Comment by Steve Lawson — June 28, 2006 @ 10:40 pm
The branch librarian comes off perfectly as a reasonable professional baffled by the jargon-burbling biblioblogger (who is trying, but abysmally failing, to explain interesting services in a way mere mortals can understand). The humor comes from the gulf of the disconnect. Yike’s Mom shouldn’t feel bad; the joke’s not on her!
Comment by K.G. Schneider — June 28, 2006 @ 10:58 pm