Monday, July 19, 2010

This Book is Overdue!


This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
by Marilyn Johnson [020.23 Joh]

Since I had really enjoyed Johnson's earlier book, The Dead Beat, and I've worked in libraries for 30 years, I presumed I would love her look at the world of today's librarians. Oddly, I found this one a bit disappointing, but perhaps that's an "insider's" perspective. Johnson touches on the history of librarianship, but primarily focuses on the world of libraries and, specifically, librarians of today...a world of constantly changing information-based landscapes and services. As with her obits book before, Johnson's greatest strength is her ability to find the quirky and expand what could have been a mere anecdote into a story with substance. In this book, the best parts for me were about blogging librarians around the world, a distance-learning program to assist Third World librarians, the virtual world of Second Life libraries, and an exploration of the difference between librarians and archivists. If you're curious about why librarians are still necessary in the days of Google, ebooks and diminishing fiscal resources, give this one a try! [If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Dead Beat, the earlier book by this author.] -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ official This Book is Overdue! web site ]

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

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