You Shouldn't Feel Bad about Being a Librarian

I was listening to WBUR in the car last weekend, as I am wont to do, and heard a piece (http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2010/02/19/08) that immediately sparked my interest. Brooke Gladstone was talking to Marilyn Johnson, author of This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. (Johnson is also the author of The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries). I'm a librarian so I'm a little biased, but I think it's about a time for a book like this. Librarians are next to independent booksellers in godliness. I've worked the public reference desk so most of the revelations in Johnson's book don't surprise me. We've heard all the stereotypes about the shy, retiring, repressed lady behind the desk with her nose in a book. Well, Johnson is here to obliterate that misconception. As Christopher Buckley blurbs…"move over Google, make way for the indispensable and all-knowing lady behind the desk". In the detritus that is the result of the big bang of the digital age we need librarians now more than ever. They are the guardians of the individual's right to privacy, they are proactive, creative, imaginative, discerning and best of all their services are free! I'll get off the soapbox now but if you are a closet librarian and want to check out this title you should be able to find it on the Staff Picks shelf in March.