Comments on: Where Do Libraries Go To Die?

By: Where Do Libraries Go To Die? | Library Stuff

Where Do Libraries Go To Die? | Library Stuff — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:40:13 +0000

[...] Owen Strachan – “I feel for librarians. This is a tough age. Trained to share a passion for one of the sweetest specimens of common grace, books, today many librarians find themselves as little more than Internet monitors, reduced to pulling up pages of vacuous celebrities to kindle even the slightest spark of interest in their students. This spark, of course, cannot possibly last for more time than it takes a synapse to fire. The librarian–what does that term even mean in this digital age?–is thus a mere custodian of the hyper-short attention spans of her students. Ironically, she was trained to be the very opposite, to be one of the few voices in youth culture that urges “reading” and “thinking”–technical terms, I know–on youth.” [...]

By: Donna Strachan

Donna Strachan — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:01:52 +0000

Indeed it is discouraging, at times, to be a librarian these days but personally speaking, I’m not giving up! I still have students who enjoy reading and it is always a highlight of my day when I can help a young person connect with the “just right” book….and have that same student return the book two weeks later with a “thanks, that was a great book. Do you have anything else like it?”
—from Owen’s mother, a librarian

By: Yikes! We’re a speed bump on the information highway | SCHOOL LIBRARIES: THE STEAK AND THE SIZZLE

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:03:11 +0000

[...] Cohen on his blog Library Stuff points to a posting made by Owen Strachan’s blog posting “Where do Libraries Go to Die?” which has the following quotation: I feel for librarians. This is a tough age. Trained to share a [...]

By: Matt Ostercamp

Matt Ostercamp — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:29:45 +0000

Maybe the video arcade? Gaming, especially video gaming has been all the rage in libraries the past couple of years as libraries desperately try to get the attention of teens and young adults.

I’m not sure academic libraries are faring much better. The important thing (IMHO) is not saving libraries per se, but saving the culture of reading carefully and thinking critically and creatively. We can not let research become simply copying and pasting marginally related material from Google’s database of 7 million books.

-Matt (a librarian at TEDS)