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This Book Is Overdue! : How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All / Marilyn Johnson
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This book is an interesting collection of essays that offer glimpses into the brave new world of librarianship. It’s sort of the antithesis of Nicholson Baker’s grumpy dissing of librarians in his 2001 book Doublefold. If you thought that librarians are still the be-bunned shushing ladies in wool skirts with reading glasses dangling around their necks on slender gold chains, then this book certainly is overdue for you. The author shows how librarians are morphing and adapting to the new information landscape, meeting new challenges with fewer resources and a public that wants instant gratification in clicks-and-mortar libraries. Meet librarians who offer triage reference services in streets filled with protesters and others who assume alternate identities and inhabit virtual libraries in the cyber universe called Second Life. Learn about how the venerable New York Public Library System is meeting the challenges of today’s information landscape in exciting and also some disheartening ways. This is a glimpse into some state-of-the-art library practice exercised by some cutting edge practitioners, but the book was probably already dated when it was published, such is the nature of the profession in 2010. This book may be “overdue,” but it probably also has a very short shelf life. Read it while it's still fresh. ©Ken Vesey, 6 Apr 2010

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