ALA press release touts student loan forgiveness for librarians in low income areas while managing to hype the librarian shortage we’re all still wondering about and gives a tip of the hat to Laura Bush. I looked for more information on the Librarian Education and Development Act in several places online and could not find specific reference to the information the press release discussed. Anyone else? [update: you guys scare me sometimes, you’re so fast with this – here’s the link, and here’s another one]
Tag: laurabush
food for thinking about libraries
This weekend has seen lots of good thoughtful pieces on libraries, their purpose and their use. I’ve been reading them all [and making my edible book] so I haven’t been writing here. Here is a short list, in one post, of things I think you should go back and read:
- read about ALA giving a citation to Laura Bush thanking her for being a “tireless supporter” of libraries, read some ALA Council emails [here’s mine] on the subject, then finish up with Mike McGrorty’s piece.
- Read Chuck’s post and follow-up about technophilia and the changing role of libraries. Pay attention to the comments, and also see how this is rippling through the blogosphere, in places like Meredith’s blog and Librarians Happen. There are a lot of good thoughtful statements and comments circling around this issue.
- Read more Michael McGrorty as a bit of a palate cleanser to get back to books for a bit before you re-enter the rest of the busy world of blogs, computers and everything else.
I must confess that the reason I went to library school was more in the way of understanding the system and its operators than anything else. I thought they must possess some secret, something essential that I might discover and come away with. In the end, I found that it was nothing more than a set of skills set atop the same understanding of the library that I kept; half of me was a librarian all along. Sometimes I have seen it as love, other times as an obsession, but whatever it may be, the devotion to books and reading has saved me from worse fates, and the library, that temple of the book, has been my church, my rock and comfort since I was old enough to walk the stacks.
It’s weekends like this, at the end of National Library Week, that make me happiest to be working in and among libraries.
quoted librarian explains herself
My pal Andrea got quoted by the Houston Chronicle talking about what Laura Bush the former librarian, should be telling her husband. She explains herself further in this post.