This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
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This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
by
3.44 of 5 stars

Buried in info? Cross-eyed over technology? From the bottom of a pile of paper and discs, books, e-books, and scattered thumb drives comes a cr... read full description


reviews

Apr 18, 2010
Pam rated it: 3 of 5 stars
Who knew there were librarian fan boys! As one myself, I guess I shouldn't be surprised but this woman wrote an entire book about the changing nature of librarians and the information world. You really have to be into finding out stuff or keeping stuff in a codified way in order to love this book. However it gives an excellent, comprehensive view of the librarian world today, from community-use librarians and their struggles with circulation systems to research librarians and the role of the w More...
1 comment like (2 people liked it)
Jan 01, 2011
Julia rated it: 5 of 5 stars
I'm a book lover, a library-holic (no 12- step programs for this!) and when I visit my or any library I love talking with the librarians. So when I saw this on the shelf I had to borrow it!

This non-fiction is about the superhuman job librarians and archivists perform to preserve, protect and make accessible our culture, our knowledge, our values.
David Smith was a reference librarian at NYPL whose mission it was to help writers find the data they needed in the enormous referenc More...
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
Jan 02, 2012
Brian rated it: 2 of 5 stars
As a recent MLIS graduate and new library professional, I approached this book with the anticipation that I would read a book that would serve as a standard bearer for my profession and bring all the vital functions that libraries provide to the attention of a wider audience. Here was our champion sounding the clarion call for a profession that has historically been unappreciated and certainly underfunded. Perhaps this book would explain to the world at least what we really do.
Perhaps my ex More...
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Jan 07, 2012
Susanne rated it: 3 of 5 stars
My 3-star rating is somewhat misleading - some chapters were 5-star worthy, such as the one about the Connecticut 4 who challenged the Patriot Act and an account of a collaboration between reference librarians and artists. The book also includes some of the best and most eloquent defenses I've heard of the value of libraries in the 21st century and some good thoughts on technology and libraries. But at other points Johnson veered off into a weird obsession with Second Life, got sidetracked by a More...
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Nov 22, 2011
Agatha rated it: 3 of 5 stars
An ode to libraries and librarians. A fun and interesting read for any library-lover. I learned a lot. I would have changed two things, however: 1) the organization of the book: it was a bit too episodic and vignette-ish for my personal tastes; my brain kept trying to impose some other sort of logical order upon it, and failing. (However, this format does lend itself to reading chapters in any particular order, however you feel like it, whenever you feel like it, so, if you are ever in the More...
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Oct 08, 2011
Richard rated it: 3 of 5 stars
One full star off for snarky reference to avoiding dog ownership and absence of similar judgment on cat-ownership's insanity.

I thoroughly enjoyed (most of) this book. It's true that I'm a recent re-convert to library usage, after many years of avoiding them because of one old prune-faced, pursey-lipped hag's humiliation of me: She wouldn't let twelve-year-old me check out Stranger in a Strange Land "because it has S-E-X in it" until my mother approved. Mama's rejoinder to t More...
0 comments like (3 people liked it)
Sep 27, 2011
Dusty rated it: 5 of 5 stars
With the question of the future of libraries on the line in the minds of some, Johnson’s book is a timely work that sheds light on the wildly diverse world of librarianship. Some argue that the library is an antiquated institution that is not necessary in the world of the iPad, ebooks, and Google Books. However, Johnson illustrates the diverse ways that librarians and other information professionals serve the research needs of their users–often in the most unexpected ways. From a unique program More...
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
Sep 06, 2011
Heather rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I felt like a lot of the writing was either not very interesting or not to the point - for instance, the author spends a lot of time describing her personal experiences (walking around the streets, meeting someone in a bar) or the interiors of buildings she visits. If you've ever seen an office or a library in your life, those parts get pretty tedious, and the experiential parts could have been written in a way that it was more like a travelogu More...
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Jul 23, 2011
Elizabeth rated it: 3 of 5 stars
"Are librarians obsolete in the age of Google? Librarians are more important than ever" (Johnson). It is a great book that reminds us of the wonderful things librarians can do for you. It is helpful professionally and personally. From universal literacy to "information scientists" to blogs & wikis to organization and navigation to special collections to the virtual library, librarians are "invaluable and indispensable: they want to help." "They want to help us. More...
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Jul 05, 2011
Kimberly rated it: 2 of 5 stars
Not my favorite style of book--lots of interesting, but somewhat random stories. Some of the stories were pretty cool, but I also came away from the book feeling like I'll be a failure in life if I'm not some over-the-top amazing librarian who changes the world!!! Those stories and people are cool, but to some extent, they're the exception, not the norm. We can't all take on the Supreme Court by disregarding an FBI letter and challenging the Patriot Act. If we get the opportunity, great, but man More...
1 comment like (1 person liked it)
May 01, 2011
Stefanie rated it: 2 of 5 stars
I wanted to like this book. I enjoyed the author's previous book, The Dead Beat, on obituaries, and I really, truly love libraries and librarians (hi, Mom and Nina!). I spend way too much of my time looking stuff up--I feel like an aspiring reference librarian sometimes. That being said, ugh. There were times when interesting information was imparted, and I think the discovery on these pages of a blog named The Lipstick Librarian might almost be worth the price of admission. However, the author More...
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Apr 16, 2011
Dan rated it: 2 of 5 stars
Marilyn’s a librarian wannabe and wrote a book about how wonderful, magnificent and interesting librarians are. How cool, how hip, how with-it, how important they are in the new information age. I believe it, and I’m deeply on her side, but it felt a bit like she was working very hard to convince the reader of their intrinsic wonderfulness. Problem is, they’re not that exciting. Reading her swoon to book cart drill team performances isn’t all that convincing. (It's cute, agreed, but really?) More...
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Feb 28, 2011
Barky rated it: 3 of 5 stars
Marilyn Johnson (library lover) tells the story of one of our valuable community institutions – the library – and the people who staff it. She describes the traditional library and its evolution into this century, where much of library work is carried on outside of the physical library building (stretching into the ether to meet patrons online and help meet their information needs). Libraries have changed a lot over the years, but librarians remain an important resource in connecting people wi More...
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Feb 11, 2011
RandomAnthony rated it: 2 of 5 stars
This Book is Overdue is a quick read with an identity crisis. Should the book be a serious analysis of the manner in which libraries and librarians are changing, for better or for worse, with the rise of technology? Should it be a memoir-ish narrative of the author's experience visiting libraries (both in real and Second Life) and librarians? What about a huggy chapter on teaching potential librarians from developing cultures how to use technology to improve the lives of their patrons? These More...
9 comments like (19 people liked it)
Oct 19, 2010
Sarah rated it: 2 of 5 stars
I thought the author had some interesting insite on the role of liberians, but really did not cover the depth of my profession that I would have liked. She seemed to focus more upon the literary freedom, privacy, and academic posistion of liberarians, which is all good. But the only thing she touched on with public librarians was cleaning up poop in the bathrooms, the travesty that was inflicted on the special collections of the New York Public Library, and the fight against privacy rights. All More...
2 comments like
Sep 24, 2010
Tim rated it: 3 of 5 stars
As a devout library lover in my youth, though finding very little reason to visit in my older years (and actually feeling sad about this) due to largely to lack of reading time... this was a fun book to read. It does its job of making libraries seem exciting, and full of awesomeness. The writer expresses the loves that are close to all library-lover's hearts: books, collecting books, organizing books, reading book, knowing about books and the stuff we found in books -- oh and all that other medi More...
0 comments like
Sep 04, 2010
Mike (the Paladin) rated it: 3 of 5 stars
Fairly interesting book...I skimmed mostly (forgive me librarians of the world!). It wasn't exactly what I'd expected, still fairly interesting take on what librarians have done for the world (all of us) and are still doing. You might find it what you're looking for, I appreciate what librarians have to put up with (including the bureaucracies). My daughter worked for the Nashville system "back when" and after a few years had done and was doing every job there was to do...but, she topp More...
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
Jul 25, 2010
Harry Roger rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I was alerted to this book by my daughter Heather, one of GoodReads finest reviewers (in my neither-humble-nor-objective opinion. ) Over the years librarians have written books that “give ‘lay people’ the inside scoop.” Some have fascinating incidents and startling revelations, but rarely are they compelling page-turners. Because Marilyn Johnson is a journalist, not a librarian, I thought this might prove better, but I found the book frustrating for several reasons. She describes the radical More...
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
Jun 20, 2010
Jostalady rated it: 3 of 5 stars
The author accurately captures the state of libraries from within. I have worked in libraries for 20 years. I am a paraprofessional in what I believed was growing to be a growing trend to staff libraries with a totally imbalanced mix of actual librarians (I only know 3). I have discouraged people from pursuing an MLS because many of the people I know who have them just shelve books. Librarian jobs are rare.
I recognize some of what she covers, but this book took me out of my libr More...
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
May 31, 2010
Rebecca rated it: 4 of 5 stars
This book wasn't quite what I had expected, which was anecdotes about librarians and libraries. It was much more of a professional book, which means I can't recommend it to non-librarians because a lot of it would be either incomprehensible to them or boring. Professional books also always make me feel completely inadequate and that I'm not doing all the wonderful things I should be doing to be a good librarian, so I can't really say I enjoy them--does anyone enjoy reading something that makes y More...
2 comments like
May 23, 2010
Grace rated it: 4 of 5 stars
"In tough times, a librarian is a terrible thing to waste." And so starts this charming and inside glimpse into the life and times of being a librarian in ever evolving libraries in the 21st century. Author Marilyn Johnson takes her readers on a journey through a database migration in Westchester County, New York, to changing the largest research library in the New York City Public Library system into a circulation library, to librarians setting up virtual libraries and reference desks More...
0 comments like (4 people liked it)
May 15, 2010
Yune rated it: 3 of 5 stars
Johnson's last book was on obituaries, and the coolest ones, she kept finding, were those of librarians. Thus this book.

I liked this because of the subject material -- I worked full-time in a library for a bit, and am a devoted patron of my local public one. At one point I was offered a job as the technology specialist for an academic branch; I know now much technology is shaping the role of librarians. I probably spent as much time troubleshooting wireless connections as I did su More...
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May 01, 2010
Becky rated it: 4 of 5 stars
This book was definitely a great advertisement for the profession, especially as it was written by someone outside the profession. Its evocation of the tattooed knitting zinester librarian cliche (certainly better than the shushing bun cliche) could have become a wee bit silly, but I think it mostly managed not to.

*browses other reviews* No, it wasn't a serious-minded document that used dollar signs and political philosophy to change the way government and citizens think about librar More...
1 comment like (3 people liked it)
Apr 10, 2010
Susan rated it: 4 of 5 stars
With fascinating chapters such as "Information Sickness" and "Follow That Tattooed Librarian," Marilyn Johnson's This Book is Overdue gives the reader a quirky but informative look beyond the librarian stereotype. I am a reader who loves her county library - in fact we're on a first name basis, "The George" and I. I have always had a great appreciation for librarians, but This Book is Overdue has reinforced my belief that public libraries and the librarians who tire More...
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
Apr 08, 2010
Jonny99 rated it: 2 of 5 stars
An unsuccessful defense of the librarians’ relevance in the Google Age. From the subtitle which overstates the central thesis of the book, ”How Librarians…Can Save Us All”, you can infer that the text within will be a somewhat desperate effort to defend librarians’ relevance in an age of digitized text and sophisticated search algorithms by protesting too much. Suffice to say if someone writes a book explaining why your job is still relevant…it’s not. Johnson apparently is a fervent, and pot More...
13 comments like (1 person liked it)
Apr 05, 2010
Sarah rated it: 5 of 5 stars
As a librarian, I always get sucked into reading "popular" treatments of libraries and librarianship, and while this book isn't perfect I definitely do think it's the best of all the library-related books I've read in the last couple of years. On my more cynical days I feel like no one appreciates what great resources libraries (and librarians!) are, and it's good for the ego to hear from someone who is clearly such a fan of librarians, what we do, and what we stand for.

Li More...
0 comments like (2 people liked it)
Mar 20, 2010
Anne rated it: 4 of 5 stars
I liked it -- certainly catches the excitement of being a librarian during this time of great change for libraries, and doesn't dwell on the negatives. But I couldn't get into the Second Life episodes, and all the emphasis on the quirky. I *got* it, but I didn't get why there was so much of it.

"Sue Hamburger gave me good advice when I wrote to her about saving my work and my friends'. We should use open source software anytime we have a choice. She warned us against saving text More...
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
Mar 17, 2010
Erik rated it: 4 of 5 stars
My strong love and affinity for my local public library system has been put into words in Johnson’s passionately researched book on the twenty-first century public library – internet, books, and all.

Librarians’ values are as sound as Girl Scouts’: truth, free speech, and universal literacy. And, like Scouts, they possess a quality that I think makes librarians invaluable and indispensible: they want help. They want to help us. They want to be of service. And they’re not trying to se More...
0 comments like (2 people liked it)
Feb 20, 2010
Dave rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Marilyn Johnson has accomplished one of the most difficult tasks a journalist can attempt: she accurately portrayed change in the midst of it happening. In This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, she tackles librarianship, a profession undergoing changes that rival the Industrial Revolution. A daunting feat, but she nailed it.

The major change agent in the field is the same one rocketing through the rest of our society, technology. Johnson's singular a More...
0 comments like (2 people liked it)
Feb 16, 2010
Joan added it
I requested this book from the Amazon Vine program because I love libraries and librarians. I thought I'd be reading a real discussion about the place of the library in this cyber-age. But I didn't get that. In fact, it's hard to say what I did get.

The problem is stated clearly and succinctly by the author early on (though I doubt she realized that she was describing her book!), when she says, "This is a story . . . researched partly on a computer in mazes so extended and comple More...
0 comments like (3 people liked it)