Librarianship: "THIS TIME IT'S PERSONAL"

the.effing.
librarian
Librarianship: “THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL,”

a $2,999.99 book.*
effinglibrarian.blogspot.com, the director’s cut**
by the.effing.librarian
Compiled from the blog,

http://effinglibrarian.blogspot.com
from posts May 2009 through April 2010.
*much more expensive than the previous books -- because it is quite a bit shorter.
** additions, deletions with all new commentary.
2
the.effing.librarian
©2009, 2010 the.effing.librarian, LLC.
No portion of this book may be used without permission,

unless you manage to do it without getting caught, in
which case, wow, you are clever. But if I do catch you, I’m
kicking your less-than-clever ass.
The majority of this book was previously published at

http://effinglibrarian.blogspot.com during a period when
any concerned person was free to complain and have your
grievance heard by me through your comments. Now that
this is a handful of paper, I guess it’s too late to bitch
about anything I say. What? You say you’re going to com-
plain anyway. Go ahead, but I’m not listening.
As usual, I can’t guarantee that anything in this book will

make any damn sense like it seemed to when I first wrote
it.
This is the 3rd collection from the blog. By now, you would
think I should quit writing this stuff. And if you’ve been
paying attention, you’d know that I did quit. Any sane per-
son would have. But then I came back. Because you de-
manded it.
I should change the name of this book to, Because You

Demanded It. I like that. But unfortunately, I had a post a
long time ago where I said I would write a book using this
title, so I’m sticking with it. But you won’t find any Maxims
within. I’m not even sure what a maxim is, other than it
created some alliteration with “Modern” and “Mofo.”
See, now get a peek into the mind of a writer; how did he
choose that title? Why does he continue to do all this
work when we haven’t asked him to? Where do babies
come from?
Yeah, I’m gonna do something with “Because you de-

manded it.” It wasn’t in the plan, but I like it. Let’s see
what happens.
As with the other books, everything new appears in this

Calibri font and the old stuff appears in the Georgia font.
4
This book is dedicated to my girlfriend’s dog.
“How come your girlfriend’s dog?” you might ask.
I am unable to dedicate this book to my girlfriend for less

than $1,000,000. Because that is what she is worth.
Maybe next book. Start saving up.
This first post begins the fall and rise of the.effing.librarian

blog. And yes, “rise” is relative.
I quit blogging for a while because I really didn’t have that

much more to say about libraries. Or at least it didn’t
seem to me that I had more to say. But libraries can’t exist
without people, and since people are stupid, it didn’t take
long for me to decide on a blog reunion tour. I quit for
about a month.
Friday, May 1, 2009

The Effing Librarian blog is now CLOSED.
This blog closed on May 1, 2009, but feel free to read from
"all the old crap" or purchase paper copies of my blobo-
goks*
1. Fame and Fortune and Other F Words1
2. METAL ASS2
*a blobogok is my preferred term for a "blog book." why?

because it's a funny word.
you can also find the books on Amazon, but I earn less if
you buy from there.. but you can get free shipping if you
buy enough, so the choice is yours... you probably need free
shipping more than I need the $3.00.
1
https://www.createspace.com/3362330
2
https://www.createspace.com/3378697
6
if you need to contact the.effing.librarian, use your noodle

and guess my email address... no, that's not it... try harder:
use your other noodle...
Sunday, June 14, 2009

the.effing.librarian is BACK, baby!
Yeah, what do you care.
All the excuses I have for quitting the blog are still here,
but I need some outlet for... you know, stuff. There is so
much going on in the library world and there are few ave-
nues to comment: I have my twitter account, but limiting
my thoughts to 140 characters isn't fun. Sure, you can still
be clever on twitter, but it's not really worth the effort.
Most twittererers just retweet or point to other links any-
way. Movie stars might be worth following, but I'm not fol-
lowing one of them until they follow me first. "Some of the
movies you guys make really suck, so you owe me."
Speaking of sucking, one of the reasons I'd like to come

back is that someone said that the.effing.librarian sucks.
Yeah, can you believe it?
(yeah, why did it take so long for anyone to notice?)
But I was mildly affronted. And since it happened on the

Annoyed Librarian's blog, I felt like I didn't have any real
place to defend myself. Whereas, on my own blog, when
someone says I suck, I can fight back by deleting the mes-
sage, crying, and then eating a whole package of Oreos.
And then crying some more.
And it was weird to have some random person just strike

out to say I suck at some neutral location on the web and
not here or at LISNews where I do all my sucking. I've only
been told I suck about two-thousand four-hundred and

twelve times in my life, but this time really hurt.
So, I'm going to continue blogging. Occasionally. Like on

weekends. And during my lunch break. And at night. And
from my netbook at the mall. And when I'm drunk. So
pretty much just like before.
Okay, I'm just kidding. I'm not back; I was just bored. Why
would I come back in the summer? It's too damn hot.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009

How the.effing.librarian can save the world's
economies.
I noticed yesterday that someone is selling a copy of my

book, Fame and Fortune and Other F Words on Amazon
for $1,999.99.
"$1,999.99 + $3.99 shipping Condition: New. Sel-

ler: empower45. Rating: 96% positive over the past
12 months (23 ratings.) 53 lifetime rat-
ings.Shipping: In Stock. Ships from NC, United
States. See Shipping Rates. See return policy.
Comments: Excellent !"
That's incredible because new copies are available for

ONLY $1,000. That's almost a 100% return over the origi-
nal investment! Purchase this book and you can double
your money!!!
So it appears that the purchase of this book is not just a

waste of hard-earned money, but also a questionable fi-
nancial investment since it relies entirely on one's gullibili-
8
ty, ignorance and greed. Who would buy a pre-owned copy

when a new copy is cheaper? Books written by
the.effing.librarian are available through print-on-demand
publishing right now. But that also means that no copies
are printed until one is ordered, so as far as being in print,
there are actually only very few print copies in existence.
So it seems that maybe some shrewd investor is stockpiling

works by the.effing.librarian, attempting to corner the
market. Maybe he knows something about a future wood
pulp shortage. Or maybe he's seen a vision of
the.effing.librarian being eaten by a bear. Either way, it
looks like investing in copies of my books could be a way
for investors and even governments to rebuild their eco-
nomic portfolios.
If each copy of my book currently in print could change

hands, doubling in value with each exchange, then by the
time, say, Iceland bought a copy, the book could be worth
$2,097,141,514.24.
That's awesome! That could really help Iceland with their

economic troubles. Imagine all the jobs this could create...
umm,... yeah, I'm not really clear on that.
Now if only I could get the World Bank or the G8 to recog-

nize this powerful global economy-rebuilding resource, we
could all win. Especially me.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Iowa girl wins $50,000 texting, which almost cov-
ers her phone bill
15-year-old Kate Moore of Des Moines was the ultimate

victor over what was originally a pool of 250,000 contes-
tants for the LG U.S. National Texting Championship 3. I'm

not sure why it's both U.S. and National, but it's not my
contest. She was also awarded a trophy that appears to be a
model of golden zombie arms reaching out from the grave
to send the text message, "Aaaarrrggghhh. OMG."
Ms. Moore sends 14,000 texts a month, so if her parents

didn't have some bundled plan, her bill would be around
$2,800. Multiply that by 12 and it comes to $33,600, about
the same as her prize money after taxes.
Her winning text was the phrase,
―Zippity Dooo Dahh Zippity Ayy...My oh MY, what

a wonderful day! Plenty of sunshine Comin‘ my
way…ZippittyDooDahZippityAay! WondeRful feel-
ing, Wonderful day!‖
First, those aren't the lyrics to the song. But I'm guessing
that if they had used the real words to "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-
Dah," Disney would sue them. But "Zippity"?
But it is amazing that she was able to type out those 23

words, or 156 characters with spaces, in less than a minute
on that tiny phone keypad.
But is that a real world skill? So some girl types fast and
accurately on a device which is becoming an essential tech-
nology product for professionals everywhere.
But I'm the professional, with the library job and all. And I
can barely type 20 words a minute on a full-size keyboard.
Where can I get me one of these Iowa girlies? The way
3
http://www.lge.com/us/press-release/article/the-fastest-most-accurate-
texter-is-crowned-at-the-lg-us-national-texting-championship.jsp
10
things are going with technology, I might need someone to

type out my reference work for me on one of those mobile
do-dads. Maybe I can do the research and Kate, or one of
the 249,999 losers can follow me around and text the an-
swers to my customers.
It's amazing that this is the 21st century, yet we are reward-
ing a skill which, at best, prepares women to get jobs as se-
cretaries. Are we heading back to the days when working
men had young, female assistants? When men smoked Pall
Malls and wore gold pinky rings and drank gin martinis for
lunch? Yeah, I hope so, too.
Part of this contest appears to be tied to something call the

LG DTXTR initiative which states,
"Keeping up with your teen can be exhausting, es-

pecially when they appear to be conversing in
another language – which is where DTXTR comes
in. LG is committed to providing parents the inter-
active and collaborative DTXTR resource so you
can decode your teen's texts, and stay on top of the
texting trend.
LG Mobiles Phones considers LG DTXTR an educa-
tional site and credible resource. Please be aware of
the adult language and recognize that the glossary
may have offensive nature."
So the DTXTR Text Translator4 is educational and not just

bullshit like most rational people would assume. The site
translates "teen speak" into "English." As if people really
want to know what teens are saying. For example, the
scrolling text near the search box says IJPMP means "I just
peed my pants." Hilarious, yet credible and educational.
4
http://www.lgdtxtr.com/
And MSNUW means, "Mini-Skirt No UnderWear." But I

already knew that one because it's my nickname here at the
library. So guess who always gets the job straightening the
books on the top shelves? It's okay, you can look, honey.
Thursday, June 18, 2009

Salt Lake City Main Library: ChronicTown
Salt Lake City police arrested ten people at the downtown

Main Library for selling marijuana in the building.5
Those arrested in front of the library were young white

males which immediately drew the suspicions of one li-
brary-goer: "Young white guys at the library? This isn't
1964, they must be up to something," the unidentified li-
brary patron never said.
The young white men added to the suspicions by carrying

copies of the Twilight series of young adult novels in order
to appear inconspicuous as they hung out in front of the li-
brary. "Guys reading Twilight, something was up with that.
I called the police immediately," another unnamed library
patron never said.
Acting on these tips, the police investigated and discovered

the thriving marijuana business. "This was less shocking
than the guys reading Twilight, but still against the law," a
source from the Salt Lake City Police Department didn't
say.
"We focused more on the dealers than the buyers because

otherwise we'd have to close the library for lack of staffing,"
5
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12609639
12
the source from the police department didn't say. "Libra-

rians are the biggest purchasers of 'sick' chronic," the
source never added.
Salt Lake City librarians were shocked by the raid which

immediately cut off the supply of weed.
"What will I do now? Without my daily doobie, I will freak

out and kill every one of these bastards in here," the un-
named librarian never commented. "I guess I'll just have to
go back to mixing Zoloft, Oxycodone and cherry-flavored
Dr Pepper."
Yes, Zoloft, Oxycodone and cherry-flavor Dr Pepper: the

librarian's little helpers.
(Yes, I made this up. Librarians are not drug addicts. Un-
less you count inhaling correction fluid.)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Gran Torino as a snapshot of America
If you haven't seen the movie, Gran Torino, I won't spoil

the ending for you here, but don't read too much further
because it gets spoiled in the last paragraph.
So, I don't know what you thought, but I was somewhat

dissatisfied with the ending. I think it's because whenever I
saw this movie in the past, like in the 1970's with Clint
Eastwood or Charles Bronson, it had a similar violent con-
clusion, but flipped 180 degrees.
Now that it's the new millennium, you can see how Gran
Torino could represent America's place in the world. At one
point, Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is given a reading by a
Hmong holy man and he is told that no one likes him or re-
spects him and that he's done things in the past that he re-
grets. If Clint didn't represent America in the year 2009 in
that scene, I don't know what else he was supposed to be.
So I started to think about that lone gunman myth of the

American Western, like in High Noon or Shane or even
The Shootist, and how the bad guys need to be punished.
But these days, we know that violence doesn't always solve
the world's problems. It might again in the near future, but
not today. So how would Gran Torino have ended if it were
made twenty or thirty years ago?
If Gran Torino had been made in 1975, it would have

ended with a gunfight, with Walt standing "mano-a-mano"
and shooting from the hip to kill all the bad guys.
If Gran Torino had been made in 1985, it would have

ended with a firefight, with the titular vehicle fitted with a
hood mounted .50 caliber machine gun or towing a small
cannon or Howitzer to blow the criminal's hide-out to
splinters.
If Gran Torino had been made in 1995, Walt would

have called in some help from an ex-Army chopper pilot
who would have swooped in with an Apache attack helicop-
ter, chain-gun, and Hellfire rockets to vaporize the build-
ing.
But in the post-Iraq-Bush world, America is supposed to

play nice and let the proper authorities dispense justice.
We can act tough, but that's it.
So this leads to the real end of Gran Torino when we hear a

police officer say, "This time we have witnesses" and we
watch as the young thugs get hauled off to jail.
14
Which leads me to speculate on a follow-up film, Gran To-

rino 2: Toad's Revenge. Because when the thugs get their
lawyers to have them released on bail, they return to the
neighborhood to terrorize the witnesses into forgetting
what they saw. And Thao mans-up enough to take them on.
Using tools from Walt's garage, he gets "medieval on their
asses." And maybe Sue gets some hot kung fu babes to
help. Sounds good, huh? Yeah, I'm smelling sequel. Some-
one get Michael Bay on the phone.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
What do you do when someone wants a $1,000
book?
I just had a guy ask for a book that costs $1,000 that we
don't own.
Sure, we can request an interlibrary loan, but what library

is going to drop their $1,000 book in the mailbox? And
worse, there's only one copy of the book listed in WorldCat
and it's in Feuchtwangen. Yeah, that Feuchtwangen, the
one by Schnelldorf, Wörnitz, Dombühl, Aurach, Herrieden,
Wieseth, Dentlein am Forst, Dürrwangen, and Schopfloch.
Right. That one. (I'm kidding. There is only one library
with a copy, but it's in the U.S.A.)
But he needs the book for his research. Really important

research.
What do you do when someone asks for something that

you know they ain't getting? I know the diplomatic thing is
for me to just take the request and let someone else tell
him No.
But I'm compelled to tell these people that they are making
unrealistic requests.
Like the people who email week after week looking for
some local news story or obituary from 70 years ago when
they have no exact date. This isn't the San Jose Daily News
(which has online indexing for the late nineteenth and ear-
ly twentieth centuries through a subscription) we're talking
about; this is just a local paper that very few people
thought was important enough to keep 70 years ago, so mi-
crofilm is spotty and online indexing is nonexistent.
But it's really, really, really important that they get a copy
of that article.
What do you do? How is your librarian bedside manner?

Do you smirk, and say, "Sir, no library is going to get that
for you"?
It's taken me a long time, but I think I've stopped smirking.

I just try to say, "No," without getting snotty. I say, "One
library has it so we'll request it for you." Or, "We have the
microfilm and you're welcome to search through it."
But I don't say, "No one here has the time to do that for
you, you slobbering, inbred troll." I leave him to work out
that message on his own.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Cheap is the new black.
I keep reading news stories about people ditching their cell

phones and dumping cable TV and saving money, but none
of these people are my friends. My friends have everything:
smartphones with full Internet, smart 42" LCD televisions,
smart kitchen appliances, smartpants.
16
Me, I wear the same old dumb pants and my cell phone on-
ly makes phone calls, which I only make about 3-4 times a
week. But it only costs me $7 a month. I don't need my
phone to do everything, and especially not right now. I
grew up in a time when you had to find a phone, so what-
ever I need to do or say can wait ten minutes. Really? You
absolutely need to text someone "lol" right now?
The only thing I need right now is a massage; I don't care

where. If you want to rub it, have at it.
I don't like to pay for convenience. I believe in God, so I be-

lieve in inconvenience. Inconvenience is proof that God ex-
ists. Otherwise, science, math and evolution would have
solved all of our problems by now.
So Cheap is cool. Or so says The Ultimate Cheapskate.6 The

one thing I disagree with is that America's economy has
changed from a saving economy to a spending economy.
Whole industries are built on constantly moving dollars,
not stationary ones like in banks or CDs or treasury notes.
Money needs to change hands very rapidly otherwise we
will all see just how broke we really are. It's like a game of
musical chairs with 10 people and 2 chairs; as long as we
keep moving, none of us will end up on our asses.
So Cheap for America shouldn't be about saving; it should

be about spending. But spending in a way that creates jobs.
Cheap is putting people to work.
And since we love our smartphones so much, I think we

should combine the two and use our phones to create jobs.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090701/ts_nm/us_financial_usa_cheaps
kates
I think we should go back to having telephone operators

like the ones you see in the movies where you pick up the
phone and speak to someone and ask them to get you a
number. But not just for land line telephones, for cell
phones and smartphones, too.
So you open your phone and say, "Marge, can you get me
555-1122?" And Marge politely puts your call through.
Or you say,
"Marge, can you text, "omg (space) nfw" to 10086
for me?"
And Marge replies with a cheery voice, "You betcha,
honey."
What about social networking from your mobile

phone?
"Marge, can you tweet, 'I just had the turkey, no
mayo, which left room for cheesecake. Yum.'?"
And Marge says back,
"Are you sure you want to say that, again? You just
sent that same tweet two days ago."
"Oh, no. I would look so stupid. Marge, you are a
savior."
Or, "Marge, can you google Ted's number at the

Ramada in Dayton for me?"
"Goo-gol? Can you spell that?" she asks.
But sometimes Marge is such a smartass.
I don’t know if it’s clear to you, but I claimed at the begin-

ning of this book that I’d make some additional comments
along the way and I don’t seem to be doing any of that.
18
But I have nothing to add. It’s not that I don’t give a shit
because I don’t, but that’s not the reason; the reason is
that I can’t think of anything more to say on these sub-
jects. At least not anything hilarious.
…See what I mean?
Friday, July 3, 2009

Library Thriller
Okay. I'll play along and link to a Michael Jackson-related

video. This is from the 2008 National Library of Australia
staff Christmas party. It must be nice to work in a place
that has six new matching book carts.
One of our book carts is so old, the wheels are made

of wood.
One of our carts is so old, it was used to haul away

victims of the Black Death.
It's so old that when Johannes Gutenberg gave it to
us, he said that as soon as he invents a way to mass
produce books, he'd want it back.
It's so old that the first time it won a "pimp my
bookcart" contest, the contest was called "cuckold
thy book cart."
(I said it was old.)
Okay, here's the video:7
7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPhM7JbsgxU
NOTE: this book you are holding is not an iPad. You can’t
see the video with this book. Unless this is a pdf, then
maybe you can click a link and get it. But books, sorry.

Information wants to be Free, until it Doesn't.
Some people think the Internet is infinite. The Internet it

not infinite; but it's infinite up to a point. But where is that
point? The model for the Internet is much like the model
we have of the universe, that it's currently expanding. But
this model for the universe foresees a time when expansion
will cease.
Just as the rapid expansion of the universe created clusters

of matter, the Internet's expansion will slow to create sys-
tems of content and content providers. And as these
masses form, and we can quantify the useful, habitable,
areas, the smaller bits of stuff will drift off to become vir-
tually non-existent.
I think the proliferation of smartphones and netbooks and

web apps and gadgets will help to create these masses and
force the content creators to charge. Up to now, Internet
browsers have been free for laptops and desktops, but what
about smartphones? All these apps that download specia-
lized content aren't free. For example, why should Apple
make money selling an app that downloads content from
my site while I provide that content for free? Or while
Google provides the site for me to provide the content that
the iPhone users enjoy.
People believe that you can always make more Internet.

But for what reason? Will it make money? If so, when? The
20
Internet is free because very few people are making money

by charging for it. But I see a time very soon (5-10 years?)
when all that free will be gone.
Look at Geocities. Yahoo! bought that with some long-term

profitability in mind. But it never happened, so Geocities is
getting wiped. Thousands of homesites scattered into elec-
trons.
What about Blogger? Google has never forced Blogger us-

ers to pay a fee. But what happens when technology
changes? What happens to all the free stuff when Google
finishes its own OS and and Google's netbooks and Andro-
id phones are as popular as Apple products? What happens
when Apple and Google become the Coke and Pepsi of the
Internet? Sure, we still have RC Cola and Faygo, but Coke
and Pepsi influence all soft drink pricing. Coke is never on
sale the same week as Pepsi. Is there collusion in price con-
trols? Dunno, but did you ever notice just how crappy the
third-tier soft drinks taste, like Wal-mart cola? Like there's
an industry-wide conspiracy of mediocrity to keep Coke
and Pepsi on top? Companies are on top for reasons which
go beyond the product. How hard could it be to copy a cola
flavor? Or a hamburger? (I was going to add Microsoft, but
then my Coke-Pepsi analogy would have to change to a
McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's analogy, and I was too
lazy to do the rewrite.)
I think newspaper syndicates and information providers

and social networking sites will begin charging for content
soon. As soon as they all agree that it's time. Consolidation,
price stabilization, these things will force the free out of
business.
It's like the historic American West when land was free for
the taking, as long as the government moved the Indians
away. Remember that much of the Internet is just like land.
It's land that we work and make productive, but we don't

own it. I don't own my Facebook page or my Blogger blog
or my Twitter account; I just work it and try to produce
something that makes those companies some money. I
work the land. And for now, it's still the land of the free.
Saturday, July 11, 2009

Untitled. Because I can't express my feelings in
human language.
I swear to God or Gods or Abe ViGoda that this is true.

Whichever God you worship, or don't, I'm swearing to it.
As I passed the computer area, two teen girls shared this

conversation (verbatim, to the best of my memory):
Are you on MySpace?
Yeah. I think so.
How did you get there?
I don't know.
How are you spelling it?
I don't know!
22
Monday, July 13, 2009

AOL says these are the 10 Books to read Before you
Die:8
The Bible
Gone with the Wind
The Lord of the Rings (whole series counts as one)
Harry Potter (whole series counts as one)
The Stand
The Da Vinci Code
To Kill a Mockingbir[d] (they had a typo)
Angels and Demons
Atlas Shrugged
The Catcher in the Rye
So I'm not sure why Dan Brown gets two separate men-
tions while Rowling and Tolkien get only one. And doesn't
reading Harry Potter cancel out The Bible and send you
straight to H-E-double-hockey-sticks?
You have four books by authors who never really wrote an-
ything else: Salinger, Lee, Mitchell, and God. But no Dick-
ens, Twain, Angelou, Austen, Melville, Vonnegut, Fitzge-
rald, Eliot, Orwell, Dostoevsky, Hemingway, Wilde, Nin,
Steinbeck, Hugo, or Bronte. But those two Dan Brown's:
WTF?
I think AOL was going for volume. The first five titles
weigh in at over 1,000 pages each, with the Potter series
probably over 3,500 pages. I think their feeling is, anyone
who's read over 10,000 pages of anything is pretty much
done.
8
AOL says, "Note: This list is based on the results of a Harris Poll that
asked 2,413 U.S. adults to name their favorite books."
http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2008/07/08/10-books-to-read-before-
you-die/
And yes, I know about Salinger’s other stuff; I just didn’t

think it mattered in relation to my post.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Free is expensive.
So I'm about five minutes into the audio version of Free:

The Future of a Radical Price9 when I realize that Chris
Anderson is full of shit.
Okay, I'm being a little harsh, but his opening examples are
pretty weak:
I don't know what dictionary he uses, but his understand-

ing of what is free isn't even close to mine. His first exam-
ple of free is that the Monty Python troupe loaded YouTube
with freely watchable, high-quality videos of their most
popular sketches, and in return only asked that people
show their appreciation by purchasing Monty Python mer-
chandise. Hey Chris, I don't know if you noticed, but those
are not free videos, those are commercials.
Just because the chick with the huge jugs makes me think
about buying a sexy bra for my girlfriend, I don't count the
Victoria's Secret commercial as some free gift. Are you say-
ing I should?
It's advertising. Every year, for the Super Bowl, companies

around the world attempt to produce the most outrageous,
9
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-
Anderson/dp/1401322905/
24
the funniest, the most interesting television commercials.

For days or even weeks, those commercials are the topic of
conversation at home, at work, and in the mass media.
These are commercials, free entertainment that's been
around for decades. But who doesn't understand that this
advertising method increases the cost of production?
And movie trailers are often much more entertaining than

the feature film, and totally free, but still, created with the
intent of getting me excited about dropping $7.50 on Hol-
lywood's latest crap.
What about Chris' second example, that he's using a $250

netbook with a free Linux OS and free Internet browser
and free wireless Internet access? Well, he admits that he's
enjoying a $3 beverage in a coffee shop, so maybe the cost
of all the free Internet is hidden in that deliciously over-
priced cup of coffee. And Linux may seem free, but many
people donated their time to make it work.
I understand where he wants me to follow, I mean, I down-

loaded the audiobook version of Free for free an burned it
to a CD that I'm playing in my car. (Not right now: I can't
type, listen and drive all at the same time. I had to pause
the book while I continue to type and drive.) And now I'm
talking about the book and spreading the word for free. All
of you millions of visitors will now rush out and drop twen-
ty-seven bucks on Anderson's book based on my say-so.
The hardcover edition of Free retails for $26.99 for 288

pages. Minus blank pages and the appendices, you might
have 269 actual reading pages, which comes to ten cents a
page. By comparison, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hal-
lows packs in 784 pages for $34.99, which compared to the
per page cost of Free, gets you basically 435 additional free
pages. Why the price difference? Why does one publisher
need to charge more for their product? Or, why is the other
seemingly charging less? Does Arthur A. Levine Books feel
like they gave away 400 pages of Harry? Did Hyperion add
my download into the total cost of Anderson's book?
Free is built into the cost of everything.
I've seen articles that blame the high cost of paper on book
prices. But if that's the case, then how do you explain Kin-
dle e-book pricing of $9.99 per title? Author advances and
royalties, editing and marketing costs should be the same
fixed price for an e-book or a print book. Are you saying
that the 288 pages of paper costs $15? Or does that fifteen
bucks cover the cost of free? If so, then how much of that
$9.99 Kindle price is padded to cover free?
The cost of free is leveraged across the breadth of products

offered by all companies. Books, sneakers, and breakfast
cereals are all price-adjusted to accommodate free: when
we buy anything, we all pay for free. Free is part of the cost
of doing business.
When you start a business, don't forget to calculate the real

cost of what you will give away for free. At the mall, the
Chinese food place in the food court that charges $6.99 for
lunch gives away free samples; I know because I eat them.
McDonald's, with its "dollar menu" does not. The guy who
paid $6.99 for beef with broccoli subsidized my free sam-
ple.
Does this explain the mess the financial world is in today?

A few years ago, there was so much free money flowing in-
to mortgage loans and speculative investments. But now all
that free has come back to bite us in the ass. Tell me now
how free doesn't cost me anything.
26
What gets me is that so much more used to be free. TV was

totally free before cable and video rentals. Radio was total-
ly free before satellite. Umm, okay, that's pretty much it.
Someone tell Anderson that the only things now that are
truly free are kitties.10
(yes, I know that "free kittens" are never free... I thought

the joke was self-explanatory. see, I'm a-winking ;-) )

Free = slavery.
I know I've said this before, but as I listen to Free (see pre-
vious post), I keep thinking about how the Internet is turn-
ing us into slaves. (See tag, "slavery."11)
I keep hearing Chris Anderson lead me through all the var-

ious business models whereby entrepreneurs can plan their
successes by embracing free. And the model that keeps bo-
thering me is the one where we perform all the labor and
someone else rakes in the cash.
When we use online: Google, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook,

Digg, etc., we do all the work. They provide the materials,
from few to many, and we use the tools. The more who use,
the better these sites become known and the larger they
grow.
Does it really matter if I use Photobucket, or Picasa or

Flickr? All I want to do is put my pictures someplace so I
10
There was a cute image of kitties here. Awwwwwwwwwwwww.
11
http://effinglibrarian.blogspot.com/search?q=slavery
can share them with my friends. Are there other sites like
Facebook? Probably, I don't really care because I don't
want to tell my business to the world.
But what happens when Facebook develops a real dollar

value? What happens to all the laborers who worked so
hard to build Facebook into a place where everyone books
his face? Do the people with the most friends get a cut of
the money? What about Twitter? Will Ashton Kutcher take
his 3,000,000 followers and leave to twittererer someplace
else if someone doesn't pay up?
Is our labor worth anything, or do we just work the fields

and never share in the bounty of the harvest? After all,
someone feeds and clothes us, and rarely beats us; isn't
that payment enough?
Has anyone ever thought to unionize Facebook users or

Twittererers?12
I fight a continual battle between the real flesh-and-blood

me and the virtual, digital me… not a real battle because
digital me can kick my ass.
Thursday, July 16, 2009

Real me vs. Fake me.
12
there’s a good comment on this post: “actually, we get paid negative-
ly. all of those sight now own the rights to the photos we post..”-
http://liberryn.wordpress.com/
28
I'm upset that real me ("real" me) is becoming more popu-

lar than fake me ("effing" me).
I've noticed that my Facebook and Twitter pages under my

real name and photo are getting more reactions than
the.effing.librarian pages. One would think that with all the
work I've put into fake me that this part of me would be the
most popular.
Don't you realize that the.effing.librarian is made from all

natural, rain forest friendly, dolphin safe, 100% biodegrad-
able products, and real me is a total bastard. So why are all
of you choosing the real me?
I saddens me that I might need to abandon fake me to de-

vote more time to real me. Fake me is so much easier to
keep clean.
Monday, July 20, 2009

Has Library 2.0 Fulfilled its Promise?
From The Ultimate Debate: Has Library 2.0 Fulfilled its

Promise?13
First, I wasn't aware that it promised anything. Did it

promise to walk the dog? Because Buddy just peed all over
the floor.
I've never been to an LITA conference and since I just came

in from getting the mail, I don't see that I'm ever invited to
anything. But that's never stopped me.
13
http://litablog.org/2009/07/15/has-library-2-0-fulfilled-its-promise/
So here are my answers to the questions posed to the pa-

nelists from the original conference:
“What does Library 2.0 mean to you?”
It's that line in the code that divides me from you because I
understand it and you don't. So that makes me better. Li-
brary 2.0 separates today's librarian from yesterday's, so
take the hint and retire already. I got dibs on your chair.
"What is a Library 2.0 technology?"
It's everything that isn't the old card catalog. Which was
really easy to use and didn't require any electricity or ener-
gy or computing technology. Library 2.0 utilizes technology
to open library services to all, both local and distant users,
at home, in the library or on the move. Library 2.0 is supe-
rior to anything which came before. And Library 2.0 leaves
a huge carbon footprint. I think it wants to kill us.
"What are some of the barriers you to see to libra-

ries adopting some of these Library 2.0 tools?"
Absolutely nothing. Except that most of our patrons don't

care about them. Even after I've explained how useful they
are, our patrons still want to know why the wait for getting
a copy of Wild Hogs is so long. Because that movie's hila-
rious, I tell them. That John Travolta; is there anything he
can't do?
"Can we point to some successes of 2.0 technolo-

gies and principles?"
I'm sorry. That movie still has me laughing. What was the
question again?
30
I shouldn’t admit, this, but here is one of those posts

where I feel I said something truly important and unique.
My ego rises up and says, “Dude! This is it! This is our tick-
et out of here.” And I smile for a moment until I realize
that I don’t know what the hell my ego is talking about.
Ticket out of where? Ego? Are you high?
So yeah, for a moment, it seems like I’ve said something.

And a few of you agreed in the comments. So thanks for
that. But ego, dude, you need help.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The Library Grief Cycle.
In response to Restore the Noble Purpose of Libraries, 14 by

William H. Wisner:
I'm sorry to tell you, Mr. Wisner, but the Noble Li-
brary is dead.
It died when my local library purchased a vinyl copy of the

album KC and the Sunshine Band back in 1976. Yes, I agree
"Boogie Shoes" is an awesome song, but I have to place the
death of the traditional, noble, enlightened library at that
ignoble event. Up to then, the library never bought any
popular music: no Led Zepellin or Rolling Stones or The
Who or David Bowie. There were only albums of Prokofiev,
Mozart or the Boston Pops.
14
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0717/p09s01-coop.html
And librarians have been dealing with the loss for the last
thirty years.
The Kübler-Ross Five Stages of Grief15 are: Denial, Anger,

Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. And librarians
are smack in the middle of this process.
Some say the DENIAL stage is still ongoing, but I'm pretty
sure it ended around the time your library made you learn
about the "23 Things" and "Library 2.0." If creating ten dif-
ferent online accounts and solving the accompanying capt-
chas didn't shake you from that initial defensive response,
then you're so deluded you probably think The Beatles will
still get back together one day (all four of them).
The ANGER period lasted all that time you were supposed
to build that wiki and tag those images and write in that
blog, but didn't, and went back to reading Booklist. Not
long at all.
So librarians are currently in the state of BARGAINING.
"Please come in and take these DVDs, yeah, check out 50

at a time, more than anyone could ever watch, and if you
don't bring them back, we'll charge you a nickel..."
"Have a nap on that furniture. We'll wake you when it's

time to go home."
"Leave your children here while you go off to the mov-

ies."
"We have cookies."
15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model
32
I sense that DEPRESSION isn't far off. As soon as we all

realize that the cookies aren't working.
Already some librarians have successfully passed all the

way to ACCEPTANCE, giving up on calling their workplac-
es "libraries" and renaming them "community centers." If
the Noble Library is dead, then embrace that change, they
believe. Life begins anew. After all, librarians work for the
people, and if the people don't want to better themselves
through intellectual pursuits, who are we to keep suggest-
ing they try?
So for now on, when we discuss "the future of libraries," I

think the only answer is REINCARNATION. Accept death,
mourn the loss and move on. Trust that the library had a
noble and purposeful existence.
And if you're like me, pray that your library is REBORN as

a strip club.

social networks that aren't very sociable.
I guess web sites aren't explicitly social networks, but when

you enable comments on your site, you invite social inte-
raction. So you can only blame yourself when undesirables
show up at your door.
I went to a popular website and tried to comment on a

post. To leave comments, you can log in with your Face-
book, Twitter or OpenID, or just enter a name and email
address. But when I tried to log in with my Twitter ac-
count, it accepted my username but when it came time to
Submit, the button was disabled. OpenID displayed an er-
ror, and Facebook is just a massive privacy violation be-
cause it would allow the site and all its friends to crash on
my couch and dirty all the towels and clog up the toilet
with godknowswhat.
So I logged out and resubmitted with just my name and

email address and then the form worked and responded
with the usual, "comments are moderated and will appear
upon approval" message.
It's been 24 hours yet my comment still hasn't been ap-

proved, although two clearly obvious spam posts appear in
the comments at #14 &#16 for "profitableprofit" and "day-
logames."
I emailed the editor of the site about the Twitter glitch and
got a reply that they would look into it, but still haven't had
my comment approved and posted to their article.
The article is about social ranking on the Internet and how

the author feels the need for social networks to have some
influence on the success of the future of search and that so-
cial rankings of some kind are essential. Or something, I
don't know. I mean the author is a PhD student and I have
just a lowly Master's (in Library Science, of all things. I
mean, you need college for that?)
So what happens when someone is in control of your social

status? Right now, I can go to Twitter or Facebook and
every idiot is equal to every other idiot; no one blocks me
from commenting to Brent Spiner, unless he, himself
blocks me. But why would he block me? I RT his ass all
over the place.
But moderated comments that block actual comments

while allowing spam only prove that the gatekeeping sys-
tem is flawed. Or worse, that some people will publicly
34
praise an open Web while secretly working to close off as

much as possible, to keep out the riff and/or the raff.
When I see these propositions where the Web is remade in

some idealized image, in this case, a socially-ranked one,
all it makes me think is that someone has a plan to keep
the rest of us out.
I told myself I wouldn't cry because my makeup runs, but

as you can see, I hate rejection. So here is my comment
that the site still hasn't approved:
didn't this all get covered back with Google bought

Dejanews and then Blogger? didn't everyone agree
that social networks are completely unreliable and
irrelevant to the rest of the world? and that's why
Google separated "blogs" and "groups" from its cen-
tral search ?
but now that more people are being social, we ex-

pect our search companies to recognize us and treat
us with the respect we feel we deserve.
but advertisers pay Google's bills, and if Google

streamlines all social network search into main-
stream search and the advertisers complain, then
where do you think this will go?
yes, the social networks create tons of content, and

the creators believe it's worth something to others
and want it crawled and ranked just like all the oth-
er crap out there.. but go back and find the original
opinions when Blogger was first dumped into ma-
ninstream Google search and *everyone* that all
their search results were crap.
I don't think the world cares about being social.
when you start demanding that your social status

be recognized by everyone else, frankly, and forgive
this completely objective observation, you become
an asshole.
See? Totally harmless and not spam. Not sure why it wasn't
approved. Maybe it was what I was wearing. Maybe I
should let my bath robe slip open a little more when I hit
Submit. Ooh, what's that? You like that?
Friday, July 31, 2009

My Secret.
Everyone has a different way of dealing with the Internet.

Some subscribe to feeds and use a reader to get the latest
news. Some get daily emails. Some just read the Internet as
it comes across the screen.
But I can't stand reading the Internet online. That's my se-

cret.
I don't know what it is about being online, but it just feels

gross. It's like I'm being groped by an infinity of monkeys.
Dirty, dirty monkeys. Or hobos. Or old people.
Even logging in to read email has me rushing to the bath-

room to wash my hands. And other stuff.
So I get the Internet in print.
It's not something many people do, and maybe you've nev-
er heard of it, but I follow the print edition of the Internet.
36
For people like me, there's a service called,

www.webtoprint.com, and each month, they take all the
posts from my subscription sites and print them out, and
then they mail the bundle of pages to me. I can't stand
reading the Internet online, so I pay to have everything I
want to read printed out.
It's a great service. And they have a companion,

www.printtoweb.com that takes my handwritten or typed
notes that I snail mail back to them and converts them to
Internet posts, either here on this blog or as comments on
other sites.
So I hope this explains why it might take me some time to

respond to your comments or emails or why I don't com-
ment on the latest news. It's a lot to read, and it's a lot of
work to keep up, and right now, I'm reading everything
from December 2007, so I'm sure I'll get caught up even-
tually.
[fyi, printtoweb.com and webtoprint.com are probably owned by some-

one, but they don't seem to go anywhere as of the time of this posting:
don't blame me if you enter the links and get porn.]
Saturday, August 1, 2009

We need insurance for the wired world.
So the RIAA screws some other poor bastard for hundreds

of thousands of dollars (re: Joel Tenenbaum, $675 thou-
sand; and Jammie Thomas-Rasset $1.92 million) for music
file sharing.
And recently, a property management company sued

someone for $50,000 for a tweet the company considered
libelous.
In a connected world, every action creates equal, opposite,

and even violent reactions.
I continue to see car, health and home owner insurance

advertised on television, but where are the Internet, social
networking insurance companies?
Where is my blog post or tweet insurance for the

time I mistakenly comment that fast food from
M********* gave me this humongous culo?
Or for when I link to a Korean site that streams
Harry Potter movies?
Or for when I snip too much of that Associated
Press article?
Or for when I copy, link, tweet, retweet, post, bor-
row, steal or reference anything on the Internet ev-
er again.
How soon until I can cover my ass with $1 million of pro-

tection ("for just pennies a day")?
Don't current events demand this type of coverage?
... But won't the existence of such insurance only increase

the spread of excessive tort litigation? Crap.
Saturday, August 1, 2009

A reason to be wary of the social web:
A couple weeks ago I listened to Chris Anderson's16 Free

and by the time I got to the last chapter, I swore that if an-
16
http://www.thelongtail.com/about.html
38
yone ever said the words "digital currency" to me ever

again I would hurt them, in their baby-making place, just
as Chris had hurt me.
"Think of it as a form of digital currency," he seemed to re-

peat over and over and over.
Shut up. Shut up! Shut UP!
I swore I would never use those words, ever. So what do I

do now when I have the need to use them? Do I need to go
as far as apologize to Chris? Nah. I don't think so, either.
But Chris' book focuses on how Free should be the stan-

dard model for all business on the Web, where costs ap-
proach zero. And he mentions tools like Twitter which are
very useful, very popular and very free.
Now I've been on Twitter for just over 2 years and have
made the lives of multitudes better for it. But I don't care
too much about Twitter's health, about "trending topics" or
about Twitter Spam because they haven't affected me.
But I saw this article the other day from The Examiner by
Allen Glines about "Spam Armies on Twitter."17
As of now, Google doesn't streamline "tweets" into its

search results. I remember the opposition to Google's pur-
chase of Blogger back in 2003 and how everyone worried
that all those blogs linking back and forth to each other
would influence Google's search results and we would all
just find blog posts from each of our queries for, I don't
know, "best hummus in Bay area." I was worried about all
the bogus results I'd need to ignore to find the right infor-
mation (remember, I'm a librarian, an information profes-
17
http://www.examiner.com/x-16211-Salt-Lake-City-TV-
Examiner~y2009m7d31-Are-Spam-Armies-Invading-Twitter
sional, so I answer everything with Google). So that's why

Google keeps the blog search function separate (as far as I
think I understand it), to distance the "freshness" and
cross-linking of blog posts apart from the rest of the Web.
ALERT: I don't want to upset anyone, but here comes my

use of "digital currency."
Chris Anderson's book, Free, says that we bloggers are paid

for our work in digital currency: we earn a reputation
which may, or may not, turn into actual Nintendo-
purchasing currency later on. But for now, we're supposed
to be happy to produce content that you devote time to
read. This digital currency has a value established by read-
ers: if I have 1,000 feed subscribers, obviously my stuff de-
serves more of your time than a blogger with just 50 sub-
scribers.
But what happens when all our digital currency is counter-

feit?
What happens when an army of spammers all follow each

other on Twitter and create false reputations? And then
waste your time reading and then responding by blocking
their crap? But the army keeps growing because they don't
need to work or sleep or eat or go to meetings or read
Booklist like you do.
As for the picture above18, these accounts were

found in the days following the crackdown against
spam accounts. Their implications are dire, and
likely the next step in what has already been going
on.
18
http://tweetafile.com/62/full
40
-- from "Spam Armies on Twitter"
Ask any librarian about her position on censorship, and

she say she's ag'in it. And then she spits. But filtering spam
is a form of censorship. But we all agree spam is crap, so
we filter it out.
What if Google or Bing or The Next Big Thing decides that

social networking sites need to be merged into the common
flow of search results? What if ad revenue decreases so
much that all this orphaned data is just too seductive to ig-
nore? Spam generates income. Why shouldn't the search
sites get a piece of the action?
So what happens if all of our social networks get filled with

counterfeit data?
Since America manufactures nothing, and the only busi-

ness we seem to be involved in is processing data, then this
counterfeit data could be dangerous to our information in-
frastructure, just as counterfeit currency notes are danger-
ous to the monetary system.
Of course, I'm overreacting. To you. It's only 2009 for you.

But since I've traveled back in time from the future, you
won't realize the seriousness of this problem until the
Great Googolocaust19 of 2022. But the less I say about that,
the better.
Monday, August 3, 2009

Viewing Twitter with her skirt up.
19
maybe it should be Googleocaust?
(I never thought of Twitter as having a gender, but I guess

it could be a girl.)
I stumbled upon something by accident that I can't repro-

duce on purpose by any other means. I guess I could re-
produce it, but I'd need to disable javascript in my browser.
But the point is, it doesn't reveal itself in the natural course
of viewing the website, at least, not to me. I used both Fire-
fox 3 and IE 7.
And I have an older Netscape browser that I use when I

don't want any surprises to execute. And that is how I saw
what I saw: Naked Twitter.
FYI, I even have an old Stereopt-O-scope®, or in generic

terms, a form of Stereoscope for viewing the Web. The Ste-
reopt-O-scope was developed in 1902 for "viewing elec-
tromagnetic pulse-waves emitted from the transfer of high-
frequency data packages over the air" (U.S. Pat. Reg.
652281093).
These goggles are made of an unknown alloyed metal with

one each 20-sided and one 7-sided (not round), convex
glass lens and can be secured around the viewer's head
with leather straps. The images from the goggles are never
as clear as today's Internet browsers, being like refracted
light through a prism, but they are completely wireless and
can view a variety of wave spectrums utilizing the human
body's natural electrical impulses for power. I got them
from my grandfather who won them in a game of marbles.
They're antiques, so I only use them view cell phone con-
versations in the library.
Now, again, this might be completely common to your ex-

perience, but it isn't to mine.
42
When I view the Twitter home page (before log in), I see
the trending topics displayed like this, as a set of links with
no mouseover information or pop-ups or anything:
But when I view Twitter with javascript disabled, I see the

same page displayed like this:
There is an image here, but it’s not that important. if you

really need to see, check the blog20. In fact, let me just de-
lete most of the references so now you will be forced to
visit the blog. I hope you didn’t pay $2,999.99 for this.
Look at all those descriptions! There's no way I would

know what "mussumday" is without that useful explana-
tion. So why would I click if I don't know what to expect?
Do you see all this trending topic context information when

you visit Twitter? The only way I see it is to disable scripts.
If you do see it with the basic settings in your browser,
what settings do you use?
And if you don't, if none of us do, then why not? Why

would Twitter hide this?
To me, it was like viewing another world. A world that

wears polka-dot panties.
20
http://effinglibrarian.blogspot.com/2009/08/viewing-twitter-with-her-
skirt-up.html
Monday, August 3, 2009

Why the Kindle suit is good and bad for everyone...
Amazon has been named in a class-action lawsuit filed on

behalf of all Kindle owners for deleting some copies of 1984
from some accounts and Kindles. Amazon believes it had a
duty to the publisher to remove stolen property from its
customers' Kindles in order to keep them from going to jail
for receiving that stolen property. But because some people
like to spend time in jail, they're suing Amazon for all the
fun they missed.
Or at least that's how I see it.
If you know me, you know that I hate the digital world. I'd
like to go back to the days when I rode my bike over to my
friend's house and he showed me things that he got for his
birthday and we played with them or smashed them with a
hammer. And the mailman brought us letters once a day.
And the news came on at 6:00 and I didn't know a damn
thing about the world until then.
I don't want to look at pictures of crap on Flickr or videos

on YouTube. I don't want 5GB of email storage. I don't
want to know everything as soon as it happens. I want life
here, in my hands, so I can smash it with a hammer if I
want to.
The Kindle suit is bad because Amazon was doing the right
thing by its partner, the publisher and rights-holder to
George Orwell's 1984. Amazon had unwittingly become a
party to distributing stolen property when it allowed Kin-
dle owners to purchase an item Amazon did not have the
right to sell.
44
Amazon doesn't own the books it sells; the only thing Ama-
zon really has any control over is the Kindle itself, the
ebook reader, the hunk of plastic. And hammer-blow reci-
pient.
I guess Amazon could have gotten a court order first, since,

again, we're dealing with stolen property (IMO-IANAL-!!!-
WTF-LOL, okay, forget it). But then hundreds of Amazon
customers might have ended up in some criminal database
only to have their children removed from their homes by
the authorities.
But what makes this suit a good thing, is that I hate the
digital world. I don't think any company has any right to
tell me what I can do with my stuff. I don't like digital
rights or copy limits or download restrictions. I don't want
to go home to find that I'm locked out from all the shows
on my DVR because some company has the power to limit
how long I have to enjoy a television show. I don't want
Microsoft to tell me that my installed Office suite is not a
legal copy, and I don't want them to even have the power to
look.
So if this suit forces companies to rethink their digital

business models, then great. But to punish Amazon for tak-
ing advantage of people too stupid to understand how digi-
tal technology works, then that's just wrong. America is
built on extracting fortunes from the stupid.
Why is it that I'm smart enough to understand how digital

technology works, but they aren't. And look at me! I'm
wearing a bib to eat! And I still got food all over myself. I'd
have more to say about this, but my lunch break is over,
and I think I got tuna in my hair.
Thursday, August 6, 2009

The Ideal Library CATalog
So I was just reading (if you can call it that when I need to
keep calling one of the other librarians over to tell me what
the big words mean) this article, "We‘re Gonna Geek This
Mother Out" at ITLWTLP21.
And when I got down near the bottom, I saw an image of a

common library web catalog which displays the usual cata-
log elements: item details, available copies, and estimated
wait to get it because it's so damn popular, and what are
you doing asking for this anyway? Did Oprah just tell you
to read it?
And that made me think about an ideal library catalog dis-

play. Since library catalogs are, at best, alienating to our
patrons, and at worst, presenting completely unintelligible
information, I started thinking that we should dump it all
and just have pictures of kitties.
Patrons don't understand what our catalogs tell them, an-

yway. So the catalog is basically useless. So why not give in
and just make the library catalog cute and cuddly.
Now, you may not interpret the meaning of what is pre-

sented in my new, super awesome library catalog, but trust
me, each illustration has meaning.
NEW SUPER AWESOME LIBRARY CATalog
21
http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2009/were-gonna-geek-this-
mother-out/
46
TITLE IS CURRENTLY:
TITLE IS CURRENTLY:
TITLE IS CURRENTLY:
TITLE IS CURRENTLY:
Did you figure it out?

The first book is available and ready to pick-up.
The second is on hold.
The third book is being transferred between branches.
And the fourth is totally FUBAR, checked out, damaged,
missing, etc.
See? A beautiful interface, simply presented. Glad I could

help.22
Tuesday, August 11, 2009

We are descended from dinosaurs.
22
on the blog, these images are animated and move. they were also
stolen from somewhere on the internet. also, they may look like copy-
right protected works, but I think that’s just a coincidence.
Because we are birds.
How else do you explain the popularity of Facebook and

Twitter? These are crowd sites, sites where everyone goes
to be seen or heard. These are flocks. What's up with these
flocking sites?
Why do people want everyone to know about what's hap-

pening with them right now? I guess, because it keeps
them from thinking about the future.
Just look at Twitter:
@bokklv15 I'm watching Albanian Idol.

@gtrdunne Yea! Pzmk Nvyrmz. You kick ass!
@pzmkfan Vote for Pzmk!
@pzmkfan2 I voted for Pzmk.
@notatallalbanian Why is Pzmk Nvyrmz a trending topic?
@nevrhrdovalbania Why is Pzmk Nvyrmz a trending topic?
@jusswokeup Will everyone please stop typing, 'Why is
Pzmk Nvyrmz a trending topic?'
It's interesting how the BBC News says23 that Google needs
to watch out for Facebook now that they've purchased
FriendFeed because FriendFeed uses real time updates for
real time search.
But I don't know what that means.
I have a FriendFeed account, but I rarely use it. It feeds my

Twitter and YouTube updates. And I belong to Librariolo-
gy. I only check it when I get an email that says, "Pzmk just
joined your FriendFeed."
23
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8194508.stm
48
So now Google, a search engine, is supposed to feel pres-

sure from Facebook, an "I am" engine. I guess it makes
sense that people really only want to shout at the world,
"It's me. I'm here." Google may help people find stuff, but
Facebook, I guess, helps them to find each other. Or them-
selves.
So is the future of the Internet a flocking future?
I don't know if it's relevant, but the future wasn't very good
to the dinosaurs.
I really hope you people understand that most of this shit

is made up, that these are jokes or parodies of real news
stories or even totally fake news stories. But if you spent
$2,999.99 on this book, then maybe you’re not so smart.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Why the Associated Press no longer matters.
Or, Why the Associated Press matters. I haven't made up

my mind.
I see from this report 24that the AP wants to protect the

ownership of its content and enforce its copyright by limit-
ing how that content is used. Not a problem. I have a strict
clause in my Copyright notice at the bottom of this page
stating that the LPGA, or Ladies Professional Golf Associa-
tion, may NOT reproduce any of my content. It's a sensitive
24
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/08/why-the-associated-press-plans-
to-hold-some-web-content-off-the-wire/
area, so don't ask about it. But you know what you did, La-
dies.
But other than creating bogus stories, with made-up con-

tent, like some companies have done to copyright maps 25,
I'm not sure how they can protect their content. If Joe
Jones survives a fall from 5,000 feet by landing on Kirstie
Alley, and the AP reports it, I don't know how they can
claim ownership of the facts: Joe Jones, 5,000 feet, Kirstie
Alley.
But what the AP says they can protect is the added value
data or charts that might accompany the story, like a graph
on how many other people have survived falls from great
heights or how many other celebrities have been hit by
mammals falling to earth (Richard Dreyfus is the only oth-
er one I can remember; he was knocked down by a key deer
that had been caught on a weather balloon tether in 1993.
The deer didn't make it, but Mr. Dreyfus went on to be
nominated for an Oscar for his work in Mr. Holland's
Opus)26.
So I'm guessing the AP would have some subscription ser-

vice that would allow me to access their special content,
like that chart, or the photo of Kirstie Alley's shocked look
as Joe Jones careened towards her from out of the sky. And
each item would have some locator information embedded
into it to track unauthorized use if Boing Boing or Gawker
or The Huffington Post tried to hotlink or use or steal or
whatever, without permission.
25
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1058/do-maps-have-
copyright-traps-to-permit-detection-of-unauthorized-copies
26
totally made up apart from Mr. Dreyfus’ wonderful work
50
And that has me curious: has the AP heard of Print Screen?

If I want a picture that I can't copy, what stops me from
doing a printscreen and pasting it into my photo editor?
Even with complex steganography, a simple printscreen
would give me the image I want without any embedded
code of identification. Is this the monkey wrench in your
fiendish plot? Pressing one button on my keyboard?
But if the AP manages to wrangle control of its content, I

wonder how this will affect the flow of information. If I
can't blog a snippet of AP content, can I still snip a bit from
the newspaper and pin it up in my cubicle?
Will this aggressive enforcement deprive the digital world

of content, and subsequently boost the value of the print
world? Is this similar to how vinyl made its comeback?
Maybe I can't cut/paste electronic AP content, but I can

scan a print copy and post that because copying print has
been grandfathered in, as pre-DMCA technology, like vinyl
analog record albums circumvent digital copying piracy
rules (because they're not digital).
I see a future where more online content is controlled, and

fewer linking sites survive because the content won't be
there. And then I see newspapers making their comeback.
Maybe not print newspapers, but still something we pur-
chase through subscription and read with our e-paper doo-
hickeys. People paid $3-$4 a week for a newspaper deli-
vered to their doors for years: why wouldn't they pay
again? But then, I also see a future where you love and
adore me and invite me over for Parcheesi and chicken
wing night. Every Tuesday. Hint, hint.
In almost every way, I think the AP sucks. But I also believe

they have the right to distribute their content in a way that
brings in the money. As long as that way doesn't piss me

off.
Oh, and a note to Techdirt27, who just noticed the AP mes-

sage, "Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights re-
served. This material may not be published, broadcast, re-
written or redistributed." I blogged that puppy almost one
year ago here28. Ha! I run rings around you.
Friday, August 14, 2009

too busy to think about right now.29
Woodstock: 500,000 attended and it defines a generation.
1969 pop. 200,000,000
.25 percent, one-quarter of a percent of total U.S. attended

Woodstock.
how does this compare to percentage who contribute to so-

cial media or Wikipedia?
I've seen stats that say, 1% of users contribute to Wikipe-

dia. I've also seen stats that say a small percentage of users
contribute the majority of social media content.
just wondering if throughout history whether it‘s always

been a small percentage of people who dictate what the rest
of us feel, think or believe.
27
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090810/0343265825.shtml
28
http://effinglibrarian.blogspot.com/2008/09/oh-have-you-noticed-
this-from.html
29
I never got back to this thought
52
maybe this is just normal human behavior.

|
Sunday, August 16, 2009

Why the.effing.librarian tweets:
I just saw this blog post30 on why Twitter is so good as a so-

cial tool and it made me wonder about why I continue to
tweet. Normally, I don't care about social networking, but
Twitter isn't very social. It's more like reading a big stack of
high school yearbooks: you see a photo attached to some
short message: 4U2NV! Or maybe you see a list of likes and
dislikes or predictions for the future. Look at that guy; do
you remember him?
So here are some reasons why I like Twitter:
1. Twitter increases my view of the world by 6%. There's

some news that I know I would have missed without
some attentive person's tweet. But I don't think there's
enough to say that Twitter influences my world more
than that, like a full ten percent; at least, not yet.
2. I want to know a little about you and your world. And

that's the key: I want to know just a little. I really don't
want to know that much about you that you infiltrate
my daily thoughts. And why would you want me to
think about you? It's not like you're Mindy Cohn. Are
you Mindy Cohn? Really? Did you get my letters?
3. You only learn as much about me as I want you to

know. You don't find every photo of me because my
high school friends tagged me all over the place. You
30
http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2009/08/why-
twitter-works.html
don't know what I looked like when I loved Haircut 100

and wore lots of sweaters.
You can't piss off too many people at 140 characters or less.
By comparison, Facebook is just a huge pain the ass with
friend and group requests sitting in my box like a pile of
dirty laundry.
But this is why I hate Twitter:
I can't stand the popularity contest. I can't stand seeing

everyone's number of Followers. That number should be
invisible. I don't care who has 1,000,000 followers; the on-
ly influence that number has on me is that now I can quan-
tify my not caring with simple math:
((followers - following) ÷ followers x 100) ÷ 126 31 =

I don't give a shit.
Some people think that the number of followers is an indi-

cation of utility. But it's not: utility is an indication of utili-
ty. If your tweets are useful or entertaining to me, I will fol-
low them. Some people tweet news that I think I need to
know. And some people just seem nice enough. And that's
who I follow. I also understand my own limitations and on-
ly follow as many people as I think I can manage.
Let's say we all used Ashton Kutcher's numbers to guide us

on how to follow others. His current Followers are at
3,203,245 and his Following is 192. That means he Follows
one person for every 16,683 people who follow him.
31
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/29/twitter-
users-average-api-traffic
54
Now, if we cared about these numbers, Ashton would be a

complete asshole when it comes to acknowledging his Fol-
lowers with some form of follow-reciprocity. What this says
is that he's 16 thousand times better than us in the Twitter-
verse.
That's why these Follower/Following numbers suck. I don't

need a social networking evaluating my worth in some ar-
tificial realm.
Now, the downside is, how would we decide who to follow

without some ratings system? I'm not going to lie to you
and say that I don't look at your numbers. I've intentionally
chosen to not follow some people just because they seem to
have too many Followers. So screw you, Al Gore, and your
attempts to end our destruction of the planet, you friend of
the Earth bastard who Follows almost no one: get your Fol-
lows into double-digits and maybe I'll follow you.
So for Twitter to be useful without making me feel like I'm

failing algebra, they should eliminate all numbers. Yes, it
was fun when CNN and Ashton raced to one million: the
nation collectively held its breath. I know President Obama
did. Once that race was over, he knew the country could get
back to the business of fixing health care and the economy.
I bet he was excited when he made that congratulatory
phone call to Ashton on his victory. What? The President
didn't phone the winner of such an important event in our
nation's history? Doesn't the President call the winning
horse after the Kentucky Derby? I thought he called every-
one. Wow, that must suck that the President calls a horse
but doesn't call the tweet king.
But that out of the way, every library should be on

Twitter. Why? Because it's free, and it takes (almost) no
time.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Please Join Us in Welcoming Our New Sponsor:
OdorMarc
the.effing.librarian is proud to announce our partnership

with our new corporate-affiliate and sponsor: OdorMarc,
Location ID Systems.
We have broken our previous relationship with Halllli-

buurrton Industries, makers of LoveSoft, personal sensual
lubricants, and DeathSoft, the long-range military self-
guided bomber aircraft, so please stop buying their crap, I
don't care how much personal lubrication you think you
need.
OdorMarc is a fantastic new library product, and we are all

very excited to have them on the team. OdorMarc is a pa-
tented (Liberia, Uruguay) shelf management system utiliz-
ing an individual's most powerful sense to locate and or-
ganize library collections.
Colors are deceptive. Is that book spine chocolate, sienna,

burnt umber, saddle brown or just plain brown? Are you
viewing the colors through incandescent light, sunlight,
white light, fluorescent light or candlelight? How will you
ever find your books now that Dewey is no longer in fa-
shion and all those spine labels have been torn off by that
new idiot library director who thinks he can run the library
like a Barnes & Noble?
Most books look too much alike for any standard classifica-
tion system to organize them properly. Research shows
that humans are 71% more likely to identify an object by
smell than by touch, taste or even sight.
56
So OdorMarc solves these problems by assigning smells to

books. Cherry, Rose, Vinegar, Vomit, Fish, and forty more
perfectly recombinated scents. One simple OdorMarc
Strip® is all it takes placed inside each book, but each strip
is saturated with a complex combination of Pherotomes®
(book scents).
There are 45 scents which combine to create a staggering

2.4 million unique smells. For example, here is what one
customer says when she browses her library's collection:
"Mmm, coffee, banana and mint tells me this book is Au-
toCAD 2009 for Dummies. And, Oy! Dog crap with a hint
of cinnamon.. This must be The Da Vinci Code... No, wait..
who let a freakin' coffee shop delivery dog into the library?"
With OdorMarc, there's a scent for every book on your

shelves.
Is your library suffering from budget cuts? Are you consi-

dering cutting the lighting bill to save money for essential
library services? Well, you'll never be lost in the dark, with
OdorMarc. Find any book; just follow your nose.32
Thursday, August 27, 2009

Collect them all.
My library trading card.33
32
yes, this is totally made-up
33
make one here: http://bighugelabs.com/deck.php
In case you can‘t read this, it says, effinglibrarian: Bastard

Sword of Librarianship.
1. Description
Setting: in a library, duh. oh, an evil library.
Appearance: the.effing.librarian is much more handsome
than you imagine. and richer.
Personality: none to speak of, unless you crave awesome-
ness!
2. Insights
Thoughts: be kind to animals. and waiters.
58
Feelings: sometimes I love so much I think I might ex-

plode.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Why I'm a bad librarian.
My boss gets mad when I don't keep her "in the loop" about
what I do every day. So I tell her, "I can either do stuff or I
can tell you what I'm doing. I can't do both."
Doing stuff fills my day. Telling someone about the stuff I

do will take another couple of hours. Hours which I don't
have because I have to go home make myself forget the
crap I just did.
Does Superman report on his own good deeds? No. He has

Lois Lane do it for him. I don't care how super you are, get-
ting stuff done will always take priority over telling others
what you did.
So that's it; I'm Superman. Get me a freaking Lois. Oh, and

I saved the world again.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Who can you trust after you're dead?
I was asked on our chat reference desk recently for a pro-

gram that will wipe a computer's hard drive in the event
that the owner dies or is suddenly "put out of commission"
for a long time.
"Why do you need that?" I typed back, but Mr. "Al Kyda"
gave no reply.
But that had me searching for some solution to this prob-

lem. What would you do if you were suddenly hospitalized
and didn't want someone poking around in your computer,
spying at all your personal crap? Sure, you might have a
password to protect an unauthorized logon, but seriously,
we all know it‘s "chocolate."
What if you're in a car accident and end up in a coma? Or

you have a heart attack and spend two weeks in the hospit-
al? What if you have a stroke and can't move and the doc-
tor pronounces you dead, and because your insurance re-
quires an autopsy to determine if there is any fault or neg-
ligence to avoid paying on your policy, the ME is about to
cut you open, but you're alive! And you know you saw that
TV show where the guy couldn't move and the doctor was
about to cut him open, so he tried to cry so someone would
see his tears, and they did! So you try and try to cry and
you strain too much so you fart; what then? A fart isn't
proof you're alive, so they cut you right open. And now,
who is going to delete all that porn from your computer?
Maybe it's not porn you don't want anyone to find on your
computer. Maybe is just a picture of you in Dealey Plaza on
November 22, 1963. Or maybe it's a Kenyan birth certifi-
cate. Or it's the recipe for Ice-nine.
Whatever it is, you don't want anyone to find it.
In the old days, you might leave a letter to a trusted friend

with instructions on what to do with your personal effects.
For example, I have all of my private items up in the attic
sealed in a cardboard box labeled, "not porn."
In the event of my death, my attorney or named associate

would take that box of "not porn" from the attic and drive
it out into a field where it would be burned, its contents a
60
mystery forever. Until the flames hit the inflatable Sailor

Moon love doll that I got from Japan: those babies explode
when you put a match to them.
But anyway, that's how we would do it in the old days. But

now? My computer hard drive is loaded with tens of thou-
sands of files, any number of which could prove embarrass-
ing if found by the wrong party.
I've looked, but I haven't found a program that will wipe a

folder or partition if nothing is done for a period of time. If
a password is not entered or if something else hasn't been
done, I don't see anything that will perform this function. I
guess one could write a batch file that would execute and
format the partition, but is that good enough to keep my
love letters to Leif Garrett private?
I don't think so. I don't think any solution is as good as the

one from the old days, the trusted friend.
So I'm going to keep a card like this in my wallet, next to

my "mullet donor" card (yes, that's a thing: in the event of
my death, my mullet will be removed and transplanted
onto a prematurely balding singer in a Southern rock
band).
In event of coma or death:

call 202-555-1235
tell Joe, "the salamander has left the pond"
If you would like to participate, you have to be willing to

travel anywhere in the Continental U.S. at a moment's no-
tice. You need a cordless drill with a metal drill bit, safety
goggles, gloves, a plastic bucket and some muriatic acid.
Okay, you don't really need the acid.
But in the event of my death, I expect you to respond when

you hear, "the salamander has left the pond," and then
spring into action. When you get to my house, be courteous
and knock. The dog's gonna bark a lot, but she won't attack
if you give her a treat; that's how we lost the TV in the last
burglary. So give the dog something. My girlfriend likes
wine coolers, but since she'll be grieving, bring a bottle of
tequila.
Go upstairs and open the computer. Be careful with my

stuff. Those Ikki Tousen action figures weren't cheap.
Get out the hard drive and drill some holes through it. Put
the drive on a phone book first, you dummy! You want to
drill through the floor? Four holes all the way through
should be enough. If you brought the acid, drop the drive
in the bucket and pour some acid over it.
And you're done.
Get up, pet the dog. Look, she likes you. Leave my
girlfriend alone. Yes, I know she's hot, but come on, I'm not
even in the ground. Show some respect.
Now, I just need your phone number. Anyone?
Sunday, September 6, 2009

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury
―Libraries raised me,‖ Mr. Bradbury said.

[snippage]
―I couldn‘t go to college, so I went to the library
three days a week for 10 years.‖
62
[NYT, June 19, 2009]34
This is why I think the modern librarians can't wait for Mr.
Bradbury to die.
When I was a kid, there were two sections in the library,

one for Children and the men who gave us a dollar if we
wouldn't tell anyone what there were doing in the kids'
bathroom (hint: it involved the wiener), and then the rest
of the library that was for everyone else, meaning the
adults.
Up until around age 11, the kids' area was okay for me to
hang out in. But then the librarian stopped letting me in
that room. I don't know if it was a height thing, but there
came a point where the Children's Area became off limits.
That left the rest of the library. With the adults. So I had to
start looking at the adult stuff, which meant walking
around and sitting with adults. Needless to say, the adults
didn't like it and complained about my behavior regularly.
So I had to learn to sit quietly and read Aperture or The

New York Times or The Illustrated Man if I wanted to
keep my library privileges. Otherwise, I had to wait outside
for my sister to come pick me up after she got out of school
an hour or so later. I would try to be quiet; I listened to
Classical music record albums; I read the encyclopedia.
But there was no teen area. There was no place to let me be

loud or use the computer to look at cell phone pics of the
girls in my class posing in their bras. And there definitely
was no tween area.
34
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/us/20ventura.html
Now libraries have these areas. When I was a kid, you went
straight from crapping your pants to being an adult. I think
this was left over from WWII where you could go from kin-
dergarten straight into the Army to kill Nazis. So kids grew
up fast and had to act like adults very early. I got a job
when I was six and started losing my hair when I was nine.
Now the teen area has posters of "cool" stuff. Images of

emo vampires and hip rock stars decorate the walls.
We have shelves filled with books like All This Weird Shit
is Happening to My Body and it’s Gross; and These Boobs
are Awesome! and You're a Tween, You Should Be Freak-
ing Out!
Teens and tweens are allowed to play games in the library

now. The library buys all this crap.
Libraries design special Tween Areas where there are no

mirrors and the lights are dimmer, so the kids don't have to
see what's happening to themselves or each other.
But the Teen Areas are filled with bright lights and sounds
and video games. And we have to write all this new policy
on how to let teens be just noisy enough to enjoy the li-
brary, but not so disruptive that we have to throw them
out.
When I was 15, the only reason I went to the library was
because all the girls were there studying. The librarians
didn't want me there. But there were no policies for how to
let me be a teenager. But I guess we didn't need video
games or computers. The librarians knew why I was there.
And I and every other teenage boy were there for only one
reason (hint: it involved the wiener).
64
But now, the modern librarians love teens. They don't give
a crap about educating the public, but providing after-
school facilities for latchkey kids turns them on.
In Ray Bradbury's day, I had to behave like an adult if I

wanted to use the library. In his day, the public library was
his education, his university, because nobody could afford
college. But today, every kid goes to college, so libraries
have devolved into playgrounds.
In Bradbury's day, the library was the higher learning sur-

rogate because that's what the public needed and couldn't
afford. But today, our taxpayers don't need an education;
they have the Internet. What they need from their public
servants is to keep the teens and the homeless off the
streets and away from them.
So libraries are changing. For better or for worse depends

on who is here to say.
When Mr. Bradbury and his like are gone, libraries will be
free to pulp all the books and fill all the reading rooms with
computers; and to shred all the newspapers, except for the
ones the homeless guys use for blankets.
Friday, September 11, 2009

Introducing AnyBookLibraries™, a New Style of
Library for the year 2015
(For 5-Year Delayed Release)
A small district in Any County, America, is changing the

face of public libraries. Introducing AnyBookLibraries™, a
new style of library that celebrates imagination, research
and solitude. Studies have shown that people who are left
alone quietly at their local library are less likely to become

assholes and annoy others.
Recent changes to libraries have moved them away from

physical books and into econtent. Downloadable materials
dominated the menu of traditional library offerings; but
AnyBookLibraries™ is willing to move forward to engage
readers with solid, tangible, physical resources. Tradition-
ally, libraries have been spending their tax dollars on mate-
rials their users couldn't even see unless they carried some
electronic handheld device in with them. But the new phi-
losophy surrounding the AnyBookLibraries approach gives
readers a world of exploration that they experience with
their senses, free of that expensive, electronic crutch.
The AnyBookLibraries™ model was designed to help libra-

ries remain relevant by offering books to their customers.
Books and books and more books. They offer programming
around books, technology for improving access to books,
and a "reasonably adequate" level of customer service so
that everyone who walks into an AnyBookLibraries™ feels
welcome, so long as they silence their phones, spray a little
Febreze under their pits, and can keep their mouths shut.
Tripling overdue fines and teaching the Dewey Decimal

Classification to the public are just some of the changes on
the road to AnyBookLibraries. The next step in this revolu-
tion is the launch of the new brand, which represents the
new library philosophy.
"AnyBookLibraries is a new style of library that offers me-

morable experiences linked to hundreds years of a tradi-
tion of paper-bound words and pictures for its customers,"
says the Library director The Effing Librarian. "Any-
BookLibraries is a place where you can find more and more
and more books. Any damn book you want. But you can't
66
play video games, and if you try to download audio books

to your iPod, a signal will make it explode. But if you want
to read quietly by a fireplace and write notes in your jour-
nal, we have a pencil sharpener out in the lobby to help
keep your mind sharp. And your pencil. Obviously. But I
was trying to make a point. Pun intended."
Ripped off from this here news itemy thing found on LIS-
News:35
I’m convinced that someone who works at Google enjoys

screwing with me. He, she or they visit my blog and do
stuff to it in the Google rankings to bring it up higher in
search results. Because I can’t imagine that anyone at
Google would visit my blog just because they like it.

Google, please stop screwing with the effing libra-
rian...
I write a blog. It's not a very good blog. You know this be-
cause you've read it. So why does Google continue to treat
my blog like it's something special?
Look at these search results, according to Sitemeter, for a

search that linked to my blog yesterday for the words "the
graveyard book silas vampire":36
Out of 1,250,000 results, why does my blog come up

second?
35
http://lisnews.org/introducing_anythink_new_style_library
36
visit the blog to see the image
It's like how sometimes when I feel unloved and I search

for me and Google will say something like, "Results 1 - 10
of about 147,000 for effinglibrarian."
And I say, there's no freaking way that effinglibrarian ap-

pears 147,000 times on the Internet. I know I've tried to
get my name known, but I only type about twenty words a
minute, so I don't know how I could get 147,000 effingli-
brarians out there on all the internets without a million
monkeys helping me type.
I think the answer is that Google is testing a new algorithm

that identifies each of us and periodically returns search
results tailored to what it thinks we expect to find.
Do a search for yourself one day and Google will use its
standard search algorithm to find standard results. But do
that same search a different day, and Google will run its
special beta algorithm and return results that it thinks you
want. Then it looks to see what you do next. If you click on
page after page of results, it assumes you, the person, are
somehow related to those results since you read through
more of them than a casual searcher might. And Google
learns from this and becomes smarter.
Well, anything we can do to make Google more powerful, I

guess is good for all of us in the long run.
Unrelated:
I want to see someone write an updated Fahrenheit 451

where the Internet is forbidden and instead of characters
memorizing books, they memorize search results. So the
character who memorizes a search for me will say, "Results
one through ten of about one hundred forty-seven thou-
68
sand for effinglibrarian. One: the.effing.librarian. Effingli-

brarian dot blogspot dot com. Two: effinglibrarian on
Technorati..."
Needless to say, I want to be the guy who memorizes the

search results for "boobs." Especially the image results. I
guess I should get started now.

Let the Looting Commence.
Congratulations to Philly for not exploding into a fireball of

a crime spree when The Philadelphia Free Library an-
nounced it was on the verge of complete shutdown and no
reboot. Because when I think Philadelphia, I think riots. I
don't know why. Oh, wait, my great-great-great-great-great
grandfather was tarred and feathered in Philadelphia for
being a loyalist. (Just kidding.) It's probably just the city's
high crime rate.
I'm sure you've heard that Philadelphia is closing its public

libraries. No? But you heard the rumor that Lady Gaga is a
dude? Yeah, you need to prioritize your Internets.
Yes, Philly is The City of Brotherly Love. But I can't help

thinking that it's a City of Brotherly Crime. I don't know
why I have that opinion. Philadelphia is where the Declara-
tion of Independence was signed. And where Nicolas Cage
found Benjamin Franklin's magic glasses that enabled the
discovery of the invisible map on back of the Declaration,
which he had just stolen, along with the glasses that he
"found" in a wall of a national historic building. It's a city
filled with history. And looting.
So when will the looting of the libraries begin? And if not

the looting, what about the massive borrowing of materials
that never need be returned? If you knew your library was
closing for good on October 2, wouldn't you borrow hun-
dreds of items right now? And get extra library cards for all
your kids and pets and deceased relatives?
Look at the Free Library37 website; they are still taking ap-
plications for library cards!
But wait, the Library says, "In addition, all library mate-
rials will be due on October 1, 2009. This will result in a
diminishing borrowing period for books and other library
materials, beginning September 11, 2009. No library mate-
rials will be able to be borrowed after September 30,
2009."
I'm sorry. Is anyone in Philadelphia returning anything

they have out right now? And if they do, isn't the clerk
simply giving it back to them, winking, and reminding the
patron that the library is closing for good? So that nobody
has to reshelve stuff that will never be borrowed again?
And have you checked their calendar of programs for Oc-

tober, the month they are supposed to close? That Dog
Whisperer guy is scheduled for October 5, three days after
the library shutters its doors. Has someone told him not to
bother showing up? And about the mess his dog just laid
on the carpet?
And when are annoying popups okay? If your library is

closing? Every time I go back to the Free Library home
page, this message pops up to say the library is closing.
37
http://www.freelibrary.org/
70
Yes, I heard you the first time. Now, when the hell am I
getting a copy of The Lost Symbol?
Anyway, Philadelphia is in a budget crisis and all of their

libraries could close for good. So in the interest of assisting
the residents of Philadelphia who would like to relieve the
library of some of its inventory before the forced closure
due to a cheap-ass state legislature, here is a partial list of
locations where you can still get materials. At the very
least, can't you just steal the library's 114 copies of Paul
Blart: Mall Cop. For the love of God! Why??????
[list omitted from this book]

because no one asked for it.
One day, I wrote the line, “you need to prioritize your in-
ternets” in a blog post and I thought it might make a good
t-shirt. It looks better in color on the shirt, but still, I ha-
ven’t sold any. Maybe it isn’t clear what your highest and
lowest priorities are? Yes, that tiny word is “work” and the
huge one is “porn.” And you thought I didn’t know.

Top 5 Web Trends for 20,009 B.C.
I looked at the Top 5 Web Trends of 2009 38 by ReadWri-

teWeb, but in my mind, I added too many zeroes to the
headline. Huh? You get it? Too many zeroes. I bet this is
going to be pretty funny...
So what would be the Top 5 Web Trends for the year

20,009 B.C.? I think it might go a little something like
this...
1. Structured Data, or what we like to call Shelter. Shelter

is a place for our stuff, or in your words, our data. Ideally,
Shelter is a secure method for archiving and linking stuff.
It's where the user, the interface and the data become one.
2. The Real-Time Web, or for us, Fire. We can't get more

Real-Time than with Fire. Fire is hot. Almost nothing has
the ability to communicate the message like Fire.
3. Personalization, or The Sharp Stick. When we want to

isolate useful information, targeted for the individual, you
can't beat The Sharp Stick. The Sharp Stick offers portabili-
ty and a universal message, "Hey, I have a sharp stick.
Watch out!" Nothing helps you leave your mark on the
Web like a sharp stick.
4. Mobile Web & Augmented Reality, or what we call Lan-

guage. Mobility is only valuable when mobile tools enable
access to information. There is no better mobile tool for
38
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_5_web_trends_of_2009_in
ternet_of_things.php
72
communicating a message than Language; other than The

Sharp Stick. And like Augmented Reality, Language
evolves with each App. New words change the power of
Language which in turn helps to construct new realities.
5. The Internet of Things, or the Sun God. I don't know

about you, but Fire scares the hell out of me. I can't tell you
how many times I've been burned by a new version or had
something get fried. But with the Sun God, everything is
connected, everything is clear as the new day. Praise the
Sun God, for He is One-to-Many. And One-to-One. He is
everywhere. Everyone loves the Sun God.
How could I find my sharp stick without the help of the

Sun God? The thing is, I can't find it. I think some dick
took it. But the Sun God shows all. He tells me when to get
up and when to sleep. He illuminates the darkness, except
for inside the Shelter, which is where I thought I left my
stick. But when I asked if anyone saw it, nobody knew what
I was talking about. I tried to get some Fire to look for it,
but the Fire was out and IT said it wouldn't be back for at
least an hour.
So screw you, Sun God. You don't know everything. Crap.

I better keep my mouth shut or that asshole who stole my
stick might poke me in the eye.
[wow, that was worth the trip, wasn't it? hi-larious! you
can't get comedy like this unless you make it up yourself.]

Will Gen X be the last generation to walk upright?
One day, I saw a girl sign her name by printing it, and it
freaked me out. Letter, pause. Letter, pause. Letter,
pause...
But it turns out that this was just a sign of things to come. I
asked if that's how she always signs her name, and she
said, yes. Her penmanship was neat, but it wasn't in any
way unique.
Schools no longer teach cursive writing according to the

Associated Press, "Cursive writing may be fading skill, but
so what?"39
So what? You know why cursive is so awesome? It proves

sustained thought. It reinforces an understanding of spa-
tial relationships and proportion... better than video
games. Printing is for someone with a short attention span.
Printing is what we teach apes to do. Except that damn
orangutan that keeps writing, "ape must never kill ape,"
40whatever that's supposed to mean.
[Usual Associated Press precautions, which means I‘m de-

leting quotes from the original story…]
The teacher said that kids need to be prepared for
the next 10 or 20 years and penmanship is not im-
portant.
Fine, they'll be ready for the year 2030, but fifty years from
now, when the world goes to hell because of some natural
or man made catastrophe, or because some idiot shoots
Michael Rennie, or because God stops by on his way to a
planet where they didn't murder his son and sees all the
shit we've been up to for the last 2,000 years, and whups
39
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090919/ap_on_re_us/us_cursive_angst
40
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawgiver_(Planet_of_the_Apes)
74
us with His galaxy-sized belt (yes, He's put on weight),

there won't be any more Internets.
And then where will the printing people be? Society will
split between the "chickenscratchers," who can't get a car
loan because they can't sign their own names, and the
"penmasters" who rule the lands the dashing flourish of
their John Hancocks.
As evidenced above, today's kids don't even have signa-

tures. Are they going to print their names on their credit
cards? What is the percentage of identity theft going to be
when they can't sign their names and every fact about them
is already shared online?
[AP, again]
The teacher says, Why should schools teach kids

something different from what they learn at home
and on the streets? Or something like that.
So today's schools only teach kids what they already

know? WTF???
I always thought school was supposed to teach new shit.

But I guess we've given up on that because it's too difficult.
You know how they teach a bear to ride a bicycle? Torture.
It works. Now teach the damn kids how to write a letter in
cursive.
But one teacher asks her students about what they

would do if they had no electricity.
There's a teacher who understands the problem. But ask

any kid what he would do if the Internet was down and
he'd probably answer, "Nothing." Why are schools teaching
kids to do nothing? We should be preparing them for the

days of no electricity.
And what about printing? Isn't it good enough for commu-

nication? It's good enough to write, "Employees Must
Wash Their Hands After Using the Restroom." But it for
damn sure isn't good enough to write, "When in the Course
of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them
with another, ..."
Okay, fine, you looked at a copy of the Declaration of Inde-

pendence and saw that the word "When" is printed. 41
But you see that "W"? That W took Jefferson an hour and a
half to make. If he printed out the entire document like
that, we would all still be British. And The Beatles would
have come from The Bronx; and what would Rubber Soul
sound like then, huh, smartypants? You think you know
everything.
Thursday, September 24, 2009

What are you doing? No, wait, don't tell me.
A response to, Twitter faux pas: 20 dreadful types of

tweet.42 [go to the story to see the list]
This article points to twenty things we should never tweet.

But I say, with the utmost respect to the author and the
publication, what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about?
41
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_zoom_2.html
42
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/6219706/Twitter-
faux-pas-20-dreadful-types-of-tweet.html
76
The tweet box says right above it, What are you doing?
It doesn't say, Tell me something useful, or Entertain me,
you clever bastard. It says, What are you doing? With no
expectations. It is a puppy starved for its human's atten-
tion. Twitter only wants love. And to sniff your crotch.
There are many elitists who are attempting to apply some

tweet ethics to this simple service:
1. Don't tell me anything that I don't want to hear.

2. Consider me before you type anything.
But Twitter doesn't need enlightenment. What it lacks in

insight , it makes up for in volume. Twitter is the least
transformative experience you will ever have on the Inter-
net.
Twitter is a record of the banality of the human experience.

It is us at our foundation. Are humans vain, petty, self-
absorbed, pompous, confident, proud, truthful? Yes, Twit-
ter shows we are all of these things.
When the author of the article asks, "Are your tweets wor-
thy of my attention?" the only answer I have is maybe you
don't really belong on Twitter.
Monday, September 28, 2009

Sex! Sex! Sex is good for libraries.
You've heard the news: Libraries suck.

Libraries aren't being built43, or when they are, they don't

get stocked with books44. We could argue the value of a li-
brary without books or the wisdom of providing food and
drink in a room filled with paper goods and/or electronics,
but no intellectual discourse would steer me away from
shouting directly into your face that these futuristic visions
of the library are "FUCKING FAILURES."
They are not failures in the sense that no one will visit
them; they are failures in that these libraries are only dis-
guised as research facilities. Everyone knows that the se-
cret purpose of libraries (well, one of the secret purposes,
since there are many... yes, I'm talking about you, Freema-
sons) is a place where you can make-out or have an orgasm
and no one will bother you. I, the.effing.librarian, can even
admit that an old girlfriend once flashed me in the library
when she was out wearing only a long coat and boots.
Okay, it wasn't my girlfriend, it was my roommate Tim.
But that still counts, doesn't it?
But these new "libraries" only offer Internet. Yes, you can
download econtent, but who the hell is going to do that?
What visitors are going to do, based on what I see in my li-
brary, is watch hentai animation clips on the computer and
then pretend to take their phones out of their pockets 150
times over and over and over until they rub themselves in-
to bliss.
Maxim magazine has a cheerful illustration45 explaining

the intended use versus the real use of library spaces at
43
http://chronicle.com/article/Is-It-a-Library-A-Student/48360/
44
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2
009/09/07/a_library_without_books/
45
http://www.maxim.com/humor/stupid-fun/84085/how-a-college-
library-is-used.html
78
every university, and other than misdirecting their pun-

chline (they put "Masturbating" somewhere in the middle
of the list when it should clearly, for the sake of comedy, be
placed last), it seems pretty accurate.
So when these new libraries open without books, they

flaunt the oldest library secret: libraries are places for
learning about sex. But historically, sex has been confined
to dirty books. But no longer.
I used to think that having perverts watching porn on li-

brary computers was a violation of the noble purpose of the
library until I had the revelation that it isn't. What I mean
is, libraries should be for research and education, but
SECRETLY for enjoying porn. Whatever became of texts
like, Fanny Hill? Or teens sneaking a peek at Tropic of
Cancer? Every naked body or sexual depiction should be a
secret pleasure earned by the seeker through a diligent
pursuit, or by having an older brother who shows it to him,
not by simply googling it. (note: everything I know about
Fanny Hill or Tropic of Cancer I learned from Potsie and
Ralph on Happy Days.)
But the Internet exposed the secret. And so the library lost
its power. Porn is available to everyone through the Inter-
net. Except for the secret stash at The Vatican. And the
only way you'll ever get to see that treasure of porn is if you
can get your hands on the Pope's library card. I hear that's
what Dan Brown's next book is about: The Pope's Over-
dues.46
And for a while I was angered by those opposing porn fil-

tering. But now I understand. They know that the secret
has been lost. I first thought they wanted Internet porn in
libraries based on some interpretation of free will where
46
not a real Brown novel
people should have the ability to pursue their interests, no

matter how base of vile.
But now I know the truth. They only want the best for li-
braries. So when they say they don't support Internet filter-
ing in libraries, they understand that unfiltered, porn-
loaded, donkey-mounted, scat-sandwiched, golden-
showered, bukakied, hairy-assed, wet, sloppy sex is what
the public wants. And it's not just what the public wants;
it's what libraries have always given them, but which was
shrouded within aisles of arcanely labeled books.
So access to sexual material is the library's legacy. People

have always wanted sex from libraries. The Internet is just
the latest porn delivery system. Come into our library any
day and see dozens of people viewing porn on our Internet
computers. If you're lucky, you might catch one kid peek-
ing between the covers of The Lesbian Sex Book. Dirty
books don‘t have the pull they once had. And so free access
to online sex will probably prove to be the salvation of li-
braries.

On the destruction of the writer's spirit
I was listening to NPR: All Things Considered today and

one of the segments praised a book by an author who I
took a creative writing class with (okay, "with whom I
took") about twenty years ago, and who on the first day of
class did something that made me decide he was a com-
plete ass.
You might say that being a good writer doesn't make one a
good teacher, so I'll agree with that and move ahead.
80
I tried to get into the creative writing class with James Hall
47(who doesn't seem to have a Wikipedia page (wtf??) ), but
at the time, everyone signed up for that one so I took what

was available.
So this other guy, who is not James Hall, opens the first
day of class by asking what everyone is writing. And the
first person to chime in reads her story which was some-
thing like this:
Arcmage Thelia Ravenshield raised her golden bow

to her eye in line with her target. The Iceblack Lord
could feel the air vibrate with the tension of the
bowstring being pulled taught. The arrow was
forged from metals belched forth during the one
thousand year eruption of Mt. Killak, metals ru-
mored to have the godlike powers of restoration or
destruction. The Iceblack Lord was as old as time
and no mortal weapon could injure him, but this
arrow, so it was told, could pierce his stonelike
heart and finally extinguish his reign of terror.
Pretty awesome, huh? Ugly chicks can really write. And

then person number two reads her stuff:
Professor Dumbledore eyed Harry's wand suspi-

ciously, "Are you positive you have never used this
wand to make Hermione's breasts larger, Harry?
Not even a little?"
"No," Harry protested. "I think Ron's got her preg-
gers."
47
http://www.jameswhall.com/jameshallbiography.htm
And he stops the class and says, "No. This class is about
Contemporary Fiction. Elves and wizards are not part of
contemporary fiction."
This was 1990, not the pre-Hobbit world of 1920. Elves

and wizards were definitely contemporary fiction. So the
class didn't get off on the right start.
So when I heard his name on NPR today, I was a little an-

noyed. Because he sucked the life out of (at least) two
budding novelists. You know, I don't read non-Batman
fantasy fiction or non-Batman gay-lesbian-transgender fic-
tion or non-Batman Christian fiction, but I would never say
that some author's orcin gangbang is craptacular bullshit.
So when this guy did that, it just killed my spirit.
And I never wrote another word again.
On the plus side, I learned two important things from that

class. The first is that in storytelling "only trouble is inter-
esting." And the second is that there are only two basic
plots: "A stranger comes to town," and "A man goes on
quest." I don't remember anything else because I never did
the assigned readings.
But I never wrote another word again. 48

Banned Books.
As a librarian, I'm supposed to celebrate "Banned Books

Week," but each year I'm confused when I set up the dis-
48
my girlfriend’s dog has written most of my blog posts
82
play of banned books. I have at least two boxes of books to

face out on the display table. And when I set them out, no
one rushes up to remove them. The table is clearly marked
"Banned Books," but the Library and the Police and the
Anti-Everything League let them remain there for anyone
to borrow and read.
This week the Annoyed Librarian led me to an interesting

Wall Street Journal article by Mitchell Muncy.49
Muncy wonders if Banned Books Week is really about cen-

soring our freedom to complain.
America was founded by complainers. To complain is a

human being's greatest expression of free will. My
girlfriend's dog, who isn't human, complains when she
makes poo and doesn't get a reward quick enough. But now
that I think about it, maybe she's complaining against
some injustice. Maybe she's attempting to express some
desire for more rights denied her through the lack of op-
posable thumbs. If only she could hold a pen, I'm sure
she'd have something to tell me. But as soon as I give her
some bacon-like treat, she seems to forget all that.
For Banned Books Week, we need to remember that the act

of challenging a book is just as important a freedom as de-
fending free speech against that challenge.
Sure, we can laugh at people who attempt to remove Harry

Potter from the school library, but we should never try to
deny them that process to make the complaint. Without
those challenges, where would we get the list of books that
I set out on that display? Russia?
49
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574420882
837440304.html
I guess I could put out copies of Fame and Fortune and

Other F Words and METAL ASS. There are thousands of
libraries in this country and not one carries my books. Now
that's censorship.
Thursday, October 1, 2009

An apology:
Walt has a post about blogs50 (library blogs in particular,

since he does periodic surveys and reports his results in the
form of print matter that he publishes but that nobody
buys - yeah, babe, I share your pain)....
He says that most blogs that go into suspended animation

and suddenly reawaken with some message about how the
blogger is so sorry for abandoning her post and how she
will try harder to make it up, post this message right before
the blog succumbs to the terminal illness of slack.
Me, I pretend these bloggers had some really important

message, but were thwarted by an ominous branch of the
government and given untraceable poisons, their bodies
later discovered by cleaning women hired by landlords to
go find out what that smell is coming from 2G. Walt finds a
direct correlation between the "I'm sorry for not posting;
I'll try to do better" message and the imminent death of the
blog. I see this message as disinformation spread by those
governmental assassins to lead us to believe that all is well,
when that poor blogger has already bought it and eva-
cuated herself into her Hello Kitty pajamas.
50
http://walt.lishost.org/2009/09/what-not-to-post/
84
The other day on Twitter, I had this exchange with MLx51:
MLx: How NOT To Suck At Blogging http://ff.im/-

8HJTt
Me: @MLx this guy takes his blog way too serious-
ly... "sucking" is relative. you only suck at blogging
when you quit doing it. otherwise: WIN.
My point was, either blog or don't blog; any frequency or

amount is fine.
It's like when I answer the phone at the Reference Desk in

the library and hear this:
Can I ask you a question? Are you ready? Do you

think you can help me? I always ask the library
first because they always know everything. So are
you ready for my question?
MoFo, I was born ready, but now I think I need a nap. You
done wore me out.
But I guess that's not as bad as the caller who just says,
"Anderson, it looks like a B."
And I ask, "Do you need Anderson, it looks like a B's phone
number?"
"No, this is a painting of a unicorn wearing a tutu, and it

says, Anderson with a B. I think he's famous. So what's that
worth?"
The first thing I think is, if he's famous, then you don't
have one of his.
51
http://twitter.com/MLx
I think I hate those calls the most.
Oh, but getting back to the apology. I've been doing this
crap pretty consistently for two-and-a-half years now. And
I'm sorry for continuing. I'll try harder to stop.
Monday, October 5, 2009

A real adult video store worker doesn't kiss and
tell.
I don't usually post incidents at my job because then I have

to remind myself that you all think I'm a librarian and so I
have to remember to change all references to "the adult
video store" into ones for "the library."
Actually, I am a librarian. Why would I lie about that? Why

would anyone pretend to be a librarian? But the point is
that I don't want to dwell on all the crap that goes on here.
I don't want to formulate the events into sentences and
correct the grammar and punctuation until the memories
are stuck in my head for good. I hate filling out incident re-
ports because then I have to remember the facts about the
feces or stolen items or kiddie porn or blood. How do you
think Batman does it? You think Batman files written re-
ports?
But sometimes the adult video store, um, library just con-
fuses me.
Like today, a guy asks me this:
When is the next computer available?
86
I don't do the Internet reservations. Internet sign-

ups are done at that desk.
Internet sign-ups are done... [Interrupts]
You already told me that.
I'm still trying to figure out what sort of answer he ex-

pected. I mean, he really did ask the exact same question
just five seconds earlier. Did he think something had
changed? Is it polite for me to tell him he just asked that
question? Maybe he's a cop and his job is to ask the same
question over and over until he breaks me and I confess to
pulling that bank job.
Awright, you got me, copper. I done it. It was me,

all me. Take me, but don't tell my Ma, it'll break her
heart.
I tell myself that it's not professional to discuss real pa-

trons and real problems. Unless it's funny, then it's okay.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The fake library.
So I've been thinking, none too clearly, about the relation-

ship between a digital branch of the library and the real
branch of the library. Maybe you've heard about the trend
to create digital branches where everything that is available
from a real branch is also available through your library

website.
Instead of just having a static web page filled with news

items and library hours, you have, let me just gather my
2009 library buzzword list, "an online resource to em-
power the user to locate information and to create
a transformative experience utilizing interactive
social networking and a real time interface for
knowledge and power."
There. Oh, God, now my fingers need to throw up.
And what I've learned is that there is no way to justify a

digital branch using the old library parameters for success.
(And not surprisingly, there also seems to be no way to jus-
tify the brick-and-mortar library, either.)
So once you've created a website or transformed your web-

site into a digital branch, you must accept that it will al-
ways be a total failure in traditional library terms. So you
need to create new terms.
Now, you might want to bail out right here. I can't guaran-
tee that anything that follows will make a lick of sense.
For example, our library website gets 2,000,000 hits a

month (it's actually higher, but my math skills work better
if I keep it simple). Awesome, right?
You might think that's awesome, but if you remember that

every computer in our library opens to our web page then
you need to subtract all the public and staff usage or look at
the "bounce" rate to see that 80-84% of visitors leave im-
mediately. And even that's deceptive because I might open
a browser window and leave it open to our library website
88
for hours, anticipating a need. So how many other staff

leave the browser open to our home page for hours waiting
to do a search?
I compare our home page to our digital branch to our real

branch facing the street. I don't have the figures, but what
if 200 cars pass our library each minute? That would be
12,000 every hour. That seems high. So I just ran outside
and did a quick check and counted 35 cars in one minute.
That's 2,100 cars per hour. Or 50,400 per day. Or
1,562,400 cars pass by our library each month. Which is
much closer to our statistics for visits to our website. So in
my mind, this comparison is making sense, when to you,
an objective reader, it's total crap.
But let's assume this is all accurate and not some crap I'm
making up. If so, then how do I measure the success of my
digital library? And how do I measure the success of my
real library?
If I really had 1.5 million vehicles pass my library every

month, would this number mean anything to my library?
These are all potential customers. What can I do to draw
more of them into the parking lot? And not just to score
some crank or to score some time with our parking lot day-
time hooker, but to actually enter the library building and
use it for library stuff.
The same with my digital branch. How many of those 2

million hits can I convince to look at more of our website,
like our incredibly expensive electronic databases? We
spend more than $50K per month on electronic databases
(again, assuming I'm not making this up). And we get
around 15,000 monthly database users. I don't know if
those are unique users, but they're users; and this is across
all databases.
Is it fair to compare drive-bys with home page hits? Re-

member, the bounce rate is really high, meaning these
people barely gave a look before they were off to another
location. I can't know how many of my drive-bys actually
looked at the library, but I can see that about 300,000 of
my digital visitors (20% of 1.5 million that didn't bounce)
stuck around for a minute or two. I might have time to do a
head count for people or cars in the parking lot, but it isn't
easy to guess the percent of our drive-bys who stop to visit.
So are any of these counting methods useful? I guess as po-

tential customers, they could be useful. But that's not how
libraries measure success. I don't know any library that
uses potential customers to gauge the effectiveness of their
marketing or publicity. Our library might print 1,000 flyers
to promote a program that brings in 100 people. Maybe
that's a great response, I don't know. But the library only
cares that 100 people showed for the program. The cost of
the marketing doesn't figure into whether the program was
a success.
When I print 100 copies of something, I expect 100 people

to show up. Anything less, and I feel like I failed. But libra-
ries don't work that way.
Here are some new and old terms of library service com-
pared, for example:
Our catalog allows for patrons to place holds on items. I

haven't asked, but I don't think that you can insert a page
counter into each "Place Hold" button in our catalog, so
our statistical service for our website can't track a patron
from our homepage into the catalog and then further into
the form for placing the hold. All we can do is get a report
from the catalog database showing how many holds were
placed online, which is all of them. All holds are done on-
90
line. There is no way to tell which were done by patrons vi-

siting our catalog from home and which were placed by
staff or by patrons within a branch.
But if the patron asks for assistance by telephone or in per-

son, the staff assisting can add that request as a patron
transaction to the daily stats, so there is a record. But it's
not a record of any specific service, so again, we don't have
a clue about how the hold was placed.
So all these stats and counts don't give me an accurate pic-

ture of how a digital visitor or even how a real visitor uses
our library. Real patron transactions don't indicate the lev-
el of interaction or time spent, and digital statistics only go
so far. Like I said before, I sometimes leave our home page
open for hours just in case I need to check something.
Here is another example of the differences between our

digital and real library. Our library started offering com-
puter classes in 2000. We didn't post all of our class sche-
dules online back then because I was the guy updating the
website and I had better things to do. Now we have another
guy doing it, so he posts all of our classes for each of our
branches on our website.
But I can tell you from the drawerful of stat sheets that at-
tendance rates haven't gone up as our library has become
more digitally represented. In fact, I have two branches
who don't want their classes promoted at all on our website
because word-of-mouth attendance is more than enough
for them.
So why isn't our digital branch producing more students

for our computer classes? Why aren't more of those
300,000 signing up for classes?
I think the problem started for me when I would see hit

counts for the website and I would say, "Wow." But then I
would think, how come our other services aren't getting
more use? How come only ten kids showed up to see that
Barbie Princess movie bullshit we had last week?
And then I have to remember that libraries are free. Like

roads. We maintain and sometimes expand the service.
When we try to make libraries results-oriented in order to
gauge success, we have to accept that those numbers won't
work.
I think every reference librarian understands how bogus

statistics are for patron transactions. Did that guy ask one
complicated question or five small questions? Is walking
the patron to the copier a statistic but not one when you
just point to it?
So I guess my ultimate point is that if your library has or

creates a digital branch, don't congratulate yourself too
loudly because it really won't mean shit to the overall suc-
cess of your library. But they are relatively cheap for the
potential services they can provide. And unlike a real li-
brary, they are available from anywhere. Not like when you
built a library in 1960 in a part of town that now, everyone
is afraid to visit after dark.
Demographics around a real library change. But not for the

digital branch. Unless you forget to buy enough domains
and your library's (dot)com or (dot)org and your site gets
confused with some ahole's (dot)net and your library pa-
trons complain about all the porn on the library webpage.
92
Google and The Road to Evil.
Here is something from The Wall Street Journal: "Google‘s

Schmidt and Brin on Books, Culture and Evil-ness,"52 when
asked about the ―orphan works‖ in the Google books set-
tlement, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said, "...So I think
these objections that Google will be the only one [with
access to the orphaned works] are pretty ludicrous given
that no one else has done this.‖ [emphasis, me]
Like most librarians, I love Google. I love having access to

information and Google does an excellent job of making
my searches easier. "You hear me, I love Google," he cries
as some googlebot deletes every mention of
the.effing.librarian from the interwebs.
That said, the truth is that librarians and researchers have

always wanted to do this, but we have respect for property
rights and we have a healthy fear of being sued. Yes, we've
all thought of scanning every book in our collection. But we
err on the side of caution because we assume the owners of
these works might take offense. We don't have the balls to
just do it and see who complains.
If Google succeeds and wins the right to host, publish, dis-

tribute, promote, package, optimize, index, and sell all of
these books, then everyone should win the same rights to
do the same with the same texts. These orphaned texts
should make the fast track toward the public domain.
Now, what Google is doing may not be outright Evil, but it

for sure is parading around in a cape and twirling its long,
black mustache.
52
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/10/07/googles-schmidt-and-brin-on-
books-culture-and-evil-ness/
Okay, there has been a lot of text, so I’m going to try to

put some of my cartoons in this book. I did this in the be-
ginning of METAL ASS and it was a lot of work, but now I’m
just going to insert the comic strips and see how they turn
out. If you really do pay $2,999.99 for this and you aren’t
satisfied with the comics, I’ll refund your money, pro-
rated… so that would be about $8.
94
This is Black Shirts. It’s about two “beings” who work on a

“starship.” On the original Star Trek TV show, guys who
wore red shirts held the bottom rank on the ship. But
these guys wear black shirts, which is even lower, so low
that nobody even knows they are part of the crew. So
they exist somewhere in the ship, in their own little world.
This particular story mirrors and parodies “The Change-

ling“and the encounter with the Nomad probe.
One character speaks in an oval balloon and the other in a

rectangular balloon.
96
In the original story, a damaged deep space probe called

Nomad comes aboard the Enterprise and declares all hu-
mans to be imperfect. Through 1960’s sci-fi logic the hu-
mans confuse the probe and cause it to self-destruct.
But then I combined my story with a little bit of Harry

Mudd and a little Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s V-ger/Ilia-
Decker relationship.
98
And this is what you get. Ta da!
Well, it amuses me.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Why Hot Topic is Awesome
I'm easily offended. So when I see some GenY-idiot writing

about punk rock, I can't imagine he has any idea what he's
talking about.
Shawn says, "Punk was born on the street but is now bred
in major label board rooms with clothing manufacturer tie-
ins."53 But every history of punk acknowledges that Mal-
colm McLaren only "created" the Sex Pistols to sell bon-
dage and fetish clothing from his shop.
So English punk was always about selling something. New

York punk was different. Maybe he's got his geography
mixed up.
So now that we've established that no one should glorify

punk rock as some mystical surge of DIY grassroots music
that somehow has become corrupted by corporate greed,
let me just say that punk and rap (hip hop) are the last
great musical genres since they existed before the dawn of
MTV and Ticketmaster. (But I use "great" loosely with rap
music because I am not a fan.)
And Hot Topic is such an easy target. It's goth in a box. It's
soccer mom nipple rings. It's safe rebellion. It doesn't take
a hatful of clever to make fun.
So why do I love Hot Topic? Because they have the coolest

crap. Futurama and super hero toys, tee-shirts, and Hot
Topic is the only store I've ever seen to carry Battle Royale
53
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/getback/144976/hot-topic-punks-
in-a-fake-punk-world/
100
on DVD. Battle Freaking Royale! Which I had to buy on

VCD from Korea when I first heard about it.
And since HT is everywhere, I can find cool crap on clear-

ance in practically every mall in America.
Like last week, I stocked up on Twilight buttons @ 50 cents

each in preparation for our library's New Moon nerdfest
next month. And I've bought Watchmen and South Park
and Flogging Molly tee-shirts and Converse sneakers at
huge markdowns.
And there's nothing like having the massively pierced goth

and emo kids behind the counter get all riled up when an-
cient me walks into their store. Why is every kid in Hot
Topic covered in tattoos and punctured with piercings?
Hey, kid, You will never get a good job if they can see your
tats poking out of a business suit!
So don't knock Hot Topic. They didn't kill punk. If any-

thing, they've helped to keep it on life support for old
dudes like me.
DISCLAIMER: Due to recent Federal Trade Commission

decisions, the.effing.librarian discloses that HOT TOPIC
did NOT supply one complimentary stainless steel barbell
post for my uvula piercing in exchange for this review. So I
shoplifted one when the pale, emaciated vampire chick
passed out from malnutrition onto a stack of neatly folded
Paramore tee-shirts.

an iPhone future: 我有一个日期
It cracks me up when I see the iPhone commercial with the

app for learning a new language. The finger presses the
screen where it says, "Can you recommend a good restau-
rant?" in English and the iPhone speaks out the line trans-
lated into Mandarin.
I always imagine that like most people, that iPhone user

isn't really going to learn to speak Chinese, but will use that
application as a surrogate translator.
So I see the English-speaking user in China holding up his

iPhone to ask for a good restaurant.
And it makes me think that there's a companion iPhone

app for Chinese consumers that answers the questions
posed by American iPhones.
And so the Chinese user holds up his iPhone which has this
app for answering the questions from these American tour-
ists.
And then because both phones have speech recognition

and voice-control software, the two phones start a conver-
sation while the American and the Chinese stand there
holding up their iPhones to each other while blankly star-
ing into space.
And when the American returns home, his friends will ask
if he had a good trip. And he'll answer, "I don't know. But I
think my iPhone hooked up."
I can see a future where each of us is a slave to our smart-

phones. Not because we need them, but because we fear
them.
102
Your iPhone: "Listen bitch, you best walk me down to the

park right now or else I'm emailing everyone in your ad-
dress book those photos I took of you last night. And hurry
it up; I have a date."
Yeah, there's an app for that. Or at least, there will be.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Librarians as Anal Rapists.
There was an episode of Arrested Development54 where

Tobias recalled how he was trained as an Analyst and a
Therapist. And in a quick flashback,they showed his busi-
ness card that read, "ANALRAPIST." This was the obvious
compromise for the combination of being a half-analyst,
half-therapist. And one of the funniest visual gags, ever.
So here's a story from India about librarians losing their

identities55. The term 'librarian' is no longer seen as a posi-
tive descriptor for the duties modern practitioners per-
form. So India is seeking a contemporary replacement for
it.
Janice Lachance said, "Unfortunately the word li-

brarian does not recognise all of the contributions
these professionals used to make." She added, "We
are going to suggest one more appropriate term and
will ask members to vote for it. Hopefully this will
give some value to the term and people across the
world will accept the new term."
54
a short-lived American sitcom that has a large cult following
55
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_librarians-losing-their-
identity_1297528
So someone will form a committee and the members of the

association will brainstorm all the words one could use to
describe the activities or skills or duties of a librarian:
organize; analyze; retrieve; assist; sort; catalog; di-

rect; preserve; advise; instruct; protect; nurture;
update...
applied to data, information, people, etc.
And in the great failure that is Compromise, a librarian will

henceforth be called an Org-Anal-Ass-Dat. Because those
were the top terms with the most votes: Organize, Analyze,
Assist, Data.
Organalassdat.
The product of a committee.

Another library system going down the crapper.
The Nevada County [in CA] Board of Supervisors

voted Tuesday to further explore a proposal that
could lead to a quasi-privatization of the county's
public libraries.56
Nevada County, you are going to lose library services. How

can't you see that? You don't have any money. Right now,
your choice is to keep your existing professional librarians
at their existing pay and benefits or contract out with a pri-
vate company and get those people fired. The private com-
56
http://www.theunion.com/article/20091014/NEWS/910139973/1001/
104
pany will cut hours, cut pay, cut staff. That is how they save
money.
Sure, some will get rehired, but at much lower salaries with
fewer benefits. The good librarians will leave for jobs where
their skills are valued, and you will be left with a few clerks.
Why can't you just cut out the middleman and cut hours
now so you can keep your professional librarians?
[here comes the made-up stuff – remember, this is fake]
County Executive Officer Rick Haffey warned supervisors

that similar public-private partnerships might also be
worth pursuing in other departments as the county contin-
ues to address shortfalls in both sales and property tax rev-
enues.
A survey of recently shuttered Nevada County businesses

lists Mistress Donuts, Barbelles Gym, Nevada Rooter as
potential ventures for combining out-of-work residents
with current short-funded agencies. Haffney continued, "I
think adding one or two of the former employees of Mi-
stress Donuts to, say, the police force could be a nice cost-
saving mix. You know, cops, donuts. It could work."
Mistress Sharon, the former donut shop worker, said she

was familiar with "lots of cops" and thought she had skills
the police department could use. "I could definitely get into
cracking heads," she added, smacking her patent-leather
gloved hand against her muscular thigh.
Employees from Barbelles Gym are considering combining

with the County's Fire and Rescue department. And the
Nevada Rooter workers, familiar with endless piles of crap,
could take a couple of the open seats on the County Board
of Supervisors.

B*A*D '09 (Blog Action Day)57
This year bloggers from around the world unite to fight a

common enemy: Denver, Colorado.
The official issue this year is Climate Change, but one of

the potentially catastrophic effects of a warmer climate is
the rising oceans, and which American city would survive
when the ice melts and the seas rise and the world is under
water? Leadville, Colorado, the highest town in the conti-
nental United States.
What? You don't know where that is? That's why I picked
Denver, which is only about fifty miles from Leadville and
has way more Starbucks. So it's that much more evil.
When the polar ice caps melt, Denver will be high and dry
and ready to host the Summer Olympics even though it was
finally going to be Reykjavík's turn, except Iceland's been
completely submerged since the previous Thursday.
And Climate Change won't just cause melting ice to force

polar bears to move south to eat Canadians, but it could ac-
tually force the bears into hunting for food in Chicago, Illi-
nois, one of our fattest, and hence, tastiest cities. Polar
bears can smell pepperoni-stuffed Chicagoans from 30
miles away.
Come on, humans, let's get our thermal and chemical out-
put under control. Because the planet doesn't need us. It
57
http://www.blogactionday.org/
106
did just fine with the dinosaurs before we were even mon-
key-people.
And if we don't fix the planet, I'm not sure what animals
are going to take over after we're gone. But there's a cock-
roach on top of my refrigerator wearing a life preserver and
sunblock who's giving me the stink eye, so that could be a
clue.
I’m not reprinting most of this next story because it didn’t

end well for the subject.

Library employee accused of double-dipping.
Look, we all need to do something to make ends meet. In

these tough economic times, I think we all consider taking
on extra work to make a little extra money.
I can't tell you how many times I've been given that brown
paper bag containing that wig, blue dress and red shoes
and told to put it on and repeat, "There's no place like
home."
I think it's my eyes. They seem to say, "I surrender."
Now I should edit out some of this next post because it

sounds at one point that I’m arguing with Joe Murphy, a
guy I read on Twitter who seems okay. But I’m not really
arguing. Sure, I’m yelling and I sound angry, but people
sometimes yell. It doesn’t mean they don’t love each oth-
er.
But whenever someone tries to sell me on new technolo-

gy, I look for some benefit other than, “it’s new and cool.”
I want it to solve more problems than it creates.
Sunday, October 18, 2009

Texting equals WIN?
Re: Text Message Reference: Is It Effective? by Ellyssa

Kroski -- Library Journal, 10/15/2009.58
―‘…our staff encourages someone who is texting to

stop by and see us or give us a call to continue the
conversation in-depth.‘ said Nikhat Ghouse, Digital
Reference Librarian at the University of Kansas‘
Anschutz Library.‖
I don't think you will find one article or study on the use of
text messaging or SMS in a library situation that didn't in-
clude some reference to asking the customer to call or visit
the library.
It absolutely blows my mind how people define success. If

your text messaging still requires a library visit to complete
the transaction, then that is FAIL.
Does anyone actually say, "Sure, it was stuck, but the pa-
ramedics got it out and I'm told the surgery to reattach it
was a success" after losing his penis to a vacuum cleaner?
If so, I'm sure it's followed by, "And you might want to
leave because I have to cry now. But when I get home, can
58
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6701869.html
108
you help me pack my stuff? Because after this, I can't show

my face in this town anymore."
Yes, success!
I find communication successful when mutual understand-

ing and cooperation leads to problem solving.
Like in the library: when we both understand that you are

bat-shit crazy, it's easier for me to help you find what you
want. Every librarian knows that the reference interview is
is not a one-sided process. It's like therapy. It's the kind of
help one would expect from a $20 an hour therapist.
But librarians do this shit in 15 seconds. In a reference in-

terview, the customer and I share enough information is 15
seconds for me to do my job correctly. We share language,
spoken or written words, gestures, grunts, bodily fluid
transfer, screaming, thrown object deflection, and 80,000
volts of good old Con Ed delivered by hand taser. And then
I drag the customer to the shelf to get the materials he
needs.
Why don't librarians admit that these services, SMS, Twit-

ter, etc. are simply ways of promoting library services. They
are not EFFECTIVE tools to assist customers. Unless your
customer asks the kinds of questions her grandma could
answer.
And it doesn‘t seem to matter that the reference in-

terview may take multiple text exchanges, accord-
ing to these librarians—
Why not? Why is texting better than a phone call? Why do

I have to send multiple messages to someone and wait for
another message to return, and then, possibly respond to a
second or third customer while I wait for the first to reply?
At least in a chat environment, I only have one person to

work with. Yes, I answer the phone or pick up a second
person, but that's my choice. I don't open the door to the
lie of making the first customer believe that I'm waiting
solely for his response so I can give more information.
What if this guy doesn't get back to me for five minutes?

"I'm back." "Who are you?" "The guy you were just talking
to." "Dude, I talk to a lot of people, what was your ques-
tion?" "Man, I'm not going to repeat it. Why can't you do
your job?"
Joe Murphy of Yale University Libraries told me, "I

am as able, if not more so than in person, [to pro-
vide effective reference via SMS] because ... text
messaging is a dominant form of communication
for me and my peers."
Oh, so that's it. It's the secret form of communication for

Skull & Bones Yalies. Why the fuck didn't you say so? May-
be your buds need to know when the Lightweight Men's
Rowing Crew races Princeton? (October 25, 2009. T-shirts
are $20.)
And speaking of the telephone, "The 160-character limit

does not seem to be an impediment; librarians simply send
multiple messages or ask patrons to call or come into the
library for further help with more complex questions."
It's bad enough that we've had access to telephones for 80

years and idiots still start every question with, "Can I ask
you a question? Are you ready for my question?"
"Hello, this is the effing library; how can I help you?"
110
How much clearer can I be when I answer the phone? You

should be prepared to ask your question. You should not
observe that you think it's amazing that the library offers
this service. The service exists and is happening right now
and you are a participant.
When you comment on things as you are doing them, the

people around you will walk away. Yes, you may comment
that it is a lovely day. Yes, you may express joy. Once. But
you can't dwell on the minutiae of existence. When you say,
"This is a delicious tuna salad sandwich," that's it, you're
done. You can't go on to glorify the balance of celery with
the chunks of tuna, nor may you mention whether there's
dill. We will fucking kill you.
The tool is only as efficient as the user. And we are all par-
ticipating in the art of communication. Yes, it is a fucking
art.
When you take up a new tool like texting, you'd better be

open-minded enough to accept that the tool might not
solve these ancient problems. I don't see that texting makes
communication better. It just opens the door to people too
lazy or too stupid to find the library.
Yes, it's a warm and fuzzy solution because all your peers
do it. And it's new. But for fuck sake, understand that it's
MAINLY a cool toy that still only promotes the REAL li-
brary services involving face-to-face communication.
I am not closed-minded. My opinions evolve when pre-

sented with new information. But look at the quotes on the
article. Look at how the new service adds "50-90 questions
per month," barely a half-day's worth of in-house transac-
tions, and many of those "encourage" the customer to stop
by the library anyway.
So, yes, I want to see these transcripts. I want to see how

the generation that sends 10,000 texts a month communi-
cates ideas. I'm looking online for texting examples, line by
line, with total transaction times, total number of messag-
es.
I want to know what percentage of users have unlimited

texting so my new super cool reference service isn't costing
some stupid kid $5 just so he can find out whether a book
is on the shelf.
Because without that information, I'm just going rant

blindly against becoming another co-dependent, gadget-
carrying, idiocy-enabler. Unless it does a good job of pro-
moting real library services, then I'm in.

Library blog?
I wish this were a library blog. I wish I could remain fo-

cused and refrain from posting about "wieners" and "farts."
But I never wanted to write a library blog. I just want to

write about crap that amuses me.
And I'm only a librarian because my skills led me here. If I

knew that my talents would make me a good kangaroo
poacher or Republican Senator, then that's what I would
be.
But I can find shit real good. I'm a searcher and a finder, a
hunter-gatherer. I'm good with print and electronic tools
and I can present my findings clearly to assist others.
112
But I'm not organized. So this blog is a mess. And that's

why I will never be voted as one of the LISNews Favorite
Blogs of the Year.59
No, I'm not asking you to nominate me. I tried that in 2007
and you took my Crown of Awesome away for 30 days.
I'm just saying, it ain't gonna happen for me. Just in case
you're one of the few who think it should.

The Five BEST Excuses For Not Using Twitter.
1. The name: Twitter. Tweets. Twitterers. And all the

"clever" variations. Do you tweet? I'm going to tweetattack
that twitterlicious twit topic , twitterpotatwittamus. But it's
a stupid name. It's one syllable more embarrassing than
"blog."
2. Ashton Kutcher. And every celebrity we follow. Unless

you do stuff that is, by itself, interesting, I don't need to
know about it. Being interesting or knowing about interest-
ing things and linking to them are the sole qualifications
for a follow, not who you are.
3. Trending Topics. Really? Do I need to explain this?

Ok, fine. Trending Topics are *supposed* to fulfill the
promise of Twitter, that we are all connected, that there is
wisdom in crowds. But what you find when you click on a
trending topic are a thousand aholes asking "why is this
trending?" or telling you to "click here to see my nude
pics."
59
http://lisnews.org/favorite_blogs_year_put_them_blogs_read_2010_list
4. The Cult of Twitter. Did you know Twitter is a cult? It

is. It's the new altar of worship for the endlessly mobile.
The Cult is about DOing and BEing. The Cult is here to
save the planet.
This SuperNews video sums it.60
5. Because, for now at least, The Real World Still

Kicks Ass. Unless you find a real-life reason for twittere-
rerering, like it gets you out of performing some lame task
at work, then why do it? Now excuse me because I'm going
outside to play with the dog.
[thanks, Dances with Books]61
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Text vs. Telephone
I don't hide the fact that I hate, hate, hate any communica-
tion that requires typing or even writing. The only time I
send my mother a birthday card is if I can convince the
clerk at the Hallmark store to write out my birthday wishes
for me.
I have terrible serial-killer handwriting, well maybe if a

serial killer and a doctor who were siblings produced a
twelve-fingered offspring, that's what my handwriting re-
sembles. And my typing is just as hideous as my handwrit-
ing, only slower. It took me 13 hours to type this.
60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w
61
http://danceswithbooks.livejournal.com/55506.html
114
So I find texting a clumsy endeavor with continual back-

spacing and retyping. I also feel that a great majority of
text reference users (including email, chat) really don't
have any idea of how to ask a question nor to reply to re-
quests for additional information. We specify that these
services (email, chat) are best for short answers and that
the librarian will likely not be a local librarian, but many
users still ask for detailed research or for solutions that on-
ly their local library can provide. Luckily, these users can't
see when I flip them the bird at the computer screen.
But since these are my own biases, I'll try not to include
them in a comparison of text vs. telephone.
Where?
A text request can originate from anywhere, so some re-
quests may come from customers outside of the library's
normal service area. Questions may be sent from anywhere
and answered without additional costs. Text messages may
cost extra, but that's not the library's problem.
Phone calls can originate from anywhere, but a library

could enact a policy against calling back someone who is
outside of the immediate area or if the call requires an area
code prefix or a 1. Otherwise, questions are answered from
anyone. Phone calls can be of an indefinite length which
could result in extra charges for the customer.
How?
A text message or email waits until someone responds to it.
A chat customer waits until she's picked up or she discon-
nects.
A missed phone call could go voicemail or the person could

hang up and that potential customer would be lost. Tele-
phone systems should allow a customer to wait in a queue
indefinitely until the call is picked up. Missed calls should
go back into the system and back into the queue. Ideally,
calls should only be disconnected only by the customer, not
by the system.
Archive?
Text messages, by their very nature, are recorded and
saved. And may be requested later. Why? It doesn't matter,
but any patron record could be considered a public record
if the communication involves a public entity. The message
can be deleted, but could still exist on backup servers for
longer periods and later retrieval.
Telephone calls may be recorded, but I don't know of any

library that records calls. Unless the question is written
down for a later call-back, there is no record of the caller's
identity stored in the library. But queries requiring a call-
back have patron names and contact information and their
question(s) and answer(s). What do libraries do with this
information to protect patron privacy?
Oh, who am I trying to kid? I can't write about this stuff.

Asses. Farts. Wieners. Asses. Farts. Wieners.
I only wrote this in response to this story62 about murdered

former quarterback, Steve McNair: "Nashville police re-
leased the 50 text messages Monday night as part of a case
summary and detailed the exchanges between the two
hours before the July 4 murder-suicide."
Police might be able to release phone records, but not re-

cordings of actual conversations in most cases. And it just
seemed creepy that all these electronic messages can be-
62
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-
mcnairkilled&prov=ap&type=lgns
116
come public knowledge if there's cause. Like if someone

needs to piece together the final moments of your life.
I hope my final sent text message is a vote on American

Idol. For a guy who sings in falsetto and plays a Dobro.

Prepare for Scottish librarian invasion.
And tune your ears to hearing about Edin-burrrrra and

Glaz-gooh63 because Scottish librarians are very unhappy
with their jobs (and could emigrate here). Don't laugh
Canada, Australia; they might go looking for jobs with you,
too.
The story doesn't say anything about Scottish librarians

coming to America64, but given the situation, it wouldn't
surprise me.
And from what I know about Scots, that I've learned from
watching the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,
Groundskeeper Willy on The Simpsons, and Braveheart,
they seem to yell a lot. And from what I know about kilts,
Scots enjoy cool breezes.
But this trend of deprofessionalizing librarians, in Edin-

burgh's case, calling librarians "audience development
officers" deserves a ginormous WTF??!!
63
“By the way, it's Glesgae,” Conan the Librarian™
http://www.blogger.com/profile/01904339261121451779
64
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh/Staff-morale-39at-
alltime-low39.5751854.jp
Where the fuck do Audience Development Officers work?

In a library, or in a fucking Audience Development Sta-
tion? I don't even know what the fuck those three words
are supposed to mean. It's like they took all the words in
the dictionary that could relate to a librarian and threw
them all out and these were the three that were left. It
means about the same as Rural Stronghold Apparition or
Leftist Lunchtime Entertainment. Seriously, all I can think
is that an Audience Development Officer is just someone
who opens the fucking doors in the morning and lets
people into the library.
Culture leader Cllr Deidre Brock said: "Growing use

of the internet for reference and information is
enabling us to structure the service so that our staff
can better cater to our customers' needs."
Really? "Enabling" Let's put that positive spin on a shitty

situation. How about, "Access to adult content on the In-
ternet EMPOWERS users to rub themselves dry."
So Dierdre (DEER-dree) is telling us that libraries are kill-

ing off the librarians.
Figures show there were only 66 full-time equiva-

lent (FTE) qualified librarians in May this year,
compared to 85.2 a year earlier. And 24 per cent of
the city's 26 libraries no longer employ a head li-
brarian.
Under the council's libraries review, all 300 staff

are to be given new job roles and job descriptions,
while staff have new teams and managers.
When libraries change their mission from education to en-

tertainment, this is what happens to the librarians.
118
Oh, yeah, they still want us to help patrons apply for un-
employment assistance and find out if their doctor has
been sued and show them how to convert their homes to
wind power, but they want to treat us like Internet babysit-
ters. So we will be downgraded to Audience Development
Officers, or worse.
I don't know what the solution is, but every one of you mo-
therfuckers who works in library that is offering the
TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE of providing Internet
on 99% of the computers in your library, better come up
with something.
You have to find a way to offer more training that uses your
computers so they don't get labeled as entertainment ma-
chines and you end up just being Entertainment Machine
Cleaners.
You need to get some of those computers used for either

job searching classes, or word processing instruction, or
even Facebook classes. And you need to make sure that, I
don't know, twenty percent of the time on these computers
is used for this instruction.
Make contacts with the local schools and offer to show kids
kids how to do a proper Google search. Schedule time
when people can file for unemployment or food stamps or
whatever and have a librarian there to help them do it. Let
your users know that you don't just tell them when their
Internet time is up and then throw away their McDonald's
bag from their lunch.
You can try to be the Gamer Librarian, but I guarantee that

they will downgrade that position as soon as some kid
shows he can press Play and do it for $9 an hour.
There is no way to stop the future from happening. There

will be a time when the economy gets stronger and every-
one will have access to movies and Internet and books and
handjobs through their portable devices.
Some people advocate for these digital branches, but that's

only going to save five jobs at your library, and if you're not
one of those five, you're screwed.
So unfortunately, I can see the wisdom in the Edinburgh

decision on the name change: We had better start to De-
velop our Library Audience. It is up to us to market the
library to the people who can keep us employed.
I know the Children's librarians have it tough because gas

is expensive again and schools can't afford to shuttle the
kids around. And parents have been too afraid to visit their
local libraries for years.
But all you other librarians: make yourselves relevant. And

I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm sure what you do now is
important. But these other assholes may not see it that
way. You can't just work the desk and answer questions
and pray that the payroll department keeps writing you
checks.
I hope you are the boss of your library or you have a cool
boss who understands because it really helps is you can
mark off ten computers to create these programs. And trust
me, the program doesn't need to support any great level of
knowledge. I've seen people spend thirty minutes showing
how to attach files. And then another thirty to download
those files. Holy crap! And people show up for this!
You can show people how to use Twitter for an hour. Or

Facebook. Or even, dare I say, your library catalog to re-
120
serve books. Or show them how to download whatever you

offer to download. Or do it for them. Tell them to bring in
the thing their kids bought for them that they don't know
what it is and you will load a book on it and show them
how to read or listen to it.
I could walk through our library and yell out, "All idiots
who have their laptops in their bags because they can't
connect to our Wifi, we're having a class over here to show
you how to do it." And six people will sit in.
But if we just rely on the people who come in because they

need to rub out a stiffy, our job is going to change again to
Emissions Elimination Officer. And I get enough of that at
home.
Oh, I forgot about all you acquisitions and cataloging libra-

rians: they already bought the computers to do your jobs,
so you're fucked.

Alan Moore and the librarians.
It seems that two librarians were fired65 from the Jessa-

mine County Public Library for keeping a 12-yr-old girl
from checking out The League of Extraordinary Gentle-
man: The Black Dossier. Actually, the story doesn't men-
tion the title, but I'm pretty sure that's it.
I don't know if you've seen this book, but I wouldn't have

ordered if for my library if I'd known what was in it. And I
mean the removable 3D glasses.
65
http://www.wtvq.com/news/672-librarians-wont-give-child-porn-
book
Our library has a few movies on DVD that are presented in

3D and I don't know what happens when people check
them out and find that there are no glasses included be-
cause some ass took them long ago. Like Coraline. But
luckily, that movie includes the standard 2D version, so the
glasses aren't essential.
So I don't like buying books that include something that's

designed to be lost. Like books with removable thingies,
like Batman: Murder at Wayne Manor. And what was that
book from the Nineties that was just removable postcards?
Griffin & Sabine! Oh, man, what a headache that was with
all that crap falling out of the pages.
The two Nicholasville, KY librarians, Beth Bovaire and

Sharon Cook reviewed The Black Dossier and Sharon said,
"'look at this book it's filthy and it's on hold for an 11 year
old girl,' and I said well okay, lets take it off hold."
FYI: Booklist, a publication of the American Library Asso-

ciation says in its review of The Black Dossier, "YA/M: Sex
and violence require some maturity."66
I own The Black Dossier. I haven't read it, but I have a copy
right here and I just looked at the 3D stuff. There's a fake
Tijuana Bible and newly discovered pages from Fanny Hill
with illustrations of some characters having sex. If I were
too young to know what sex was, I might think that the
people in the pictures were pretending to be chairs or sofas
and the other people were trying to lie in them, meaning
there are no actual pee-pees poking into hoo-haas. There
are no age restrictions printed anywhere on the cover.
66
Booklist 104.9-10 (Jan 1, 2008): p52(1).
122
But there's nothing remotely erotic about Kevin O'Neill's

nekkid ladies. That's not how he draws figures. The charac-
ters look pretty flat and not very sexy no matter how little
clothing they have drawn on.
So Sharon and Beth saw the book on hold, flipped through

it like most librarians do when they want to see what "all
the fuss is" about something new, like graphic novels. And
this is just a guess, but then they looked up the patron
record for the borrower and they decided this book was in-
appropriate for someone her age.
Now, I'll admit here that I look up the accounts of women

all the time to see if I'm inappropriate for someone her age,
but I would never do it to censor her reading habits. In
fact, I'm going to look up a woman in the database right
now, call her up at home and tell her that I would never
censor her reading materials. And then ask if she wants to
see Paranormal Activity 67 with me.
So they shouldn't do what they did. I don't think they

should be fired for being nosey dumbasses, but I don't real-
ly know what happened with them next.
Some of you are probably aware of the ALA's fucked-up

opinion on age-appropriate material: they have none. The
ALA believes that all material should be available to every-
one, that children can check out R-rated movies, that libra-
ries shouldn't filter kids' Internet computers, etc.
So libraries end up creating policy that only allows adults

to check out movies; kids might be able to check out mov-
ies, but only from the Children's Area. So libraries create
Areas. Ghettos. Children stay in this room and Teens stay
in that room and Tween huddle in that corner and Adults
67
what a piece of shit that turned out to be!
stay over there. So you can't put age limits on materials,

but you can tell someone that their library card allows
them to check out materials from a specific Area only.
You can support the ALA's idiotic policy if you want, but
take a look at every professional resource for book reviews
and the Children's books always get labeled that way, ei-
ther in their own section of the magazine or identified with
some code (see Booklist, above).
So that's why I sympathize with these women. During book

selection, they are told that certain materials have age rec-
ommendations, but once the book is available for check-
out, they are supposed to ignore those evaluations as an
outdated form of censorship.
The two "former" librarians "say they're less concerned

with their jobs and more concerned with keeping material
like this out of children's hands" and "hope the library will
reconsider their policies."
And again, I can sympathize with their frustration over the

library's "filthy" collection. After all, just read the message
on the library home page to get picture of what they had to
deal with (italicized prose added by me, but everything else
is verbatim.. so, really? look at it; how can you blame me?):
"JCPL Online serves as the Jessamine County Pub-

lic Library's portal to the hot, quivering, horny
world. Whether you are visiting our sensual, very
physical site in Nicholasville, Kentucky or entering
deep into our virtual space on the World Wide Web,
please explore every moist and firm square inch of
your library. Our goal of providing a vibrant, and
erotic, unique and essential public service to our
patrons - especially those in Jessamine County -
124
keeps our rigid staff busy in the creation of new

sexy programs, in the acquisition of new sexy items
for our collections and in finding new sexy ways to
serve our community. Please visit us again and
again and again and again- and let us know how
we're doing it. Stud."
Sunday, October 25, 2009

What's best and worst?
A few years ago I would tell people that the best and worst
thing about America was the 99 cent Whopper. There was
a time when Burger King sold its Whopper hamburger for
less than one dollar.
For me, this was awesome. There was no way I could go to

the store and buy ground beef and a tomato and lettuce
and hamburger buns, an onion, mayo, and make my own
hamburger at home for anywhere near this price. Sure, I
would have enough ingredients for 5 or 6 Whoppers, but
the total cost including labor for cooking and storage and
clean-up would push itself up into real money.
So, yes, it was great that I could get a Whopper for a buck.
But that also meant that the wholesale costs for these in-
gredients needed to be kept low. And that meant that beef
needed to be produced at such a scale that it was virtually
free. Which meant cows were probably not going to like
their new job descriptions.
Labor also had to be cheap. A corporation can't afford to

pay someone twelve dollars an hour to do a five-dollar-an-
hour job. I would guess tasks are simplified and turnover is
high.
Some of you might say that companies always offer "loss

leaders." Yes, but this is Burger King's signature menu
item. It's like if Coke sold regular Coke for $1 a six-pack
while charging $3 for Diet Coke. People would stop drink-
ing Diet Coke and switch to regular or Diet Pepsi or some-
thing else. You can't subsidize the $1 Whopper with a $5
chicken sandwich.
Which brings me to libraries. And privatization.
I work in a public library. But you know that. We're

friends. I've been to your house numerous times. You set
me up with your sister; she's very sweet, but it didn't work
out. What do you mean, did I sleep with her?
Libraries are essentially a Charity. Like roads, law en-

forcement, hospitals, support for the needy, and education,
Libraries are a form of relief, but for the poor and the igno-
rant. You already know the spiel: libraries exist to the bet-
terment of society; you can judge the advancement of a cul-
ture by its support for libraries; blah, blah, blah.
But like other charities, Libraries are being viewed as an

outdated waste of money. Like NASA. "Why do we keep fly-
ing around in space wasting money?" the people ask. "Be-
cause we have rockets," NASA replies, "and if you don't let
us use them for dumb stuff like flying to the moon, we
might just fly them right into your house when you're on
the toilet."
But Libraries don't have rockets. And libraries don't have

sick or poor or dangerous people that we can parade in
126
front of the media to guilt or scare people into giving us

money.68
So some people want to privatize libraries, to turn libraries,

essentially Charities, into profit-making schemes. With in-
vestors and overhead. Yes, using cost-incentive business
models will drive down prices and allow libraries to be run
more cheaply, but what about The Whopper?
Burger King's business decisions are market-driven, with

costs and profits rising or falling based on supply and de-
mand. But more so, that five-dollar-an-hour job is always a
five-dollar-an-hour job; it doesn't get more complex the
longer someone does it. The goal is to work your way up
the ladder to a better job.
But the job of librarian is already the top of the library lad-
der. You can become a manager, but you're still a librarian.
The job gets more and more complex, and your ability to
help gets greater as you gain experience.
It's the same Whopper, but it's not the same Whopper be-
cause the world that exists to make that Whopper is
changed. Beef processing, tomato and growing and storage
changes. Supposedly, it is impossible now to identify or
isolate fewer than 1,000 cows per one pound of ground
beef because the process has changed that drastically.
That's why you hear that some company had to recall
50,000 pounds of problem beef; no one knows where the
problem started.
68
“What do you mean we do not have those? Every public library pret-
ty much has a few homeless and/or dangerous folks..” - Dances With
Books
And now tomatoes and lettuce carry life-threatening sal-

monella because of similar changes in farming. Did a toma-
to ever kill anyone twenty years ago? (Yes, yes it did.69)
So it's the same Librarian, but it's not the same Librarian.
What happens when you try to cut costs to produce a Li-
brarian? I don't know. It hasn't happened yet.
Will librarians have the skills they need to help people or

will they just post funny tidbits on Twitter and boast that
they have a thousand followers. If anyone hasn't said it yet,
then let's drag Andy Warhol into the 21st century and say,
"In the future, everyone will have fifteen-hundred follow-
ers."
So when someone mentions privatizing libraries, I wonder

how charitable I'll feel I can be with my patrons when my
new boss wants to pay me half of what I make now. Like
yesterday when I did a $25 (estimated market value) edit
job on some guy's resume, cleaned up all the white space
and got it down to two pages (total time: 4 minutes). But I
probably won't have any choice in that future library be-
cause time is money and the definition of Help will change
to accommodate the new standards.
I wonder if in the future when libraries become Burger

Kings, will there will also be Morton's Steakhouse libraries
where the service is better and the customer's tip hand-
somely? There'd better be. Because I'm not working the
drive-thru.
69
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_tomatoes
128
Found at the library.

This is not an actual poster found near our library.
okay, credit where credit is due. thanks to Dances With

Books70 for giving me the well-deserved kick in the ass that
got me going on making this.

Stop Snitching?
Librarians ain't snitches. But should they be?
According to this story 71, some cops in New York wanted

the Hendrick Hudson Free Library to help them gather
evidence on a man accused of accessing child pornography
on library computers. But the library is refusing to assist in
the investigation.
Linda Berns, director of the Lower Hudson Valley

chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said,
"There is some expectation of privacy in a library.
Librarians have a very strong code of privacy and
individual rights."
The police say the library board is not cooperating. But the
police have the perp's identity and the computer he was us-
ing, so I'm not sure what other cooperation they expect.
The director admits that the library board refuses to coope-
rate, but I'm still not sure how. Obviously, there isn't
enough evidence for the police to get a warrant without the
library's help.
70
http://danceswithbooks.livejournal.com/
71
http://www.lohud.com/article/2009910300341
130
Police say that an "astute librarian" turned in the alleged

offender. And library patrons feel that these scumbags
should be caught, but what can happen sometimes when
librarians snitch?
In Tulare County, Calif., a librarian at the Lindsay

Branch Library was discharged by her supervisor
last year after she called authorities about a man
who apparently was viewing child pornography on
a library computer.
So librarians can be punished for reporting criminal activi-

ty in the library? Okay, maybe just in California.
Viewing child pornography is considered posses-

sion, whether a person looks at it on a computer or
downloads the images, the Westchester County Dis-
trict Attorney's Office said. It's a felony, punishable
by up to four years in state prison.
Yes, library users have some expectation of privacy. But

that should only be in combination with the library user's
desire for privacy. I can't pretend that I don't see you look-
ing at child porn when your computer monitor is in the
open for everyone to see. And yes, we have "porn" comput-
ers. All libraries do. Ours are over there under the poster of
a scary monster touching himself that says, "No Children
Allowed."
And this has always been my problem with the Internet.

Computers, by their design, are not private. You are sitting
in front of a 17-inch monitor. If you wanted privacy with
what you were doing, you wouldn't be broadcasting it on
140 square inches of LCD flat screen in front of fifty stran-
gers.
Maybe you want to be caught? And as a librarian, I should

help you to find what you want.
But librarians are screwed regardless. If we turn people in,

we get criticized or even fired for violating privacy. And if
we do nothing, our family users will cease visiting because
our libraries will become safe havens for monsters.
So can we make a deal? I won't tell the cops what you do as

long as you don't force me to tell the cops what you do. But
if I get the chance, for damn sure, I am telling your mom.
Sunday, November 1, 2009

How Google can save my ass.
I need Google to index the full text articles in our electronic

databases and make them searchable on the Internet.
I don't think anyone can get the vendors like Gale, Pro-
Quest, HW Wilson, EBSCO, etc., to agree to allow their
content to be available online for everyone to see. It's not
going to happen if we just wait for it. So I don't care how
Google does it. But that's what I want.
I want Google to create a free, open federated search prod-

uct for paid-content, proprietary databases.
Libraries have been saying for years that only we have

access to the "invisible web." Libraries pay for access to a
huge variety of databases whose contents are only available
through some form of approved access: library card, ID,
proxy, IP authentication.
132
But people don't give a shit about the invisible web. Be-
cause it's invisible, duh. And people don't go searching for
stuff that most people can't see. At least not normal people.
Not people not in a Dan Brown novel.
I know that WorldCat.org does something like this, but

WorldCat only returns physical holdings, not access to spe-
cific articles in every database. So I want Google to do it.
(Or Bing, I don't have a real preference.)
We've already lost the war to all the idiots who can't find
anything without Google. And Google is in the best posi-
tion to do whatever the hell it wants without any fear of the
consequences.
So that's what I want: I want Google to index our databas-

es.
Just like with Google Books, the content will be available in

snippets in the googlestream. If the publisher/vendor does
not want the content available, then that's all you get. Un-
der the snip is a link to a library near you with access to the
content or a zip code search box to find a nearby library.
What's the advantage to Google? This is quality shit. This

isn't just the recipe for Aunt Mildred's Plum Ragu that only
3 people in the whole world want. This is current content
written by professional journalists with correctly spelled
geographic and proper names and thoroughly researched
facts (*cough*) and everything.
So the advantage to Google would be linking this content

with ads.
I just had to help make some cuts to our library database

budget. I just mostly sat there and nodded as the cuts were
named. Until I yelled out, "NOOOOOOO!" when my pet
database got axed. "Why didn't more people use The Com-
plete Online Guide to REO Speedwagon?"
When our budget gets cut, we need to evaluate what gets

used and what doesn't. And if you monitor the electronic
resources for your library, you should understand how lit-
tle some of these things get used compared to the prices
paid.
So with cash thin and the threat of cuts a reality, why aren't
these database vendors inventing ways to promote these
products so they become essential and worth the money? I
mean, if your database is popular and the competitor's is a
dog, then which one do you think will get the cut?
So here is how Google can help me with my problem. They

can't give me money, I know that, but they can find a way
to make my databases more popular. All Google needs is
access.
I've talked to database sales reps and it's pretty clear that
they don't want their content open to googlebots. They sell
content and don't see any advantage to letting Google peek
at it. But if Google can index this stuff, then people can
search it and find it and maybe increase the stats for my li-
brary. Which is what I want.
But since we've already paid for the database, what advan-
tage is it to the vendor to let Google make money from the
ads that would appear along side the vendor's content?
Probably none. But if the database gets more use, then I
might be more willing to fight to keep it the next time we
need to make some cuts. And that's the advantage to the
vendor.
Also, the invisible web becomes visible to more people.
134
So here are my thoughts: Google needs access to database

content. And it doesn't need permission from the vendors.
It only needs valid IDs or library card numbers from the
largest database customers so that it can build an index of
what's out there. Google employees need library cards. Do
you think any Google employees have library cards?
Of course I don't know how a database is indexed. I don't

know if getting in gives Google access to everything, but
I'm just thinking out loud here. If I knew what the hell I
was talking about, would I be stuck on the reference desk
all day?
So Google, just do it. Like you did with the book scanning
project; do it and wait for someone to complain. The print
media publishers are going to limit access (maybe) to on-
line news soon and this could be a way for you to compen-
sate for that lost revenue.
And get me back my database. Because REO Speedwagon

is touring and I gots to know everything that's happening!
Everything!!
Monday, November 2, 2009

The Future of the Library Café.
Is your library a Library? Or is your library a Community

Center? Or is it a Café?
I'm not asking what your library is, based on its appear-
ance or the hygiene of your "guests," but what is your Mis-
sion? Is your library here to educate or to entertain?
I'm asking because I think there is an important difference.

First, I am not a lawyer. I don't want to be a lawyer. If a

lawyer bit me and infected me and I transformed into a
lawyer, I would hope I still had enough of my wits to throw
myself into a wood chipper. But first, I would file some
lawsuits because that sounds like fun. So I haven't studied
law. But I think I know a little about behavior and motive,
having watched so much Law & Order.
Before automated materials acquisition, it probably took a

month to get a new book processed and entered into the
library catalog. Now we get bestsellers the same day (or in
the case of the last Dan Brown novel, a few days before)
they are available in stores. We can get most library mate-
rials processed and ready for the public to enjoy pretty
near the same time the local stores have them for sale.
So libraries didn't used to be in direct competition with lo-

cal merchants. Sure, libraries purchased the works of best-
selling authors, but if someone was impatient, then the lo-
cal bookstore made a sale. Otherwise, library patrons
waited.
Also, we used to purchase educational materials. We

bought videotapes for the stuff Blockbuster wouldn't carry
because their customers didn't want it. We had tapes on
'how to learn Esperanto' or on 'a virtual visit to the Chicago
stockyards' or 'how to display your shrubbery.'
We didn't pre-order the latest Pixar movies and have them

the same week Target got them for sale. Libraries bought
classics and art films and opera. Now we carry the unrated
version of Turistas when we used to only have Tony Ben-
nett and Woodie Guthrie with the London Philharmonic.
136
And the reason why I think this is important is that Libra-

ries are given many protections because they are seen to
support the educational needs of society. Not the need for
fun. We are allowed to copy things and to loan things be-
cause our motive is to support an educated public.
The industries can complain about how we loan out books,

music CDs, and DVDs for free, but since our primary mis-
sion is to instruct, inform and educate, we are protected
from attack.
So what happens when the mission changes? What hap-

pens when your library transforms into an amusement cen-
ter?
The Annoyed Librarian says72 (that boozy broad says lots of

things - did I ever tell you how much she talks in her sleep?
but it's not like we get much sleep. wokka! wokka!), "'The
Library' doesn't have to be about books, but it has to be
about reading, literacy, and education."
[fyi: I started writing this before I saw her column on that.]
She, AL, argues from the perspective of the taxpayer. But

what about the library's competitors? We've crossed into
their marketplace.
And this is my point. Libraries CANNOT become Unlibra-

ries. We have way more to lose than we imagine. If your li-
brary mission is not to educate, then your library is not
keeping its bargain with society. Movie theaters entertain,
and shopping mall food courts are meeting places.
72
http://www.libraryjournal.com/blog/580000658/post/370050237.html
Target, WalMart, Amazon, Barnes & Noble: these are the

places to get all the newest stuff, not the library. Should we
compete directly with retailers and take sales from them?
Yes, we buy the books and DVDs we loan out. Sure we

might buy 500 copies of The Lost Symbol, but those copies
circulate 4,000 times. And we bought our copies for 40%
off. So to a publisher or retailer, that's forty-thousand dol-
lars in lost sales for all the copies they might have sold if
the library had only slowed its acquisition process down.
Do a search and you'll find libraries boasting how their

DVD collections are more popular than Netflix. Or that
they dare to use Netflix to fill in gaps in their collections.
Sure, the library has a legitimate Netflix account, but does
Netflix want me to borrow something that I then loan out
to someone else? Of course not. They want each user to
have his own account and pay the monthly fee.
In these real examples, libraries cost businesses money.
I know libraries were less popular when we just loaned out

16mm films on Canada, Our Friendly Neighbor to the
North, Bob Newhart comedy albums and copies of Little
Women, but maybe that's all we're supposed to do.
Well, maybe not that. But I wonder how the business world
is starting to view us. As a threat? Now that people spend
their days here on the Internet instead of wandering the
shopping malls and making impulse purchases. And down-
loading books and audiobooks. And borrowing current
movies that the stores are trying to sell for $22.99. Espe-
cially in this economic slow-down? If so, what will they do?
I think AL's argument is more realistic, that taxpayers

might see us as chair-fillers and time-wasters, twittering
138
nonsense into the void. I don't even know if the business

world even knows that libraries exist.
But since my fears are more insane, mine are the ones that
will probably come true.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009

All I Need Is...
To read an ebook, all I need is:
a) a Kindle or other reader, electricity, and access to a file

or site with content to view or download; or
b) a computer, electricity, access to a file or site with con-

tent to view or download, and software to view the content;
or
c) a portable device like a smart phone, electricity, access

to a file or site with content to view or download, and an
application to view the content.
To read a printed book, all I need is:
A book.
And natural or artificial light, if you want to get picky.
It doesn't make sense to you, but when I see someone read-

ing a book without the book, I want to say, "Get a horse."
I also like to make a fart noise with my mouth whenever I

see someone bend over. But that's not even relevant to any-
thing in this post.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009

What was your Library Dream Job?
What was your ideal library job when you first imagined
that you would be a librarian? Not the crap job you settled
for, but your dream. Astronaut Librarian? In space, no one
hears you go, Shhh.
What about just before you graduated from library school?
When I first had the the idea to become a librarian, I

thought it would be great to work for the federal govern-
ment. I actually researched pay grades for librarians in the
military. But as I was already 30, I thought I was too old
(something I read about military jobs listed a cutoff at 28),
so I never went past just basic research.
When I was in my early twenties, I wanted to be a firefight-

er. I took the written tests and scored pretty high and
passed the physical endurance test. I don't know if you
know what you need to do for a firefighter physical, but you
need to run a lot, lift and carry heavy shit, find your way
out of a smoke-filled room, and hold your breath under wa-
ter for a pretty long time. But for reasons I don't want to
discuss, I never made the cut.
When I got to library school some years later, I was out of

shape and ready for a life of sitting on my ass in a public
library. Before that, I thought I could be a media specialist
in a public school, but I'd learned that school principals are
assholes and I didn't want take any job that I knew in ad-
vance would suck.
But after six weeks of library school, I'd lost twenty

pounds. Partly from stress, but mostly from riding my bike
140
everywhere and going to the gym every day. I had five

classes my first semester. I'm looking at a copy of my tran-
script now: I took 16 credits my first semester, 9 credits
over the summer, and then 14 more in the fall. Is library
school still 39 credit hours for the degree?
And I graduated with a... I don't want to say until I know

what the average is, otherwise revealing my pathetic GPA
will just make the MLS look bad. Yes, it was above a 3.0,
but not nearly as close to a 4.0 as one would expect from
the genius you consistently enjoy on this here bloggy thing.
So I would go to class in the morning then go to the gym.

Then go back for more classes and do homework in the li-
brary or in the computer lab. Most days, between classes, I
slept on the furniture in the library building. I think my
first class was at 6:30 a.m. and my last class ended around
8:00 p.m.
I got into library school totally by luck (a story which I've

told too many times online to repeat here without it outing
real me). And I got my first library job totally by luck; if
you call accepting a job 200 miles from home "luck."
By graduation, I don't think I saw more than six jobs that I

thought I wanted. And none were dreamy.
I just took out my graduation ceremony thingy and started

looking for other graduates. One guy was an LJ Mover and
Shaker, teaches at a library school and seems to have won
lots of awards. I wonder if he remembers me.
So far, some of the other grads have blogs that aren't kept
up. Oh, great, this woman is in Africa. Oh, hey, I have a
cool blog. What? You help to educate children in Africa?
Shit.
Library 2.0 only matters to people who have unlimited

bandwidth.
Great. Here is another woman doing better than me. Uni-

versity of Georgia. Feh. I have my own mini-fridge in my
cubicle.
Too bad I really don't remember many people from library

school. I really was busy when I was in library school. And
as much as some people say the MLS is a joke degree, I
worked my ass off to get it.
I don't know what my dream library job would be. It's not
something I really think about. I would have wanted to be
at a college, but too many of you bitch so much about the
bullshit you deal with that I don't know if I could handle it
without punching some prof square in the face.
I've guess I've just been busy with other stuff. Trying to
keep a few people happy. So I guess I don't have any library
dreams. But library fantasies, well, pull up a chair...
I wanted to make something like Google Steampunk, you

know, with an ornate metal mail slot that said Google on
the front of a wooden door with metal gears and tubes vis-
ible behind. You drop an envelope in the slot and wait a
few days until a messenger appears with a parchment
sheet full of handwritten search results.
But I couldn’t find what I needed, so I did this instead.

More 1950’s than steampunk.
142
Thursday, November 5, 2009

Google through History.
Most people don't realize that Google started in the search

business many years ago, even before the Internet. Here
now, is an early article on how Google does its magic:
Yes, this is just some bullshit that I made up. As usual.

So this is my fake historical Google news article. Stolen
from here 73. Yes, I am a thieving bastard.

The Analysis of Bullshit.
So when I see an article like this, I can only think, bullshit:

Bullshit methodology and bullshit purpose.
―A Writing Revolution‖74 (Analysis) by Denis G. Pelli &

Charles Bigelow. Seed Magazine, October 20, 2009.
"Rates of authorship are increasing by historic or-

ders of magnitude.
Authors, once a select minority, will soon be a ma-

jority."
Related graph:
Graph removed, but you can find it here75. It

shows how growth on Twitter proves that soon
every single person in the world will become au-
thors.
Really? Do you want a fucking medal?
73
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/01/28/what-happens-when-
you-mail-a-letter/
74
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/a_writing_revolution/
75
http://seedmagazine.com/images/uploads/authors-per-
year_inline_640x262.jpg
144
Let me start with the authors' first premise, which is com-

plete bullshit, "Nearly everyone reads."
"Nearly" might be accurate, but it's not nearly good enough

for me. There are times when "nearly" isn't fucking good
enough:
"Nearly everyone made it out alive."
"Nearly everyone wasn't on fire."
"Nearly everyone wasn‘t eaten by a bear."
According to this UNESCO report76,
"An estimated 776 million adults – or 16% of the

world‘s adult population – lack basic literacy skills.
About two-thirds are women. Most countries have
made little progress in recent years. If current
trends continue, there will be over 700 million
adults lacking literacy skills in 2015.
"...forty-five countries have adult literacy rates be-

low the developing country average of 79%, mostly
in sub-Saharan Africa, and South and West Asia.
Nearly all of them are off track to meet the adult li-
teracy target by 2015. Nineteen of these countries
have literacy rates of less than 55%."
But the author of this publishing "analysis" states:
"Extrapolation of the Twitter-author curve (the

dashed line) predicts that every person will publish
in 2013."
You mean when a large part of the world is still illiterate?
76
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0017/001776/177609e.pdf
So either the illiterate will publish what they themselves

won't be able to read, or the authors simply forgot about
them and left them out of the equation.
I thought the "digital haves" were supposed to care more.

But I guess not. Literacy is not a choice. No one says, "I
don't think reading is a useful way to spend my time." No.
They say, "Damn, I wish I knew what the fuck this label on
this bottle says because I just ate some of these pills and
now I don't feel so good."
These guys are also redefining the word "author." How

would you define an author? The simple definition from m-
w.com says, "one that originates or creates."
Each of us is the creator. Each of us dreams. Each ex-

presses these thoughts, wants and desires. Don't tell me
that the Internet suddenly validates my creativity. Why?
Because more people have the power to ignore it? Do you
want to quantify failure? Do you want to say that the Twit-
tererer with 10 posts and no followers doesn't exist?
"In our analysis, we considered an author‘s text

'published' if 100 or more people read it."
What do you mean, "read it." Read, as in past tense, like

how many people clicked? Or scanned like refreshing the
Twitter public time line? Or Read, as in the activity of read-
ing, attempting to understanding of the meaning of the
words from the point of view of the author?
I feel it's an insult to every pre-Internet author who scrib-

bled a poem or a message or a drawing; anyone who took a
photograph; anyone who hummed a tune or banged two
pot lids together, that they are somehow less important be-
146
cause we can't quantify their failures. Don't tell me these

people didn't have an audience.
If you want to define published authors by the number of

clicks or by the possible audience, then go ahead and dis-
qualify all of my suggestions. No child ever expected her
antics to be broadcast publicly for others to enjoy. No writ-
er of a diary ever expected his words to appear in a pub-
lished journal.
So go back to officially published authors. And compare

them to your bloggers and twittererers. Which group is
more successful? You have authors in the past producing
works that were at least read by an editor or a proofreader
or his mother. And you have authors today who are, based
on the math, probably read by no one, or such a small frac-
tion of the total, that they aren't really published at all. No
one has read their works; unless you count the Internet
browser's spell-checker.
"International concern for the minority who can‘t

read may soon extend to those who can‘t publish."
So we can declare the plague of illiteracy defeated. Woo-

hoo! Tell me, asshole, how does Twitter put food on the ta-
ble? How does it help me to vote for the best candidate?
How does it improve my life? The fact that you even at-
tempt to compare the value of literacy to twittererering
makes me sick.
Maybe these countries should just give everyone a netbook

and a Twitter account; that should solve everything. Many
countries aren't doing enough to educate their people.
When people read, they are exposed to new ideas. And new
ideas aren't always good for some leaders. So if you can
publish, why would you need to read?
At least it's clear that the authors have read typical tweets
and blogs and comments posted to the Internet. Literacy
no longer matters so long as we can click 'Submit'. Even
barking dogs have a greater understanding of their own
messages than most Internet users.
"Our society is changing from consumers to crea-

tors."
When each of us is a creator, the authors of this report will

feel, what? That the analysis was dead on?
But what happens when we are each the creator of words

or images that no other person can understand? As a fuck-
ing librarian, who fucking promotes literacy and education
and works to help others better themselves by learning
more about what is going on in the world around them,
when I hear some fucking asshole talk about how some-
thing like Twitter is more fucking important than literacy,
it fucking pisses me off.
Then we will truly achieve total Bullshit.
There was a story about Google Voice, which I think is a

telephone voicemail service that transcribes messages.
But sometimes I write shit without have any clue why. But
I’m sure it seemed hilarious at the time.
So this is supposed to be a fake voicemail that I left on the

internet’s phone and the Google transcription containing
assorted typos that Google fills in when it isn’t sure what
was said. As I said, “h_l_r___s.”
148
Tuesday, November 10, 2009

My teenage crush message I left for the Internet.
11/10/09 1:31 AM
I hate you, Internet. Get away from me.
Oh, no I don't. It's not you, Internet. But can't help how I
feel sometimes. hedgehog(??) I just want to push you so
hard and my fists are closed so tight that later my hands
ache. And then sometimes can't wait to see you again. I just
want to know you're okay. I just want to be close to you.
Oh, Internet, why do we always seem to fight? I just think
you don't give me enough attention. And that tears me up
inside. And I want to scream. And some nights I do. I
scream into my pillow. Internet. You ____.
But I know that's not really how I feel. I can't live without
you. I need you so much. spider(??) Just tell me you feel
something for me. Tell me you think of me when you're out
there being all popular. Tell me you care. I love you, Inter-
net. I love, so much.
>>2:16
Google Voice transcription (simulation)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Brainworks.
I always wonder about written language. Apart from mana-

tees (Trichechus), humans (Homo sapiens) are the only
creatures able to form rhyming couplets and compose
poems of any substantial length. Although, and this sur-
prises some people, manatees are offended by limericks.
So I think this book might be something that me and the

manatees could enjoy, Reading in the Brain: The Science
and Evolution of a Human (and Manatee) Invention77, by
Stanislis Dehaene 78. Hey, he has a Wikipedia entry so he
must be good.
But yet, this is the same guy in this report:"Babies Can

Communicate with Numbers Before Talking," io9. Febru-
ary 7, 2008.
"Behavioral experiments indicate that infants aged

4 months or older possess an early "number sense"
that allows them to detect changes in the number of
objects... very young infants are sensitive to both
the number and identity of objects, and these pieces
of information are processed by distinct neural
pathways."
Yeah, tell that to my nephew. The kid is 14-months old and

loses at Blackjack every time.
Sure, he understands that he has three cards in front of

him by the way he smears each one with drool, but he
doesn't know shit about when to stand on 20. Never mind
when to split. The kid has two face card cards for chris-
sakes and wants more, so I give him another. And you're
busted, you idiot. Look at that. You better get more money
from your mommy's purse. I'm not giving you more cards
until you pay up. Here, play with these scissors.
I've written about writing on my blog. Hey, that sounds

funny: I've written about writing. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
77
ISBN-13 978-0670021109
78
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislas_Dehaene
150
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. (Catches breath.) Ha ha ha ha

ha ha ha ha ha.
But this book sounds cool because I always wonder about

written language, about how most cultures have one-to-
many forms of it and no matter how the language evolves,
we can still find consistent meaning that allows us to com-
municate.
There were stories this week about the difficulty autistic

children have learning handwriting. And that made me
laugh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. What is wrong with
me?
Do any kids even write anymore? Don't they do that thing

with their thumbs where messages fly through the air from
kid to kid and "brb" and "h8r" are meaningful substitutes
for actual words?
But as modern librarian, I avoid paper books, with their

germs and their bulk and their simple presence. I prefer
ebooks which are so much easier to ignore since they reside
out of sight. But yet, I can still tell everyone, "that's next on
my reader," or "that's in the queue." But on my bookshelf,
that book is just a slab of procrastination, a guilt brick. But
on my reader, it's the promise of a new day. Ah, we modern
librarians are more awesome than every other librarian put
together. Okay, that's too many. But we're more awesome
than 53 regular librarians.
So anyway, Reading in the Brain sounds like a book that I

can't wait to consider reading, as long as it has lots of pic-
tures, and doesn't use big words.
Sunday, November 15, 2009

"You'll put your eye out, kid."
Librarians have been lucky. For a thousand years we've

answered questions and suggested further investigation
based on a simple, reproducible formula: we find the an-
swer in a book or on other printed matter, or we bash a
snake against a rock until the blood reveals the truth.
The printed resources almost always include a publisher

and author(s). And over the years, through rather simple
vetting processes, libraries have collected these works for
the benefit of providing these answers to the truth seekers.
Even up through the 1970's, libraries were not viewed as

places for entertainment, unless one's values favored clas-
sical works and award-winning texts. Children were al-
lowed in libraries, but only after being walled off into their
own tiny ghettos.
When I was growing up, I read Aesop's Fables. And one

moral I'll always remember is, "The Chariot sometimes
crushes the Falcon." I don't know what it's supposed to
mean, but dammit, I remember it. And I offer that advice
at many library meetings.
Do we want the furniture in "oak" or "cherry"?
'The Chariot sometimes crushes the Falcon.'
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. That doesn't mean any-
thing. It never has. Not for the last 500 times
you've said it.
One day it will mean something to you, and then

you'll realize I'm a freaking genius.
But then librarians got what they call a "good idea": they
would give the people what they want.
152
And that means libraries have taken on providing many

new services: job applications, resume preparation, legal
assistance, medical research, etc.
The Internet made this happen. Libraries used to be about

finding the answer in the books and journals we bought,
then later, from computer and online databases, and so our
"help" was still extremely limited and confined to sources
we could verify and trust. But now the Internet has me
finding answers and attempting to verify sources for sites
that may disappear at any time. I'm trying to help my pa-
tron find answers, but each click opens new opportunities
for screwing up.
So now I have to pretend to be a huge idiot. I can't tell any-

one what I know for fear of creating a service that our li-
brary is not prepared to offer. People come in to fill out all
sorts of forms for immigration, family assistance, taxes,
whatever. But I can't tell them which forms or websites
they should use to apply for these benefits. I have to ask,
"Is this the site?" "Is this what you want?" "Read this page
and see if this is what you need."
Because if I tell them something, I might create the expec-

tation in their mind that I'm a legal expert and if some-
thing goes wrong and the guy is deported or something, I
could get blamed for it.
But it's not just the Internet's fault. Libraries also have par-
ents who leave their kids at the library all day, usually to
play on the computers. And when we allow this to happen,
by not creating or enforcing policies, we create an atmos-
phere that tells these parents it‘s okay to do this. So then if
something horrible happens to one of these kids, we look
guilty. And not just look, but we could be judged guilty.
When we expand library services which go beyond our core

mission of providing educational materials and programs
to our patrons, to promote reading and learning, then we
need to be prepared for the possible consequences.
Yes, it's nice that you allow that guy to bring in the garbage
bag full of his personal belongings and leave them under
that table while he uses the computers or goes outside for a
smoke. And it's also cool that you let him catch a short nap
during the day. But if you don't have a policy against that
behavior, or you have policy but choose to ignore it, then if
his stuff ever gets lost or stolen, he could have a case
against your library. Unless you do something to tell every-
one to watch their stuff.
The same with Internet privacy. Patrons are using library

computers and some people and libraries are becoming
complacent, assuming that everything is secure on the pub-
lic computers. But they are still public computers. There is
no way we can ever guarantee to anyone that anything they
do on them will be private. People think I'm an asshole
when I tell them that I wouldn't use our library computers
to buy my airline tickets or check my credit report. They
think I don't want to help them. But listen, you idiot, I am
helping you. I don't know every computer trick in the
world. I don't know that you didn't click on something stu-
pid.
The message should always be: Your property is your re-

sponsibility. Your privacy is your responsibility.
My personal message has become, "Don't ask. I Don't

Know."
As far as I can tell, the library has never guaranteed to pro-

tect your privacy with what you read, only with what ap-
154
pears on your borrowing record. And if I can't protect your

privacy with the book you carry around in this building or
out to your car or on the coffee table in your house, how
the hell can I protect your privacy with all those damn elec-
trons rushing through all those tubes or flying around in
the air?
I don't ever want to hear, "...the library took on the respon-

sibility to protect my Internet privacy. Therefore, when my
identity was stolen, the library broke this contract."
Privacy should always be the patron's problem. Libraries

should provide the bare minimum for clearing sessions,
deleting cookies, etc. But patrons need to be responsible
for what they do in a public space.
The bank doesn't guarantee you won't be robbed after you

use the ATM: you accept the dangers along with the con-
venience of getting money at 3:00 a.m. So the library can't
be responsible for your identity or your bank balance or
your cell phone or you laptop or your kid.
Questions you should consider:
Are you creating an environment whereby the pa-

tron might reasonably believe that the library
claims to be an expert in an area, or do you provide
a service or allow a behavior the patron comes to
expect as part of normal library service?
If so, what happens when you perform poorly

against this expectation? Are you in breach of this
unwritten contract? And then, have you done harm
by not fulfilling this contract?
So yeah, I don't want to be viewed as an expert in anything.
And since you've read this blog, you already know I'm no
expert in the world of library stuff.
But if a patron wants to know where the bathroom is, I

think it's over there somewhere. But I can't say for certain.
You might sue me after you experience it.
Friday, November 20, 2009

bookshelf wishes.
So I'm listening to the audiobook for Philip K. Dick's Valis.

And it's not so much a mindfuck, so far, as it's a perfectly
rational exploration of time and space.
Actually, I'm simultaneously listening to Valis, The Time

Machine (Wells), and Anthem (Rand) by clicking back and
forth between chapters.
The Time Machine has me laughing because every time the

reader mentions the Time Traveler, I substitute Time Go-
rilla. And then I try to change the story to fit a world
where an intelligent gorilla invents a time machine. I have-
n't gotten very far, but I cracked up when the Time Gorilla
asked his guests to join him after dinner in the Banana
Room.
And in order to make Anthem bearable, each time I hear

the reader say, "Equality 7-2521," I substitute, "Fuck You,
Dickhead." And whenever I hear "The Golden One," I drive
up on the sidewalk and crash into a delicatessen.
I guess these stories are somehow related in that they each

express an individual's attempts to explore and influence
the world around him. I think I'm going to press Shuffle
and see if I can keep up with the combined narrative.
156
But Valis is pretty fucked up on its own. Dick seems to be a

genius or at least well-read. So the influence of drugs on
his characters just makes me envy them more. Most people
are boring on drugs. Expand the consciousness of most
normal people with chemicals and they all end up singing
"Stairway to Heaven."
Drugs fuck you up because they enable our brains to access

things our other senses can't normally perceive. Or through
a long developed self-preservation, they choose to ignore.
That's why drugs fuck up so many people. There's a lot of
shit we just shouldn't know.
I've known things that I shouldn't know. But I've had to ig-
nore them. Otherwise, I might become indebted to some
Entity or some external Force. I can barely tolerate having
regular people around; so I for damn sure don't want to
clean the house because some Entity might come to visit.
Fuck you, Entity.
Speaking of which; Dick writes, or says, however you want

to interpret the narrator in Valis, as an autobiography or a
novel, the words "fucked up" to describe where he lives, as
in "The whole place was fucked up." I think that's awe-
some.
I love when characters say something was fucked. Fucked

or fucked up; it's the same to me. Say something is fucked
and you can only go up from there. Your story could end
with everyone near death and you missing a leg and it's still
better than being fucked. To be fucked implies the promise
of something better somewhere down the road. To begin a
story by saying everything was fucked is to be an optimist.
So my choice for the Greatest Novel Ever Written would

open with "Everything was fucked." I thought about "eve-
rything is fucked," but that sounds too negative. In fact, my
ultimate story that I would place on my nightstand and

read every night before bed would just say,
"Everything was fucked. The End."
And I would nod and think, "Yeah. Yeah, it was."
It’s about now when I get fucking tired of this fucking

book. So I start skipping over posts. And that’s going to
happen here, too. I just don’t fucking care. And if you paid
money for this, well, who the fuck told you to do that?
I just want to finish this damn thing and upload it and get
back to my life. Really, I’d like to care, but I just don’t care.

You forgot the cinnamon.
So I've been shopping all weekend. I probably started

around 7:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day when a few stores
like Kmart opened to prove that Americans will work any
damn time the boss tells us. And then I finished buying
crap around 3:00 p.m. today.
My worst example of shopping addiction was on

Thanksgiving night at midnight when I was trying to get
Black Friday bargains online. At 12:01 a.m. I was on the
computer hitting "refresh" to see if some deals that pre-
viously were unavailable would suddenly appear and be
ready for me to purchase.
If you know what Black Friday is, then you know that many
stores opened for business at 5:00 a.m. Friday morning
158
and the online bargains were not active until then. But at
4:30, I got up and clicked "refresh" again to find that some-
thing I wanted was now ready. So I sent my credit card info
to the store and probably to several hackers and bought
crap I really don't need.
I don't give to charities and I don't support any political

movement or public television or radio, but I support
America by moving money from my credit card company to
a large department store so the store can afford to employ
additional seasonal workers who send my packages
through a shipping company which employs more people
to eventually arrive at my house. It's no cure for cancer,
but... no, there is no but. I'm a selfish bastard.
So I was in a mall today when I passed a window displaying

books. The sign said that this particular book was being
sold by Gucci to raise money for something, blah, blah,
blah: I don't know because I didn't read it. I just saw that it
looked like a children's book and it looked pretty cool.
So I walked over to the Gucci store; doesn't every mall have

one? And no, not that chick who sells fake Gucci bags in
the ladies room at your library, a real store. And I asked
about the book, Snowman in Africa 79. The saleswoman said
it was $25 and all the money went to charity, and again, I
didn't listen to which one. But I said, I'll take it.
You should see this book. I'm not a book critic, but it's
about a snowman who doesn't melt and doesn‘t like cold
weather so he goes to Africa in a balloon and hangs out
with the animals ... so I'll just point out the cool stuff I no-
ticed. One, there is no barcode, and no ISBN. So for a libra-
rian, this is just freaky. It's like meeting someone who
doesn't have fingerprints. You start to wonder if he's ever
79
http://www.gucci.com/us/us-english/us/cruise-10/unicef/
murdered anyone. Maybe this book is in the witness relo-

cation program.
And the book jacket is illustrated on the inside, too. And

the endpapers look cool. I don't have the book in front of
me, but they're covered with art, too, bananas or elephants
or something.
So anyway, I buy the book, and the woman asks if I want it

wrapped. And I think for a second that it's not a gift, so I
almost said, no, but then I nodded to her and said, sure.
She disappears for about 4 minutes. It was like that scene

in Love, Actually where Rowan Atkinson is gift-wrapping
the necklace. Except I couldn't see what she was doing. She
returned with a large bronze Gucci bag and hands me the
receipt tucked into a matching Gucci envelope. Inside the
bag is a large Gucci envelope containing the book with a
ribbon going round and tied in a bow, and a gold sticker
sealing it closed. There is crumpled brown paper filling the
area around the envelope.
I couldn't take it. I had to see what she did. So as soon as I

got home, I pulled out the envelope and untied the ribbon
and removed the sticker. Inside was the book wrapped in
more paper and sealed with another sticker. Inside that
was an envelope with a card describing the charity and
providing some info about the author of the book.
It was just amazing to see. So if you have the opportunity

and the $25, stop into a Gucci shop and get the book. And
make sure you say "yes" if they ask if you want it wrapped.
The book also seems to be available online, and I'm
tempted to buy another one to see how it arrives. I swear, it
made me feel so giddy to get something wrapped with so
much care, I just want to go buy copies and hand them out
160
to strangers. I'm so used to being treated like shit, it's

worth the $25 to have someone be nice to me. How the hell
will I ever be able to shop at a regular store again?
And the next time I buy stuff online, I'll probably have to
light a scented candle and wear pants. Not like now.
Here is the Snowman in Africa animation80, but remember

the pictures in the book don't move (and you can‘t watch
the video here in this book, either).
I hope you can see the next image on the next page be-
cause lots of people liked it, so I hope I can share it with
you.
But if you can’t see it then get a computer and look online.
How fucking lazy can someone with $2,999.99 to spend on
a book be?
80
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyF8HGN86ts
Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Should you become a librarian?81
81
http://effinglibrarian.blogspot.com/2009/12/should-you-become-
librarian.html
162
Wednesday, December 9, 2009

My girlfriend expects a writing credit for The
Vampire Bat.
So my girlfriend just became a Twihard or a Twilighty or

whatever you call fans of the Twilight series.
We were driving and she was telling me about the book and
the movie and the action figures and she said she was at
the part where the vampires were playing baseball during
the thunderstorm.
And I've seen the movie, so I said, "Yeah, whoever wrote

that knows nothing about physics. To hit a ball that hard so
it sounds like thunder would just shatter the wooden bat.
And what vampire wants to be near a hunk of wood shaped
like a dagger."
[Yes, I now know the vampires use metal bats in the movie.
Which makes sense, fear of stakes and all. I'm just relating
our discussion as we had it.]
And she said the bat wouldn't break because it's a vam-
pire bat. They have special bats so vampires can play
baseball. And then I said, "Okay, so the vampires leave a
vampire bat in the woods and a human boy finds it. And he
takes it to his next baseball game, and he's normally just an
average hitter, but now he finds he can hit home runs near-
ly all the time. So he realizes it's the bat. It looks like a
normal bat, but every time he hits a ball, it flies about 300
feet or more.
And just when he's getting used to all the fame his hitting is
bringing, he's now the most famous player on the team at
his school, the vampires find him because they want their
bat back. Humans aren't supposed to have these things and
they ask him to give it back. But he lies to them and says he
doesn't know what they're talking about.
So that's our story. The Vampire Bat. Or my story. Copy-

right protection only kicks in after you write it down.
Notes: the story probably only works as a juvenile book be-

cause of the goofy nature of a "vampire bat." It could work
as an adult tale like "The Natural" if you want the story to
be about loss and redemption instead of vampires.
And the usual devices must be included:

protagonist has a weird friend who if fascinated with some
area that has been fruitless until now, and his or her help
become useful in battling the current threat, or he's just
around to be funny;
a girl or boy who likes our hero but the hero does not rec-
ognize the importance of the relationship until later;
a desirable partner usually out of the hero's reach, who is
suddenly interested because of the hero's new found fame,
i.e, the "hot girl";
parents who are non-existent or oblivious to the problem;
possible plot twists:

parent or teacher who knows about the threat or has simi-
lar childhood experience as the hero;
the bat only works at night;
the bat needs blood, or has other powers;
...Yeah, I'll get on this as soon as I finish all this important

sleeping and eating I have scheduled and as soon as I can
verify that RL Stine didn't write this same story ten years
ago.
164
Thursday, December 17, 2009

Where Libraries FAIL
I want to say one word: Plastics. I mean Advertising. Li-

braries can be as digital or as 2.0 as any other institution.
But we will always fail because we don't accept advertising.
Advertising is the U.S.A.'s grossest, um, largest domestic

product. Corporate sponsorship of events, advertising on
Internet search engine results, logos on baby nappies, tat-
toos, billboards, television ads: is there one place where
you won't find advertising? You could answer your church,
but I'm sure there are companies mentioned in your hym-
nal who helped pay for the printing.
The only places I can think of that are ad-free would be tied
to the government: public libraries, school media centers
or libraries, universities and colleges. Some other libraries
might be ad free, but only because they support their busi-
ness: medical, legal, and other special libraries.
So most libraries are either part of government, the educa-

tional system, or they support some corporate entity al-
ready.
But public libraries, in particular, continue to struggle with

their identities. Are they part of local government, estab-
lished to support civic education, or are they entertainment
centers?
I was reading a post-link from LISNews82 on video games

in libraries, and I can see baby steps into the world of cor-
porate sponsorship. In the world or print materials, libra-
ries buy based on content, demand, etc. We don't buy
82
http://lisnews.org/look_public_library_video_game_collections
books exclusively from one specific publisher. We don't

buy only Disney DVDs. We have VHS and DVD, but those
are two different formats on a technology timeline. What
did libraries do when they had to choose between VHS and
Betamax?
But in this world of video games, what do you do? Are you
a Nintendo library, a Microsoft, or a Sony? Or do you buy
everything for PSP, DS, Xbox, PS2, PS3? Does Nintendo
care if you lend only their products? Should they?
And what about Microsoft and Apple? Libraries have been

heavy Microsoft users in the past because most business
and home users wanted Microsoft products. Will libraries
be able to afford to purchase both brands of hardware in
the future, if Apple gets more market share?
I think libraries should accept corporate sponsorship now.

Become that Apple Library or that Sony Library. I would
love to wear a bright, blue NASCAR pit crew jumpsuit em-
blazoned with logos from Skoal, Sears Diehard, and Tide.
Take me to the McDonald's Library! your future kids will

say. And you'll think, "Wait. Didn't that used to be the Her-
shey-LEGO-Smirnoff Library? Ohgod, I love how they used
to give out free Lego-shaped, vodka-filled chocolates with
each new library card."
Companies already do this with sports arenas where they

change the names every few years. It's not Yankees Sta-
dium anymore, it's Wisconsin Mutual Insurance Field. No,
wait, it's Budweiser Extra Wheat Non-Alcoholic Brew Sta-
dium.
I'm just kidding about the advertising. My library is part of

our government, so this isn't going to happen. We'll just
166
struggle along with minimal funds as we always have. But

if we can't manage to generate any self-respect or pride for
our essential role, then it probably won't matter what we
do in the future. Because if we can't figure out what we are,
we won't be a library.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Top 10 (minus 7) Reasons Why We Already Live in
The Matrix
Sometimes I think we are already living in the world of The

Matrix. The only thing that brings me back to reality is that
I'm forty pounds away from having Neo's trim 29-inch
waist. If only I could cut out the donuts, I could move fast-
er than speeding bullets.
In the movie, The Matrix was one big virtual environment.

And what we saw on screen wasn't even the original ver-
sion of it. So if the movie version of The Matrix was, say,
Matrix version 4.1, Red Queen, then we exist in something
like Matrix 1.2, Dodo.
1. Social Networking sites. Given. No need to explain

this. But in case you're unaware.. each site is it's own little
world filled with friends and unfriends and followers and
unfollowers. Social networking sites are The Matrix Lite.
2. The Digital World. We live in a digital world and

every file can be edited to our satisfaction. Think about all
the activities where you participate in a virtual environ-
ment. From online shopping to chat to GPS navigation to
microblogging. For now you can't take a dump online, but
you can find the nicest place to do it. The reason I think
The Matrix is here is that we have or will soon have a gen-
eration of people who don't know what life was like before.
To them, there has always been "view all of xxxx's friends"

on MySpace, texting, instant downloads and complete
access to all the information in the world from the screen
of a little black box smart phone.
3. Ebooks. Ebooks are going to fulfill the promise of every

fantasy every reader has ever had. From fan fiction to in-
teractive fiction, ebooks will allow the creator and the
reader to transform the material to satisfy our every whim.
Don't like Stephen King's latest ending? Purchase the li-
cense to reedit the book yourself. Or maybe he can write 10
endings and you can purchase the one you want. We're al-
ready accustomed to seeing Fred Astaire dancing with a
vacuum cleaner, it's going to be so much easier to rewrite
for Scarlett or Holden or Hermione. Eventually, I see au-
thors simply licensing characters to us to create their sto-
ries for them. The way everyone is talking about the poten-
tial for ebooks, vooks and schnooks, and the ability for au-
thors to alter the reading experience, it's like none of them
ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
In this world, anything that can be manipulated, will be.

What if you don't like my avatar, but you like what I have
to tweet? Why shouldn't you be allowed to change my ap-
pearance? We can just alter our realities through comput-
ers. Trust me, if you look anything like your avatar, I'm
substituting Natalie Portman's smile. And Katy Perry's
boobs.
When there is no longer one reality to connect us that does

not exist outside of the virtual world, then that is The Ma-
trix.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It is to me because like

Neo and Morpheus, I can see it. But to the people living in-
side The Matrix, the ones who don't know, or like Joey
168
Pants (Cypher), who prefer their life within it, that world is
perfectly normal. All I'm saying is that it's here. It's not in
the places where the people are too poor, but it's here. And
while we are all online, those other people are searching for
clean water to drink. Oh, sorry, did that just make you feel
bad? Maybe you should tweet about it.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010

How to hire a librarian.
When we can scrape up a little money, my library lets me

hire someone. And because I'm legally obligated, I try to
hold fair job interviews. Otherwise, "Cleavage Depth"
would be at the top of my wish list. Except for you guys. I
don't need another dude stealing attention from my perky
B-cups.
So here is how to hold a fair interview. First, have a list of

questions that have been approved by someone importan-
ter than you, like someone in the human resources de-
partment. They can help you streamline your questions so
you eliminate ridiculous terms like "importanter."
Make sure you ask the same questions to each applicant.

But never ask about the air-speed velocity of an unladen
swallow, no matter how hilarious you think you sound.
Questions should be have finite answers, but also allow the

interviewee to expand and include personal experience.
Here is a page with common questions 83, most of which, I
have never asked anyone. Except for #5, "Why do you want
to work here?" which always gives me a laugh when anyone
answers, "Because libraries are so quiet."
83
http://www.libgig.com/toptenquestionstoexpect
What I try to do is answer all my own questions prior to the

interview and keep a cheat sheet so I can score the inter-
view answers later. And if I think you are extra awesome, I
will turn over the cheat sheet so you can see it.
For example, Q: Why do you want to work here? A: "Be-

cause libraries are so quiet."
Well, that answer sucks. Out of a possible 3 points for a

question like that, that answer scores only 1 point. That an-
swer reveals that this person has never set foot in our li-
brary and probably has an image of libraries formed from
viewing Masterpiece Theatre.
For, Why do you want to work here? I want to hear some-

thing about helping people find information; pretty much
anything that excludes any mention of peace and quiet or
health benefits or scoring librarian poontang.
So I make my cheat sheet which looks exactly like this:
1) Name your favorite Smurf and tell me why.

(I like to lead off with the same question that
Google uses to hire programmers.)
This is how I would score that question for up to 5

points:
>>Did not know what a Smurf is, 0 points. And the

interview is terminated.
>>Knows what Smurfs are and says something like,

"they are blue," but can't name one, 1 point.
170
>>Names a Smurf, but not a positive role-model

Smurf, i.e, names Jokey Smurf, 2 points. Ideally, we
would want to hear the name of one of the more in-
dustrious or emotionally-balanced Smurfs, such as
Papa Smurf, Hefty Smurf, Chef Smurf, Handy
Smurf, or Painter Smurf.
Smurfette may be referenced if the interviewee ac-

knowledges that Gargamel is an evil bastard (since
he made her to destroy all Smurfiness.. you should
know that).
>>Names one of the better Smurfs listed above, 3

points.
>>Names a better Smurf and explains his (or her)

benefit to the community using terms like, "cooper-
ation," "sharing," "contributing," etc, 4 points.
A Bonus point may be earned for answering in

French, i.e. "Grand Schtroumpf," for a total of 5
points.
The key is to be fair, to give everyone the same Smurfituni-

ty for Smurfcess.
I like to score against a cheat sheet like this because it

helps me to score everyone against the same criteria. When
you ask a question like, Why do you want to work here?
you can get a wide range of answers. So, how do you score
that? And then, if the interviews extend over one or two
weeks, how do you remember what you originally thought
was a good answer? And what happens if someone chal-
lenges your recommendation for hire? You'll need to con-
vince him that your selection was based on some unbiased
process. And yes, the cheat sheet changes over time. Do
you think I still use the same answers from twenty years
ago? If I ask, Tell me about your experience using comput-

ers, I'm not going to take off points if they don't mention
DOS or Telnet. Hmm, you mention something called Win-
dows 7, are you also familiar with Windows 1 through 6 ,
or just this number 7? Because we have all the Windows
here. All of them.
If I had an opening right now, I would look for someone

with some subject expertise, maybe some teaching expe-
rience. I don't give a crap about Twitter or Facebook ac-
counts unless the interviewee expresses complete disinter-
est or disdain for technology. Conversely, I don't want to
see your phone. And DO NOT show me your blog.
I want to know that you don't sit on your ass all day, that
you weed intelligently, and that you don't want to be a
"star" until you get our crappy, mundane tasks finished
first.
Let me know your abilities, but don't be too cocky. Remove

your tongue stud before we begin. Remember, you'll be on
probation for a year; after that, you can do whatever the
hell you want. But for that first year, your Smurfy ass is
mine.
Friday, January 22, 2010

How do you feel about the real world?
All things being equal, wouldn't you rather be somewhere

less crowded?
I need to find an article that explains the psychology be-

hind social networking sites. In the real world, I don't like
crowds. I don't eat at restaurants when there's a 45-minute
172
wait. I don't go to clubs where there's a line out the door

(unless I'm with someone who gets me into the side door).
If it means going without something because there's a long
line, then I don't want whatever it is the line is for.
I don't know about you, but I'm guessing that if you're over
22, you don't like crowds either. But I don't think I have a
phobia, I just don't need lots of people around.
But we all want to be online where everyone else is. And

you want your online space to be as crowded as possible.
And I'm not sure why that is. Why is Facebook so popular
when it is so damn crowded?
Why does barren virtual space feel like a waste of time, but
an empty, secluded beach or field or mountain top feel like
paradise?
Is the reverse true? Do people who love crowds also hate

Facebook?
Is it because social sites aren't perceived as being crowded?

Since you only "see" the people you want to see? In fact,
most of us want to see more people and for more people to
see us. And these "people" we meet are mostly by choice.
I just find it interesting that in the real world I prefer small

groups of friends, but online, I want to be part of the larg-
est party possible.
If you love big parties or crowded dance floors or standing

in Times Square on New Year's Eve, then how do you feel
about sites like Facebook or Twitter? Do they suck for you?
Do people who love to be with real people hate being with
virtual people?
Maybe you hate Facebook, but couldn't explain why. May-

be I'm helping. Yes, for once this blog is helping someone
with something! Hooray, me!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I am he as you are me and we are all together.84
We are no longer individuals. We are the world.85 And I

guess that's not a bad thing. The world raised lots of money
for Haiti.
But I was raised to think as an individual. To try to be my-

self in a world that wants me to be like everyone else. But
the Internet wants me to be just like everyone else, to be a
seeker, to not be satisfied with what I have, and to keep
searching.
I see that Bing commercial where everyone is just repeat-

ing unrelated facts:
"We need a new place to eat..."

"Eat my dust!"
"Wolf spiders eat their young."
And it finishes with the tag, "What has search overload

done to us?"
Are we just information aggregators who regurgitate data

without processing it? If so, why is that surprising? It's
what librarians have always done. We make information
easier for others to find. We categorize and organize. Un-
84
[with apologies to John Lennon]
85
[with apologies to Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie]
174
fortunately, the Internet forces us to do it faster and faster

and faster or someone else will do it first.
The earliest memory I have from researching the career of

librarianship had me visiting my local library to find out
where the best or nearest school was. And there was this
old dude there, one of the librarians, sitting at a desk and
clipping news articles out of the old magazines with a large
pair of metal scissors. I guess it was for some file of local
interest stories or something. And my only thought was,
"Hell, I am not doing that."
But then he looked up at me as he was snipping away and

his eyes were dead like this was the most mundane, soul-
stealing task one could ever perform. But then behind
those eyes, I felt his anger, his pent-up rage at giving his
life to such a thankless profession. His eyes said, Make a
joke or crack a smile at what I'm doing and I will kill you
with these scissors. And I felt as if his body might spring
out of that chair at any second. Okay, spring is a little too
strong. Rise up slowly, reach for his asthma inhaler, clutch
his chest, lean on the desk for support, and shuffle towards
me.
I thought, "Cool. Librarians have weapons." But the real

point is that librarians have always worked to spread in-
formation. But did any or you ever do that? Clip stories
from the paper and file them away? Why? Yes, I under-
stand why, but WHY? Was is indexed? Because we had a
vertical file, but it only had full pamphlets or complete sec-
tions from the paper, not just random clippings. Did you
have to write the date and page numbers on each item? I'm
sorry if I'm bringing up horrible memories.
Oh, here is my earliest memory of a librarian:

The Public Library; the local public librarian met with my

mother and explained the rules of library and lending
rules, etc., and I remember being asked if I could follow the
rules and borrow the books without damaging them and to
return them on time. Yes, I remember this. I remember
what the room looked like; I remember signing the card
and I remember the librarian placing my signature card in
a box with all the other cards. I was thirty years old.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Super Bowl Etiquette = Library Etiquette.
So it's Super Bowl Week. And it's in Miami (okay, near Mi-
ami). You add Super Bowl to an already crazy Miami and
someone's taking a bullet in his ass. About a thousand
someones.
And I'm reading this informative article about strip club

etiquette for Super Bowl visitors and it starts to feel a little
too familiar, like it might also be about library etiquette.
And since thousands of football fans will be in Miami this
week, and so many of them will want to use the local libra-
ries, for reading and such, I thought I might add some tips
of my own to help make their stay in sunny South Florida
safe and bullet-in-the-ass-free.
NOTE: The tips in bold are the real strip club tips from
Ricky "Disco Rick" Taylor of club King of Diamonds.
At the strip club: Please ask how much each dance

costs before you have a girl dance on you for 20
songs.
176
At the library: Please ask how much each page costs before
you send that 200 page color pdf to the printer because I
can't just print out that one page in the middle.
At the strip club: Florida is not all-nude. Miami and

parts of Fort Lauderdale are the only places where
it's all-nude. You won't see no little stickers on tits
here.
At the library: The Library is not all-nude. Back by the for-

eign language books and in the corner by the government
docs are the only places you can bareass it. No, not by the
Large Print books. Dear, God, not by the Large Print. My
Nana might be there.
At the strip club: When a dancer tells security that

she gave you 12 dances and you say she gave you
six, who are we going to believe — her drunk ass or
your drunk ass? Her drunk ass.
At the library: When the computer tells you that your In-
ternet session is over in 2 minutes and you say you didn't
get a full half-hour, who are we going to believe -- your ug-
ly, stupid, stupid, stupid, ugly, stupid ass or the computer?
The computer.
At the strip club: We're the guards of the prison, and

the strippers are the prisoners. You have to re-
member, they're drunk too.
At the library: Not much I'd change on that one: Librarians

are the guards, the prisoners, and with any luck, drunk as
hell.
At the strip club: Once you throw up, you're escorted

out. And we take your keys. You have to call some-
body to pick you up, or we'll take your phone and
call for you. Whoever's been calling you the most,

that's who we call. That could be your wife or your
girlfriend.
At the library: Once you throw up, you're escorted out. But
one of the librarians will probably offer to drive you home.
Yeah, we're stupid that way.
So there you have it. Welcome to South Florida. Go Saints.
This next post is from the LISNews site because it’s the es-
say I submitted for the contest. And I won a major award!
Or something. Whatever. The essay doesn’t suck.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010

LISNews essay contest
Patron Expectations vs. Librarian Expectations in Library

Service
February 9, 2010 - 12:31pm — effinglibrarian
I work with the public. You know, those people who are the
first to say that they pay my salary even though they have-
n't paid taxes in years. But even though I serve the non-
taxpaying public, they still represent the taxpayer. And
more than representing figuratively, they stand in for the
taxpayer in the real way that allows the taxpayer to live the
carefree lifestyle that comes from knowing that most of the
rest of the public is safely inside the library and not out on
the streets. But enough about my bosses...
I think the general public are satisfied with library services.

But I think the librarians are convinced that services suck.
178
To read what librarians are saying about libraries is to get

an image of libraries continually at the center of failure.
The librarians say that libraries need new or more every-
thing: more social networking features, more e-services,
more e-books, e-readers, 2.0, 1.0, open source software,
koha (whatever-tee-eff that is), iPhones, iPads, IM, SMS,
Wii, virtual reality, real reality, Facebook, face punch, sus-
tainability, sustainability???, advocacy, political action,
fundraising, programming, css, drupal, SEO,... it doesn't
matter how much librarians know or do, there always seem
to be other librarians who demand that we know and do
more. Like it's a personal offense to them when we aren't
up on the latest, ... whatever, whether it's a new author or a
subject or a device or a philosophy.
There seem to be two schools of thought on librarian adap-

tation: that we do it for our customers or that we do it for
our colleagues. We work to provide for our patrons‘ needs,
but should we also master the accomplishments of other
librarians?
My patrons just want to resize a 3000 pixel baby photo and

print it, but I'm too busy because I'm retagging all of my
Flickr photos according to some new standard some libra-
rian is pushing. So it's a continual battle of providing for
the needs of our patrons while mimicking the pursuits of
our peers. Nobody wants to be the stupid librarian, but I
also want to keep my job.
Maybe it's a conflict between Arts and Sciences. Librarian-

ship is a Science, but many librarians come from liberal
arts backgrounds. We want to discover, but we also desire
to create. The artist says, "Lady Emilia has invented a word
that rhymes with orange!" And so everyone sits down to
write a new poem using ―florange‖ so they won't be left out.
But the scientist in us tells us to discover and classify that

which already exists: "Wadsworth, look here at this edition
of The Register. Does that spell ―florange‖? In this sen-
tence, it appears to be a contraction of the words florist and
arranger, but they clearly use the word florange. The more
proper spelling should be floranger, but that is not what
was used. I am citing this usage. And tagging it as, ‗rhymes
with orange.‘"
Like any profession, we should keep current with the new

shiny, to be aware of new tools and solutions, but we also
need to know when to apply solutions. Do we create the
environment to use ―florange‖ just because florange exists,
or do we keep florange in the toolbox and apply it when it's
the right tool for the job? Everyone doesn't need to be a
trailblazer, but when my library customer needs expertise
on which path to take, we should know enough to give good
advice.
How would you feel if you paid someone to do a job who

didn't know about advancements in the field, or used obso-
lete technologies? Isn't this the definition of a professional?
Meaning that we are obligated to maintain currency with
advancements in the profession?
The lowest common denominator of library customer will

always only need my help for getting the change machine
to take his sweat-soaked dollar, so is that the only skill I
should ever master? No. As with any request for informa-
tion, I need to be prepared take the search as far as the cus-
tomer needs to go. If she asks for cookbooks, I need to be
prepared to direct her to cooking DVDs or recipe websites
or how to use Google for a recipe search. And no, I don't
follow her around repeating all this information because
that makes me the creepy "rain man" librarian. But I need
to be ready to answer if necessary.
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Most library patrons don't want deep thought; they want

free labor. So it's possible to coast through a library job
knowing the bare minimum, like how to do a Google search
(or twenty) or how to print fifty free tax forms.
But then, where is the professional curiosity? When I got

the degree, I wanted to learn all the new stuff I needed to
learn to get my degree. But is that it? Does learning stop
with the diploma? Do some librarians think that what they
learned in library school is all they will ever need to know?
And do some other librarians think that if you aren't using

every new service or tool, then you just suck? I look at my
Twitter account and so many librarians are twittererering
about so many new things that I can't possibly even read
about them all, let alone learn to use them. But I feel like I
need to know about some of it.
When I got my first librarian job, I didn't know what to ex-

pect. I had never worked in a library; I had never answered
questions or found stuff for people. But I had a computer
on my desk and I wasn't afraid to use it. And when I asked
for a specific materials report, the person who had been
producing the daily reports decided to pass that duty to
me, so I learned how to input commands into the library
computer system to run borrower and circulation reports,
create user accounts, and to access the system remotely to
check files and run reports (so I could work at home in my
pajamas). The point is that anyone could have been trained
to do that job. But management looked for someone who
seemed ready to learn it.
I've seen some online discussion about whether the Boy

Scouts of America are still relevant after 100 years and it
made me think of the Scouting Motto: "Be Prepared."
How can librarians stay relevant? That simple answer

seems to cover it, be prepared. But prepared for what? Be
prepared for whatever your customer or your colleague
(and especially your boss) might want. Be aware of what
other libraries are doing to assist their customers. Be will-
ing to learn. And be prepared for the next step.
Sunday, February 14, 2010

Library branding.
What's up with all these library slogan changes? Don't

these libraries know there's a recession? How much does it
cost to change the banner image on the website? What?
Practically nothing? Oh, some employee does it for free?
This year, the New York Public Library unveiled, "Discover.

Connect. Get Inspired," and now the Omaha Public Library
has changed their slogan to "Open Your World."
From some of the comments on the NYPL site, the locals

aren't happy with the facelift: "How am i supposed to dis-
cover, connect and get inspired by such a poor redesign!"
Our library changed it's slogan last year. All of our new
flyers and pamphlets now say, "It's 5 O'clock, Get the Fuck
Out."
Our previous slogan, "Alright, Nobody Move," was helpful

for law enforcement, but seen as confusing to our patrons.
It was kind of like naming your dog, "Stay."
And I know from our new branding that all this change
isn't free. It took me hours to delete the old logo and add
the new one to the 70-something public documents I up-
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date. And after a year, I think I only have about 40 or 50

left to fix.
It is funny though. We change almost nothing else, but we

slap on this new coat of paint. For everyone who wants li-
braries to behave more like businesses, this is one of the
best examples: "New Packaging. Same Old Product."
Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Power of One.
I don't have any sources in front of me, but when has that
ever stopped me from arguing a point? And that point is,
that everything is decided by one person.
Yeah, I'm rounding down. But I'm sure you've seen num-
bers that say things like ebook sales account for only 8% of
the publishing market, or that only 3% of people who use
social networking sites actually buy anything with real
money, or that 1% of Wikipedia users contribute content,
etcetera, etcetera.
So in this case, the Power of One means from 1 to 10 per-

cent of the whole. Clearly a minority.
And if you work in a library, you know that one asshole can
ruin everything for everyone else. Either he wants to ban a
book or ban a Christmas tree or display a Christmas tree or
piss himself or spill his coffee or bring a freaking parrot in-
to the library.
Yes, I'm betting that if some asshole brought a parrot into

your library, perched on his shoulder, you would let him.
Because he'd have some therapist's note that says the par-
rot "calms him." Or you'd let in a guy with an anaconda or
a ferret or an inflatable anime love pillow. Because it calms

him. And that's better than medicine. Until the parrot
pecks your eye out.
Twenty years ago, when I first started my library career we

had two rules for library behavior, "No food or drink" and
"Shirts and shoes must be worn in the library." But then
some asshole had to come in with two flank steaks covering
his ass and his groin. Yeah, he had on a shirt and shoes, but
he also wore a steak thong.
So we had to add to the RULES for LIBRARY BEHAVIOR:
1) No food or drink.
2) Shirts and shoes must be worn in the library.
3) No meat pants.
Now 20 years later, our Rules for Library Behavior lists

about 65 things you can't do in the library. For the 65 as-
sholes who did something stupid and then claimed there
was no rule against it or no sign posted. I swear we have a
rule for "No Stabbing or Poking: Books or Magazines or
People or Parrots with Anything."
If you tell someone he can't bring food into the library, he

will call to have some food delivered to him in the library,
food he did not bring in. So you have to amend the rule to
say that he, or anyone acting on his behalf, can't bring in
food.
If he can't deal drugs, you must also post that he can't buy
drugs. You can't say "distribute drugs" because then one
kid can't get an aspirin from his mom.
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But the Power of One rules everything. Every library has

some machine that was purchased because someone made
a stink and now that machine sits idle, collecting dust. Ei-
ther it was purchased because it was cutting edge technol-
ogy that someone thought the library should have or may-
be it met some accommodation, but the point is, it was
purchased because one person demanded it.
We buy dozens or maybe hundreds of books that one per-

son requests and so they circulate once and never again.
About twenty of those books were bought for me because I
love the world of Sid and Marty Krofft and I think you
should, too. Librarians do this because we want to make
everyone happy.
I don't have any solution for this; it's just an observation.

Librarians are always trying to decide when to purchase
new technology. Like when should you move to blu-ray in
place of regular DVDs? When should you lend ereaders?
When should you upgrade your operating systems or your
version of Microsoft Office on the public computers?
My point is that you can do all the thinking you want. But
no amount of thought or consideration will ever take prior-
ity over that one person who demands that the library do
something that the library was probably never going to do.
And I'm not really against this when it happens. I just

wonder about fairness and democracy. So many things are
controlled by a very few people. Should we always do
something just because a one person wants it?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Last Year, the Library Cost Me $7,048.36.
I just saw this post on LISNews86 about how last year the
library saved someone over a thousand dollars by the lend-
ing of books. And I realized, with some amount of shock,
that last year the library actually cost me several thousand
dollars. This is money I would not have spent without
access to books, library computers and the Internet.
Without library computers, I couldn't shop at Amazon. Or

Overstock. Or buy all that cool crap I see on Gizmodo. Yes,
the library made my shopping habits more wise by allow-
ing me to compare products and prices, but without all that
information, I might have just stayed put and bought noth-
ing. If I didn't know which widescreen HD TV to buy, do
you think I would have bought any of them? But I bought
three! I bought 3 HD TVs last year! Because information I
got using the library led me to conclude that they were
great bargains and that I needed them. Damn you [shakes
fist], library!
Without the Internet I get through the library, I would just

stay at home formulating my own ideas about the world. I
could imagine that some great war had occurred and that
every human was either dead or a brain-feasting zombie.
No, I don't get my news from television. Television is a box
of lies. I use my HD TV to play video games, which totaled
$374 in 2009. Each game reviewed and recommended
through the free Internet at the public library.
Like many libraries, we don't have the money to buy every

DVD release. So sometimes our library buys only one sea-
son of some TV show that ran for several years. Our library
has just Season 2 of Alias. So after I watched it I had to buy
the other four with my own money: on sale $67.37. We
have Seasons 1 and 3 of 21 Jump Street, and I bought the
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186
rest, including the spin-off, Booker. Similarly with Dynas-

ty, I Dream of Jeannie, All in the Family, and West Wing.
Don't even get me started on M*A*S*H. And don't mention
Netflix because getting each of those disks in proper sea-
sonal order would take about 20 months at $18 per month.
I also booked last year's vacation trip at the library and

downloaded 400 tunes to my mp3 player: $1,034.
And what about my self-diagnosed health issues that I only

discovered from using the library's online medical databas-
es? I could have been ignorantly, speedily, racing toward
death without the library. And richer for it.
But no, what I read forced me to have an expensive "proce-

dure."
Doc: Why look at these charts; you're fit as a fiddle.
Me: And ready for love? Huh, Doc? Am I ready for

love?
Doc: No, I'm sorry. What we fixed means you can

never make love again.
And everyone laughed. But no one laughed harder than my

girlfriend.
Sunday, February 28, 2010

Libraries and the Decline of Civilization.
I don't know how one would define civilization, but I would

guess that it includes relationships, pairings, groupings or
collections of people. Hell, Charlton Heston needed Nova
before he could ride off down the beach to curse the mani-
acs who blew up the Earth. You can't start a civilization

with just a shirtless guy named Chuck on the back of a
horse. At least not one we can show on TV.
And these relationships need some permanence. They can't

keep forming and dissolving every ten minutes. Relation-
ships need to endure long enough for shelters to rise and
children to grow.
So what does this have to do with libraries? Don't libraries

preserve culture? Aren't they centers for communities to
gather and leave horrible messes in the toilets?
Traditionally, yes. But recently, libraries have begun con-

tributing to civilization's decline, collapse and total failure.
What is the length of a good relationship? I know teen girls

claim they are "bff"s with just about any other girl wearing
a "Team Jacob" charm bracelet around her wrist, but how
long is that relationship going to last? Best Friends Forever
only means "until I change my mind and hate you forever."
So let's say a proper relationship lasts 3 months. And a

good relationship lasts several years. Where does that leave
libraries?
Libraries used to loan books for a month. You checked out

a book and got a card stamped with a date at least 30 days
in the future. And for those 30 days, that book was yours to
read and reread to your heart's content. You formed a rela-
tionship with that book.
But then libraries started buying "popular items," meaning

things that real people might actually spend their own
money on at the store. And these popular materials
couldn't circulate with just one person for a whole thirty
188
days; they were just too popular. So we reduced the time

one could monopolize those items to allow more people to
share them. Those books circulated twice as much or even
four times more often as regular books. In my library we
call those books The Slutty Books. They've been left on
more bedroom nightstands than Warren Beatty's under-
pants.
And after these sluts get passed around twenty or thirty

times like the whores they are, the library will change their
due dates to reflect this decreased demand as fewer bor-
rowers want to riffle through the sheets of these skanks.
So libraries have been discouraging long-term relation-

ships by encouraging readers to borrow popular materials
for shorter periods. Hell, simply segregating books into the
regular stacks labels them inferior or ugly and less desira-
ble no matter how much we stress their charming perso-
nalities.
And it gets worse with ebooks. And on-demand downloads

of music and video. Libraries now offer material that can
be downloaded from anywhere at any time. And shared
with other devices. And then discarded whenever the user
decides the relationship is over. Books get deleted, their ex-
istence wiped out, with a single click of the mouse. Talk
about the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That
book is gone.
And what about Redbox? Some libraries are now contract-

ing with a company called Redbox which rents DVDs (and
possibly books) out of a vending machine for $1 a day. One
day! For a buck! Libraries are destroying civilization by re-
ducing the length of the relationship between human be-
ings and their desires. We're reinforcing a notion that love
is temporary. I mean, who doesn't love Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman? And now I can have her whenever I want
for the whole day for just one dollar? If only Richard Gere
was offered that deal. Now love can be rented like the tem-
porary $2 affairs I have down at the bus station.
So libraries need to begin working on rebuilding civiliza-

tion. Libraries need to start forcing longer relationships
with mandatory borrowing periods of at least one month.
Or maybe three.
If you borrow a diet book and you try to return it before

you lose ten pounds, then you're keeping it until you drop
at least one pant size.
If you check out a book on home repair, don't try to return

it if the closet door still squeaks or the roof leaks. And that
auto repair book doesn't come back until you fix that pas-
senger-side window that doesn't go all the way back up.
And that self-help book stays with you until you stop being
an asshole. Yeah, I know we're never getting that one back.
But that's a loss we can all live with.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Banality of Evil.
I love the phrase, the banality of evil. If you check Wikipe-

dia you will find that most intellectuals despise it, as some
phrase akin to the complete absence of original thought.
But those words are poetry. I say, don't hate the words be-
cause they are beautiful.
It is like my favorite word, perfunctorily. I'm not as crazy

about the adjective form as I am about the adverb, and the
noun is a complete mistake. If I could find some clever col-
190
lection of 3 or 4 words that included perfunctorily, I would

write an entire book just to use it as the title. If it was the
1960's, I could write a book of poetry and call it Perfuncto-
rily, Me. Far out.
The banality of evil has nothing to do with this post, but I

also wanted to use Computer? I Don't Even Know Her. So
you can see why I chose the one I did.
But I saw this tweet87 today "Lunch time tastes better with
a Dr Pepper. At least, that‘s our opinion." It was from the
Dr Pepper Twitter account. Somehow it got put into my
timeline by a retweet.
Now, I love Dr Pepper. I drink it often. I had some today.

But this corporate bullshit, this advertising barrage, enrag-
es me. Twitter is bad enough with its often incomprehensi-
ble 140-character replies, public timeline gangbangs, spam
links, trojan traps, and incomplete thoughts. But this, to
me, crossed the line.
Where will it end? Will every corporation just tweet, "Con-

sume our products. Now"? How about, "Wouldn't it be nice
to wipe your ass with cottony-soft Cottonelle brand bath-
room tissue?" I probably won't mind too much if tweeting
is a viable career option when the public libraries disap-
pear. Will the world end not with a bang but with a twitter?
Or maybe I'm still frustrated by The Hurt Locker. I saw

this movie the other day and I don't know what the hell it
was about. I don't know what the "hurt locker" is: is it a
bomb; is it a place where man keeps his inner pain? I have
no freaking idea. And I don't know where the hell David
Morse went. He's in the movie for two minutes, then gone.
And I love David Morse. Were they just trying to reproduce
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a character like Duvall's fom Apocalypse Now? So I don't

know what the hell that was about. Was the movie just a
year-in-the-life flick or was it supposed to be some meta-
phor for something something something that I didn't get.
I liked it because it was a gritty war film, but I didn't like it
because it didn't ask me to slow dance, get in close, and
squeeze my ass like it needed to.
Twitter? I don't even know her.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Why Closing Libraries is Good for Libraries.
One simple law of economics is that scarcity increases val-

ue. So the short answer would be that closing a few libra-
ries makes the others more valuable.
Here is an example:
We have computers in our library and we continue to sur-
vey the wait times for those computers to decide whether
we should add more computers.
You might say, "Hey, idiot, add more computers if you can
afford to buy them." But you would be wrong.
We learned that people complain when we have more

computers than we need to satisfy the demand. Either un-
limited computer access invites "squatting" or the unused
equipment makes it look like we are wasting money.
So we survey how long someone actually waits for a com-

puter. And we find that year in, year out, we manage to
keep the wait down to an average (depending on the day of
the week) of between 5 and 15 minutes. Yes, there are days
192
when the wait is over an hour, but that's why we continue

to run these surveys. Of course, there are also times when
the wait is 0.
So we think that a 15 minute wait is not too long and pa-

trons seem to agree because they return day after day to
use the computers. People are willing to trade their 15 mi-
nutes to wait to use a free computer.
Now there are many blog posts about how FREE is the way
of the future on the Internet. But public libraries are al-
ready free. Yes, the taxpayer funds them, but the average
library patron does not see these fees since there are no re-
curring charges for library use.
The FREE business model does not work for libraries be-
cause they're already free. Free only works when there is
the alternative to pay.
Now libraries can charge for services, but since they are
funded by tax revenue, those charges are often viewed as
unfair. Taxpayers have already paid for the Internet and
the computers, so how can a library charge to use them?
Those tiny pencils on the desk are free for me to take as
many as I choose. And that out of print Criterion DVD is
also mine.
Now that some libraries are suffering financially and the

threats of closure are genuine, the public have shown wil-
lingness to accept certain fees in order to maintain servic-
es. Or better still, to allow libraries to begin charging for
things libraries should have been charging for all along.
The threat of the loss of service has shifted some power

back to libraries. If money is the issue, then libraries can
use the current financial climate to renegotiate these con-
tracts for these services, supplies, etc., formerly handed out

gratis.
What does your library give away that you could reasona-
bly charge for? Computer classes? Pencils (with erasers)?
Envelopes? Do you give away free computer printouts? Do
you waive overdue fines? Do you proctor tests for stu-
dents? Meeting room use? Swim laps in your heated Olym-
pic-size pool?
Of course, it's terrible when a library closes. Everyone los-

es. Libraries provide for more than we can ever truly un-
derstand. After a long career in banking, my mother has
become a regular library user and has borrow many books
and movies, and with that information has recently taken
up welding.
Wait, did I say "welding"? I meant watercolors.
Libraries lend books for SAT/ GED/ GRE prep, nursing

school entrance exams, postal exams, ESL instruction,
ASVAB, citizenship, computer certification, real estate,
HVAC, CDL, and the list goes on. And we don't know
where any of that new knowledge took those individuals.
They continue on as part of society, often not realizing how
the library has affected their lives.
But when libraries perform too well; when we provide for

everything, from ebooks to ebook readers to blu-ray discs
to netbooks to MP3 downloads to streaming theatrical
movies, it becomes inevitable that libraries will appear to
be an excessive expense and become an early target for
budget cuts.
Don't take this to mean that I am in charge of the money at

my library. I could never balance a budget. When I worked
194
for Taco Bell and my register was over by 37 cents, I just

quit and walked out rather than try to find the error. Okay,
that's a joke. It was at Burger King.
My point is for us to remember that there are essential ser-

vices and other crap we buy because we had the money.
And when the threat comes and you need to make those
tough choices, you're better off cleaning house and elimi-
nating the electronic crap and finding ways to charge for
some services than you are crying and waiting for the li-
brary doors to shut for good and hit you on the ass on your
way out.
Or maybe I don't have a point.
Friday, March 12, 2010

Mayans had ebooks.
For all we know, maybe they did, but we don't have the
technology to read them.
Lynn Neary at NPR asks: "What's The Value Of An E-

Book?"88 I say, no value at all.
Jason Epstein, ... says e-books are "the most exciting event,
as far as books are concerned, in 500 years."
I'm confident that 500 years from now, archaeologists (as-
suming humans or evolved bunnies are still here and a
modern society still functions) will wonder why, in 2010,
all human observation, communication and thought
ceased. And the answer will, of course, be that econtent be-
came the dominant media format after that year.
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After a few more posts I'll have enough material to publish

my third book. When printed on paper, it is almost guaran-
teed to outlast every tweet from each of the millions of
twittererers twittererering this year.
And the.effing.librarian will outlast every word published

exclusively in an ebook format. Doesn't that make you feel
sick?
I've blogged this topic going way back to the beginning of

the.effing.librarian here, and I'll probably blog about it
again. You notice I don't call my blogging writing... because
it isn't writing until it's written down. As long as it remains
electrons, it's nothing but a component of air.
Let's say an ebook reader survives for 500 years, what will
happen when it's found? Someone has to figure out how to
turn it on. And assuming the board and memory isn't fried,
and the stored data isn't totally corrupted or the screen
isn't shattered, the device will boot up and do something.
And maybe the content will be read.
But what if all the books are "in the cloud"? The reader will
blink and search and search and blink until it times out be-
cause the servers with all the data are unreachable.
But if the internet is completely unchanged for 500 years,

maybe they can track the address of the host server over in
Mountain View, CA, and they might just be able to get the
devices to communicate, and once and for all, find out
what humans cared about in that distant past.
And they will read Twilight. Or one of the free Kindle titles
like, His Lady Mistress.
196
But maybe nothing will work and our time on earth will
remain a huge mystery. And that's probably a good thing.
Because if we are to be remembered for our [ahem] digital
culture, for Grand Theft Auto, Old Dogs, Fox News, Face-
book, YouTube, and American Idol, then we should just be
forgotten.

Who needs a library?
Why do you need the library?

Why does anyone need the library?
Why do we need anything?
If we, librarians, could define the role of the library, then

we, library users, could decide if we really need them. As it
is, we are letting technology define the role of the library.
Whereas I think that our service to people should define it.
I think it's a matter of ego. And Homo NOVUS, the supe-

rior iPhone-clutching human, can be a huge asshole.
Whatever he needs, he gets, with a simple tap of his as-yet-
to-be-determined-rightful-ownership-through-patent-
litigation futuristic touch-screen. He (and She, the ladies
can be assholes, too) is multi-tooled, unlike his club-
wielding and single-minded predecessors.
It truly is ego. The new library is about who owns the au-
thority. In the old library, the librarian was the authority.
But things change.
ANTIQUUS (old library)

Fixed Authority NOVUS (new library)
Librarian-centric Dynamic Authority
Repeated shushing User-centric
Constant bleeping
So clearly there's a power struggle. But it's not between li-
brarians and library patrons, but between librarians and
inanimate devices. NOVUS totes the device around,
searching for signals, or wireless connectivity, and follows.
So who is the master? the human or the device?
Homo NOVUS has less control over his own destiny. That
electronic device is dependent on applications and services
he can't control. Life on the Web is nomadic. There's the
illusion of control with GPS and location-based services
and instantaneous results, but NOVUS possesses none of
it; it's all rented like a disco-era prom tuxedo. Both will in-
duce shame over time.
NOVUS says, "Look at me. I command amazing powers."

But the power is really in the device, and NOVUS is actual-
ly empty and powerless.
Now you must be saying, "Hey, the.effing.librarian, you big

dope... are you just quibbling over the content delivery sys-
tem? Does it really matter if people read from paper or
from tiny cell phone screens? Oh, gosh, I didn't really mean
to fly off like that and call you a dope. I love you. Can you
forgive me?"
And I say, "Yes, of course. But you should never feel like
you need my forgiveness. After all, Love means never hav-
ing to say you're sorry."
But when people read from paper, they get more of a

chance to consider the words before they react. You would
read the paper then write a letter to the editor. Or you'd
read a book and think about the story. But online, people
react before they've even finished reading and leave com-
ments and criticisms on the opening sentences or even the
198
headline. Or they comment on other's comments without

even reading the entire article. Arguments break out and
it's all just me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me,
me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me,
me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me,
me. Reading on paper allows one to internalize their
thoughts while reading online fosters externalized res-
ponses.
But this isn't an argument about paper versus electronic.

It's about whether the library is a place for people to learn
or for them to sit on some furniture and look at their
phones or netbooks or whatever. Anyone can provide wire-
less access, so why would we expect these people to sup-
port the library if free wireless becomes available at the lo-
cal book store or department store or coffee shop or strip
club?
Libraries should serve people, not devices. Whenever you

write up your library service plans you need to put "People"
at the top. You can have an 80/20 split for devoting your
time and resources to non-people related services, but the
vast majority should serve people.
Libraries are just our attempt at having some control over

the glut of information. Libraries try to put chaos into or-
der. Librarians take all those ideas that have some formal
structure on print or in a database, and we organize them
and give them a home. Libraries are a home for informa-
tion. So when we promote libraries to our users, we should
stress these ideals, that libraries are for helping people and
for providing information with a home.
But don't express these ideas of home too literally. Because

if your library is like mine, there are a few people who al-
ready treat the library like their home and you might just
find them taking a nap in your office.
Thursday, March 18, 2010

Warning? We Filter Websites.

Sometimes an overdue library book is just an
overdue library book.
200
I saw an announcement that Betty White would be playing

a librarian in an upcoming episode of some sitcom, and as
the fictional librarian, she would track down an overdue
library book a student forgot to return. And that made me
sad. Because writers still haven't learned that librarians are
regular people with regular problems and we don't spend
our days on the trail of book thieves or even on the trail of
book late-returners. We have many other regular, normal
interests.
So this is a letter to TV writers everywhere. Here is an ac-

tual experience I had with my school librarian, Mr. Jenkins
when I had an overdue library book. As you can see, libra-
rians are normal everyday people who just want to help.
I remember this as if I just made it up today... because

sometimes an overdue book is a cry for help.
Mr. Jenkins pulled me aside in the school library to ask

about my overdue library book, Robert Mapplethorpe Pho-
tographs the Katzenjammer Kids:
So, Billy, Mr. Jenkins says,(yes, in this story my

name is Billy), what about that overdue library
book? Are we going to see that back in the library
soon? You know, library school trains us librarians
to view an overdue book as a cry for help; are you
crying for help, Billy? Maybe you've having some is-
sues at home? A fight with your brother or sister?
Do you have a sister? An older sister? Maybe one
who's really promiscuous, a dirty little slut who
stays out all night? No? No older sister. Too bad. Do
you ever feel like you're the older sister? Walk
around in your mom's high heels? Did you ever
want to be a girl? Try on this lipstick. Look at that
shade of red, this would look hot on you. No? Not
ready yet? Okay, calm down. What about your par-

ents? Are they separated? Maybe getting a divorce?
And your mom is pretty lonely in that big bed all by
herself. Your mom is still pretty young, right? How
would you feel if you woke up some morning and
saw me exiting your mother's bedroom? Would that
creep you out? Oh, but your parents aren't sepa-
rated. What about drugs? Maybe the other kids are
trying to get you to do drugs and you don't know
what to say? You're embarrassed, right? Because
you haven't done any drugs before? How much
money you got? Ten bucks? Here's a doobie from
my personal stash. Don't freak out, I'm going to
show you how to smoke this bad boy so you don't
spend the rest of your existence on this planet being
such a dork.
And then that bastard took my ten dollars and bogarted

that whole joint.
And that's how I became a librarian. The End.
I wish I'd thought of that last line a long time ago. A good
blog should have a theme and it seems like a cool idea to
have a blog where every post ends with, "And that's how I
became a librarian."
Saturday, April 3, 2010

When Sex Offenders Have Guns...
So I have this googly thing that shows me any news with

the keywords "librarian" or "libraries" in it. And up pops,
"Libraries and 'sex offenders'." So of course I gots to see it.
202
And, total surprise, it's some rant about freedom written by

a guy who was clearly beaten with a whole sackful of crazy.
A judge ruled that Albuquerque (NM) can't ban sex offend-
ers from libraries. The author believes that any govern-
ment interference is wrong, even if that interference keeps
pedophiles from raping children.
But that's not the part that shocked me. Yes, you read that
right: having someone say that it's wrong for the govern-
ment to keep convicted pedophiles away from children is
not what shocked the.effing.librarian.
The shocking part is that the author says,
"Government has no legitimate authority to violate

a person's rights.
...
Aggressors should face the near certainty that their
intended victim is armed... They should also face
the near certainty that everyone within earshot is
armed as well.
...
If you are an aggressor (sexual or not), being dead
is often the proper condition."
And since I infer from the term "armed" that he means

firearms, I was shocked at the thought of anyone
discharging a firearm in the library. Yes, that was the
shocking part, that the story seemed to advocate for per-
sonal firearm freedom and the personal responsibility to
kill sex offenders on site, even in the library.
For a comparison, look at the following range of loudness:
a quiet library (which is certainly not your library),

55dB;
a cell phone playing Lil Wayne (featuring Eminem)

[ack!], 95 dB;
a KISS concert, 130 dB;
a gunshot 140 dB.
And that doesn't take into account that the first-through-

fourth shots aren't even going to be lethal; I mean at least
two shots are going in his 'nads. So we're talking at least
five 140 dB gunshots in the library. What if this happens
during storytime? And Miss Lisa is reading Goodnight
Moon to the toddlers?
"Goodnight clocks. And goodnight socks."

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Goodnight sex offenders' cocks."
To be fair, the story is about "sex offenders" who aren't all

pedophiles. Some are otherwise hard working and decent
people who were convicted of having sex with a minor, or
caught exposing their private parts in public and are here
reading this because they typed "libraries and sex offend-
ers" into the search engine like most normal, decent hard
working people do.
Sunday, April 4, 2010

Rolling Stone Keith Richards wanted to be a libra-
rian - big effing deal.
According to a story in the Daily Mail89, Richards "consid-

er[ed] 'professional training' to manage his vast collection
89
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1263492/How-hell-
raising-Rolling-Stone-Keith-Richards-wanted-librarian.html
204
of books," but gave up "on the idea because it was 'too

much hassle.'"
Oh, it's easy to say you "wanted to be a librarian." But it's

another thing to do it and live the life. Sure, it's easy to
choose the path of a rock-n-roll star, doing heroin and
sleeping with supermodels, but the life of dusty book aller-
gies and hand-sanitizer abuse is not for the weak.
All this is revealed as Richards works on a new autobiogra-

phy. "'I‘m trying to remember things,' says Richards,
'which is very difficult.'" In fact, after he thought about it
longer, it wasn't a librarian he wanted to be, it was "Fabian,
...or was it a comedian? Wait, maybe it was a Trinidadian...
bloody hell."
Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The 'what' librarian? You ought to be ashamed of
yourself.
It's lonely being the.effing.librarian. I'd like to make

friends, but it's hard to meet people with a name like that.
Even when I meet people in person who I've seen online, I

don't like bringing up the whole effinglibrarian thing.
But then I want to know if they've heard of me. And so I

have to bring it up: "Um, I'm that effing librarian guy, I
have a blog... no? I gave President Obama the kiss of life
when he appeared to be choking... but he wasn't... you
know, his lips taste like strawberries..."
And, of course, nobody knows who I am. Yes, you know

me, but I give you all those Chick-fil-A coupons for a free
sandwich.
Like, I'm going to be in Orlando for a library thingie this

week. And I know that there are about 3 people in Florida
who read my blog fairly regularly who could actually be at
the same event and just might admit to knowing who I am.
But those odds suck. Why would I go around saying, "Hi,
I'm the effing librarian," if it will only get me into trouble.
The best thing that could happen is that someone just looks
off without any glimmer of recognition and says, "Yeah, I'm
an effing librarian, too."
Now Marilyn Johnson, author of This Book Is Overdue!90

will be there, and if you remember, she mentioned this
blog in her book (and she likeded it!). Part of me wants her
to show my "Should you become a librarian?" flowchart
when presents, but another much larger part just fears that
it won't get a laugh or that someone will shout out, "the eff-
ing librarian sucks!"
To be honest, that person would be me because I love hear-

ing my name, but it's possible it might be some other per-
son, who upon seeing me, would throw a delicious, fruity,
sticky beverage in my face for something I wrote about
something I won't be able to remember.
Anyway, I probably shouldn't care about being

the.effing.librarian. But, so far, I want to keep my fake life
as far away from my real life as possible. Especially when I
got wrestled away from kissing the President and told the
Secret Service agent my name was Joshua Neff. 91
90
http://www.thisbookisoverdue.com/
91
http://www.goblin-cartoons.com/about/
206
Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Who will win the Ebook wars?
Oh my God, Apple has sold a gazillion iPads; what will

Amazon do to increase Kindle sales? The Nook is for sale at
Best Buy.
I DO NOT FUCKING CARE. I probably care more about

which hair style Kate Gosselin wears on Dancing with the
Stars (I believe it's the 'Betty Hutton').
Oprah, their peers, ego and infomercials influence library

borrowers. I don't care how fast the ebook market is ex-
panding, the ratio is still about 6 to 1 on people using our
computers versus those using wifi with their portable de-
vices.
People still need libraries to help them find jobs.

People still need libraries to help them learn to read.
People still need libraries to help them expand their intel-
lectual, philosophical and emotional horizons.
People still need libraries to help them save money.
People still need libraries to help them function and cope
and imagine and everything else that people need that they
can't get from just sitting around at home.
I will care about the ebook wars when my library hangs the
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED sign across all that other stuff.
Which means, I think, never.
(...actually, after thinking about it, the ration of portable

device users would be greater since that one user stays
connected while 3 or 4 or 5 or more library computer users
come and go... so chisenbop that, math nerds.)
Thursday, April 15, 2010

Library of Congress to Twitter: i♥u. 4evr.
I guess the official announcement92 went something like

this:
"Library to acquire ENTIRE Twitter archive -- ALL public
tweets, ever, since March 2006! Details to follow."
It's no "Man Walks on the Moon," but I guess they did the
best they could under the circumstances. I mean, it's frea-
kin' Twitter.
According to the LOC blog:
"The Library has been collecting materials from the

web since it began harvesting congressional and
presidential campaign websites in 2000. Today we
hold more than 167 terabytes of web-based infor-
mation, including legal blogs, websites of candi-
dates for national office, and websites of Members
of Congress."
I guess they decided to do it because Twitter is popular

with celebrities and it's an easy way to collect some tiny
part of world culture that holds little importance for any-
one other than the celebrities themselves.
If you read the story, they mention about 4 important sto-

ries that originated on Twitter. And I guess just archiving
those four tweets isn't very newsworthy so they bagged
them all. Couldn't someone at the LoC just print those 4
tweets out on a sheet of paper and tuck it under the United
States Declaration of Independence for safe-keeping?
92
http://twitter.com/librarycongress/status/12169442690
208
I hope there's a way to filter out all the people, I mean "ce-
lebrities," who signed up for Twitter after the announce-
ment yesterday, 4/14/2010, at around, 11:00 EST, and dec-
lare them massively egotistical assholes who want to be
remembered along with Oprah and Ashton forever.
What does it mean that the United States of America's Li-

brary of Congress has decided to archive all of Twitter? It is
a big job? I think I asked once how much space it would
take to store all the worlds tweets but I never got a clear
answer. I don't know what 50 billion Kilobytes means in
storage space. I mean, how big is Twitter? Can the archive
fit on a 16GB flash drive? on a 1T hard drive? How much
space does it take to store 50 billion 140-character tweets?
And why not archive all internet chat? Why not archive all
my posts @ the chat room for ##dELISHUS CHUNKY
aSSES!##?
All through 1998, I posted there almost every day, but the
Library of Congress doesn't think those chats are valuable.
Well, I do because I'm pretty sure a few of those sessions
were between me and Marlon Brando. So get off your high
horse LoC and archive everything or nothing. Marlon and
I... or maybe it was Toby Brando... deserve nothing less.
Saturday, April 17, 2010

THERE'S AN APP (Shhh), sorry, there's an app for
that.
Librarians want you to know that you all are too loud. But
different librarians will deal with you differently.
The blog Closed Stacks 93 says, "when patrons are being

loud or don‘t get off the phone quickly – to deal with this I
have developed a hand gesture/whisper shushing method
that is usually fairly inoffensive."
I am not a woman and I don't pretend to be a woman, for

less than $500. So I don't know how difficult it might be
for women to get library patrons to shut up. All I know is
that I look like a crazy person who stores body parts in the
staff refrigerator in bags marked "giblets." So most people
listen to me. I also never ask people to comply with policy.
I don't ask anyone to talk quietly; I tell them to end the call
or take it outside. I'm not the effing librarian because I
picked the name out of the dictionary.
But, and this is a big "But," I rarely tell someone to take it

outside until another patron has complained. I don't care
how loud you are unless it bothers others. (Mostly.)
But "Closed Stacks" brings up the point that this is a con-

stant battle for librarians, so is there a cell phone applica-
tion that can get this shushing job done for us? Is there
something that monitors the voices on the call and inter-
jects a pleasant "Shhhh" when they get too loud?
Can we force a download as each person enters the build-

ing? Or maybe the app could just be a fun, free app that
people want to download, like maybe Halle Berry could
say, "Oh, baby, say it softer," Arnold Schwarzenegger could
bark, "Shut up, asshole," and Samuel L. Jackson says,
"Keep it down, motherfucker."
I think this could be something. A shushing app could

work. Or I could just continue to smack them in the head
93
http://closedstacks.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/a-more-tactful-shush/
210
with a phone book and point to the door. Oh, didn't I men-
tion the phone book?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Comics Got Boobies.
Free Comic Book Day is coming. And like most years, I will
try to remember to visit my local comic book store, but will
probably forget.
Like most kids from my generation, I learned to love read-

ing from comic books. I remember finding my dad's collec-
tion of 1960's Playboys and ogling at the panels of Little
Annie Fanny. "Comics Got Boobies," each boy must have
exclaimed as he caught a gander at Kurtzman and Elder's
buoyantly rendered heroine.
And that has me wondering why a cartoon version of a

nekkid woman is worse for kids to see than a narrative de-
scription? Is a drawing of two large circles containing two
smaller circles (your basic boobies) worse for a kid than
reading some Norman Maileresque description of "huge
honkin' gazongaz," "heaving mounds" or "heavenly orbs"?
Like many libraries, ours buys graphic novels and manga.

And if one book has an image of a partially nude woman or
sex scene, it attracts much more attention than any soft-
core novel in the paperback section.
But try to find a modern book that doesn't have some page
that says, "she reached for his rigid vampire cock and its
heat radiated through her silver-studded leather glove."
Oh, wait, vampires are old news, change that to "zombie
cock" and "bite-resistant rubber glove." And yes, against all
logic, zombies and vampires get hot erections. Go figure.
But more than zombie porn, comic books are useful for en-
gaging young or even reluctant readers.
So that's why I feel like I should support my local comic

book store. In the attached video, Hugh Jackman says that
comics help to create a "lifelong love of reading." And I
agree because he's Wolverine and he might kick my ass if I
didn't.
So please, remind me when May 1 rolls around because I

have a new, crisp $1 bill to buy some comics. I can still buy
3 or 4 comics for a buck, can't I?
Monday, April 26, 2010

Happy Anniversary?
I've been doing this crap for 3 years. How dumb is that?
I guess it's time to put out another book. And the price is
going up.
The End.
212
This has been the $2,999.99 book.
Because you demanded it.

Okay, maybe not you. But I could swear I heard some-
one. Behind you, maybe?
$2,999.99?! How the hell did you get a copy?
Now it’s time to dance.

214

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the.effing.

Librarianship: “THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL,”

effinglibrarian.blogspot.com, the director’s cut**

Compiled from the blog,

©2009, 2010 the.effing.librarian, LLC.

No portion of this book may be used without permission,

The majority of this book was previously published at

As usual, I can’t guarantee that anything in this book will

I should change the name of this book to, Because You

Yeah, I’m gonna do something with “Because you de-

As with the other books, everything new appears in this

This book is dedicated to my girlfriend’s dog.

“How come your girlfriend’s dog?” you might ask.

I am unable to dedicate this book to my girlfriend for less

This first post begins the fall and rise of the.effing.librarian

I quit blogging for a while because I really didn’t have that

Friday, May 1, 2009

1. Fame and Fortune and Other F Words1

*a blobogok is my preferred term for a "blog book." why?

if you need to contact the.effing.librarian, use your noodle

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Yeah, what do you care.

Speaking of sucking, one of the reasons I'd like to come

But I was mildly affronted. And since it happened on the

And it was weird to have some random person just strike

been told I suck about two-thousand four-hundred and

So, I'm going to continue blogging. Occasionally. Like on

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

I noticed yesterday that someone is selling a copy of my

"$1,999.99 + $3.99 shipping Condition: New. Sel-

That's incredible because new copies are available for

So it appears that the purchase of this book is not just a

ty, ignorance and greed. Who would buy a pre-owned copy

So it seems that maybe some shrewd investor is stockpiling

If each copy of my book currently in print could change

That's awesome! That could really help Iceland with their

Now if only I could get the World Bank or the G8 to recog-

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

15-year-old Kate Moore of Des Moines was the ultimate

tants for the LG U.S. National Texting Championship 3. I'm

Ms. Moore sends 14,000 texts a month, so if her parents

Her winning text was the phrase,

―Zippity Dooo Dahh Zippity Ayy...My oh MY, what

But it is amazing that she was able to type out those 23

things are going with technology, I might need someone to

Part of this contest appears to be tied to something call the

"Keeping up with your teen can be exhausting, es-

So the DTXTR Text Translator4 is educational and not just

And MSNUW means, "Mini-Skirt No UnderWear." But I

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Salt Lake City police arrested ten people at the downtown

Those arrested in front of the library were young white

The young white men added to the suspicions by carrying

Acting on these tips, the police investigated and discovered

"We focused more on the dealers than the buyers because

the source from the police department didn't say. "Libra-

Salt Lake City librarians were shocked by the raid which

"What will I do now? Without my daily doobie, I will freak

Yes, Zoloft, Oxycodone and cherry-flavor Dr Pepper: the

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

If you haven't seen the movie, Gran Torino, I won't spoil

So, I don't know what you thought, but I was somewhat

So I started to think about that lone gunman myth of the

If Gran Torino had been made in 1975, it would have

Librarianship: "THIS TIME IT'S PERSONAL"

Librarianship: "THIS TIME IT'S PERSONAL"