Shout out to the librarians

SteveFoerster — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:45:00 GMT

“Mary Kay is one of the secret masters of the world: a librarian. They control information. Don't ever piss one off.” — Spider Robinson, The Callahan Touch

Tomorrow, April 14th, is National Library Workers Day, part of National Library Week. As I've posted before, I've made very good use of the library in the university where I work, since I can find my textbooks through our local consortium and I can check them out and renew them throughout the term rather than buy them. In fact, the library where I work is so useful that I have yet to even try to use the one at A.T. Still University. And they've been as helpful for finding books as they have for finding things online.

I suppose I may as well also offer sort of a confession here, that I'm not always great at getting books back up to the circulation desk when I am supposed to. I appreciate that they're so forgiving about it, although there's not much to be done about the fines from other schools when I've borrowed one of their volumes through the consortium. I suppose I'm part of the problem that Anatole France meant when he wrote, "Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me." But I'm trying, and at least the librarians tell me I'm in good company!

That out of the way, I'd also like to express my appreciation for librarians as defenders of civil liberties and access to information. When the PATRIOT Act was enacted and contained a provision saying that Uncle Sam might want to review what library patrons had checked out, many librarians were quick to say they would not comply. And Banned Books Week, a time to celebrate everyone's access to knowledge, is the sort of holiday that could only be devised by people with my kind of attitude towards censorship. So thanks librarians, and keep up the good work!

Next up, we meet Dr. Mac.

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My A.T. Still University Experience : library

Shout out to the librarians