No, I’m not rehearsing the standard stereotypical librarian’s pledge voiced to a loud voiced patron or co-worker. I am referring to Scott Douglas’s humorous memoir, insider look at the state of the library profession “Quiet Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian”.
Douglas’s book is full of folk wisdom and laugh out loud humor. I picked up Douglas’s book out of curiosity; hoping that this book with the provocative title might shed a bit of light on dealing with our core customer base and the changes currently taking place in the library world.
According to some healthcare professionals laughter is a good tonic for your overall well being. But Douglas’ wry wit caused me to laugh uncontrollably every other page until my stomach became spasmodic and hurt. Like the court jester (i.e. Aesop or Mullah Nasrudin) of old, Douglas makes the reader laugh while simultaneously casting a large magnifying glass on society, people, libraries, the book industry and the interconnection between them all.
For instance what impact will the Internet really have on reading and literacy in five years? Or how will faster, sleeker versions of the Internet and computer distributed data affect expensive proprietary databases used in academic libraries? Better still what will be the long term consequences of technology on traditional library jobs carried out by reference librarians and catalogers? One sacred cow Douglas touches on without trepidation is the value—or in some instances the lack of value—of the professional library science school.
Skeptics and critics would probably say Douglas should leave the futurist forecasting to Alvin Toffler or organizations like the World Future Society. But given the glut of recent articles in professional library literature on increased customer service, community outreach, better customer service, “give the customer what they want,” shrinking municipal budgets, public library closings and theories about roving reference librarians, Douglas might be viewed by some as a mirthful, and at times pessimistically bored, literary Nostradamus. But Douglas, a librarian himself, is not as pessimistic as he is probably concerned and anxious about his own life calling.
Douglas’s voyeuristic commentary on the day to day activities of those responsible for reference and circulation services made me much more aware of the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE). I mean after all suppose librarians and most of the U.S. work force were paid due to results as opposed to job description?
Quiet Please! Is not the classic manual of corporate/business change and workplace management systems, but it will make librarian and patron alike ponder a great many things—just much more merrily!
