CFLC Chronicles: Mandatory Reading

Last week, the biblioblogospheric buzz belonged to one particular blog post. No fewer than four people (and countless library blogs) pointed out to me that I ought to include in this blog a pointer to Are Librarians Totally Obsolete? 33 Reasons Why Libraries and Librarians are Still Extremely Important at the DegreeTutor site. Boy, were they right! (Thank you, all of you!)

In a reading round-up, here are some of the best substantive pieces I've come across discussing this quasi-manifesto:

• For links to a couple of similar pieces, check out Shooting yourself in the foot, arguing about Library issues with patrons on Stotan!
  
• In Public Libraries and Adapting to the Change to Virtual Community at The Shifted Librarian, Jenny Levine provides both great commentary on the 33 Reasons... piece as well as links to some good library role models.
  
• There's also some good back-and-forth conversation on a couple of school library blogs: About our obsolescence at Joyce Valenza's NeverEndingSearch Blog and Librarian-proofing library programs at Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog.
  
• Finally, in a totally different take, the Alloway Library Blog (Canada's Trinity Western University) on MySpace gives quite a bit of ink (or 1's and 0's) to the piece, but under the critical-thinking heading of Question the Sources.

If all this verbiage is too much to tackle, at the very least, read the original 33 good reasons. Read them; share them; take them to heart; and by all means, take them to policy makers and those who fund libraries. (My favorite summary comment about it [here from LibrarianInBlack]: "I would advise keeping this handy for the next time your city, citizens, students, administrations, etc. start rumbling about how there's really no need for libraries any more. Between this article and a stun gun, you should be well set to defend yourself.")

SUBJECTS: CFLC CHRONICLES