LISNews: Librarian News

Over at Attempting Elegance, Jenica Rogers is "Feeling Pointy":

"I am, professionally and personally, livid; I do not appreciate condescension, eradication of librarians’ professional expertise, or sidestepping of questions that are completely valid in a consumer-seller relationship in which a carefully delineated accreditation relationship is also involved. Our vendors seem to think that going straight to the faculty is going to benefit them, but I don’t understand their logic in sidestepping librarians. We’re the ones with the budgets. We’re the ones they have to work with. Yes, our faculty are influential, key stakeholders and partners, and are the source of our research agenda and teaching and learning needs, but still: How is undermining and alienating the librarian middleman going to help business?

Anger and bewilderment aside, I’m caught between the proverbial rock and hard place — I must support the faculty and students who rely on the research materials published by the ACS. But I must also strive to manage the budgets, resources

How many government employees in Washington have been there since the Reagan years? Not too many, but one of them is James Billington, Librarian of Congress.

He moves a little more slowly now, at 82, and gets more questions about whether he’s thinking of retiring, but that seems to be the last thing on James Billington’s mind as he begins his 25th year as the Librarian of Congress (however, he is not credentialed as a librarian).

“I have no plans at this point — sorry to disappoint you,” a reflective Billington said during an hourlong interview with The Hill. “The Lord’s been very kind, and I’m in the middle of a lot of interesting things. And of course, it’s a time when all cultural institutions are facing lots of challenges.”

Billington, who was sworn in as the 13th Librarian of Congress on Sept. 14, 1987, outlined some of those challenges when asked about the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks, given that the Library was the first to publish Osama bin Laden’s autobiography and the first to discover papers that raised concerns about terrorists hijacking airliners.

“Speaking as an American, like all other Americans I share in the horror and outrage and the deep concern and expressions of sympathy, and in the way in which the country was suddenly conscious of fragility when we all thought we were secure,” he said. -- Read More

Are Librarians different from other professionals?
To really know someone, you need to know how they spend their
spare time. What do they chose to do when they aren’t working or
when they retire? We are doing a study of how librarians spend
their time outside of work, and if you are a librarian, we are
inviting you to complete a brief survey. It should take about ten
minutes to answer a few questions. You can see the survey by
using the link below to go to our confidential website. We think
our findings will help librarians to understand themselves better,
to know what makes them different in how they spend their spare
time, and to plan how they will spend their time in retirement.

We hope you will help us, not only by completing the survey
yourself, but also by forwarding the link to friends and
colleagues you know are not subscribed to this list. We are
especially concerned about reaching retired librarians.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LibrarianAfterHours

Among other subjects, the interviewer asks her about the sort of problems the library deals with...

"First and foremost is maintenance. It’s really essential to fumigate the books frequently to protect them from insects, but fumigants are scarce and we can only do it once every two years. Second, fungi. Fungi appear due to the humidity inside the library. We can’t afford to keep the air-conditioner running 24 hours a day, but it should been on the whole day to keep the room less humid. Also, security issues — books keep going missing, either from being misplaced or by theft."