New Jersey Librarian writes “This won’t be online until next week. Our library receives a separate copy of “The New York Times Book Review” in advance of the rest of the Sunday paper. The October 17th issue arrived yesterday. It contains a review of The Librarian, a novel by Larry Beinhart. The review was written by Neil Genzlinger, a critic and staff writer for the NYT.
Mr. Genzlinger begins his review with the following comment: “Poor librarians. Soon, no doubt, to go the way of blacksmiths and town criers, their chosen field made obsolete by Internet search engines and self-perpetuating electronic databases.” He concludes, “What a pity that soon the only place to find one will be at the Living History Museum, alongside the mule skinner and the wheelwright.”
The October 17th Sunday Book Review will be available online next week at:
NY Times.com “
Uh oh…
Somebody’s gonna get an ass-whupin.
A little less obsolete than newspaper book critics
I don’t think either print newspapers or libraries are going away, but if you have to choose one of the two, it’s not a hard choice.
what about the “Book reviewers” exhibit?
Does anyone else think it’s funny that a “Book Reviewer” calls librarians obsolete because everything is becoming electronic?
Methinks Mr. Genzlinger better start looking for another gig, because (by his reasoning) the Book Reviewer exhibit in the old “Living History Museum” will be right beside the Librarian and Mule Skinner sections 🙂
Snorkle.
This requires a Letter to Ed
I sincerely hope that one of you shining examples of librarianship will write a letter to the editor of the NYT once the Book Review comes out.
Ingrate … … …
Considering the Book Review had its archives bumped off the web by a copyright squabble and back issues are now only available in hard copy
in libraries, he ought to be more grateful
those search engines and “self-perpetuating electronic data bases” (?) won’t show a trace of his own work a few years on
Ryan
Re:Ingrate …
What are these self-perpetuating electronic databases of which he speaks, and where can I subscibe to one for my library?
On a serious note, my (small, under-resourced) special library recently subscribed to a full-text newspaper database. While it’s great, and a massive improvement over the free web, it’s nowhere near as good as I am at retrieving the articles my users need. Even though it uses quite sophisticated subject headings, the signal/noise ratio isn’t good enough. It still needs me to select the most suitable material.
But you knew all that already.
Yet another reason why not to subscribe to the NYT
Okay, a librarian friend sent me a review of a romance novel that they did last week. That reviewer felt the need to ridicule readers of the genre because apparently, she couldn’t find enough fault with the book alone. She’s probably also jealous of the fact that the author’s a fairly astute businesswoman and has probably made more money this year than the reviewer will ever see in her lifetime. Now this piece of tripe. Why on earth do these reviewers feel the need to make comments that really have nothing to do with the quality of the book that they’re supposedly reviewing?