Our Singular Strengths: Meditations for LibrariansMichael Gorman, one of librarianship's most accomplished and impassioned practitioners, is back. Drawing on his four decades of library experience, Gorman has written a thoughtful and humanizing book that not only reminds librarians why they chose their craft, but reinforces the importance of their work. Our Singular Strengths is a compilation of 144 comforting and uplifting thoughts about library work presented in the popular meditations format: a quotation, a short essay, and a resolution. The book is designed to present a topic, thought, or story that encapsulates some aspect of libraries and learning as an aid to understanding and reassessment, and to simply provide comfort to beleaguered librarians. Gorman takes his passion for libraries and their importance to society and offers observations rooted in experience and reason that may provide insight into libraries, librarianship, and being a librarian in today's ever-changing world. |
From inside the book
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... fact that makes us all followers of the philosopher Willie Sutton . I can attest to the fact that technological projects are much more " sexy " to most university administrators than are other library programs . We have brought much of ...
... fact is that , on television and the Internet / Web , we are replete with technology and starved for thought - provoking , organized con- tent . Political office holders , swimming with the racing tide , extol the " richness of the ...
... fact that two - thirds of those who do not use public libraries do not favor increasing taxes for libraries and would prefer a system of payment for use . Other surveys have shown the reluctance of some of the childless to pay taxes for ...
... scale and human relationships that count — in libraries as in the rest of life . I will maintain the humanity of small libraries in libraries large and small . Clash of Values Historians will have to face the fact 30.
Meditations for Librarians Michael Gorman. Clash of Values Historians will have to face the fact that natur- al selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species . —Konrad Lorenz , On Aggression ...
Contents
Mysteries | 103 |
The Impossibility of Classification | 104 |
Political Correctness? | 105 |
ALA Conferences | 106 |
Problem Colleagues | 107 |
The Library Great Person | 108 |
The Outsider Syndrome | 109 |
The War of AACR2 | 110 |
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Pity the Poor Administrator | 41 |
Andrew Carnegie 18351919 | 43 |
What Do You Remember from Library School? | 45 |
Melvil Dewey 18511931 | 46 |
Lonely People | 48 |
Miss Colwell | 49 |
Retirement | 50 |
Laws | 51 |
Ranganathans Five Laws | 53 |
Ranganathans Second Law | 55 |
Ranganathans Third Law | 56 |
Ranganathans Fourth Law | 57 |
Ranganathans Fifth Law | 58 |
Five New Laws of Librarianship | 59 |
First New Law | 60 |
Second New Law | 61 |
Third New Law | 63 |
Fourth New Law | 65 |
Fifth New Law | 67 |
Change Problems Realities | 69 |
Change Makes You Stupid | 71 |
Scholarly Journals | 73 |
Foreign Languages | 74 |
Modern Library Budgets | 75 |
The Newbery Medal | 76 |
Books into Films | 77 |
Burnout | 78 |
Reference Collections | 79 |
Distant Learning | 80 |
The Problem Patron | 81 |
My Ideal Library | 82 |
Present Future | 83 |
Libraries and Democracy | 85 |
The Tax Revolt | 87 |
Copyright and Electronic Documents | 88 |
The PaperFull Society | 90 |
Downsizing | 91 |
Different in Kind | 93 |
Virtual Lives | 94 |
People or Kiosks? | 95 |
Museums of Failed Technology | 96 |
Library or Pipelined | 97 |
Night Thoughts | 98 |
Librarians | 99 |
The Image of the Librarian | 101 |
Women in Libraries | 111 |
A Word for Ned Ludd | 112 |
Places | 113 |
The Library as a Public Place | 115 |
Cotleigh Road Branch Library | 117 |
Beyond the Museum | 118 |
Ssshh | 119 |
Prisons | 120 |
Home Base | 121 |
Libraries and the Mall | 122 |
California Dreams | 124 |
Art and Decoration in the Library | 125 |
The Flowering of the Imagination | 126 |
The Love of Libraries | 128 |
Reading Writing | 129 |
Electronic Books | 131 |
The Gift of Reading | 133 |
The Continuum of Literacy | 134 |
The Ladder of Learning | 135 |
Back to Basics | 137 |
Paperbacks | 138 |
Library Literature | 139 |
Collecting Books | 140 |
Jabberwocky | 141 |
The Library Hand | 143 |
Reading | 145 |
The Wider World | 147 |
The ADA | 149 |
Bookstores | 151 |
Story Time | 152 |
Multiple Identities | 153 |
International Book Sharing | 154 |
UnBooksr | 155 |
Time Machines | 156 |
Reports Statistics and All That Jazz | 157 |
Technology as Religion | 158 |
Thin Places | 159 |
84 Charing Cross Road | 160 |
Practicalities | 161 |
Bindings | 163 |
No Food No Drink | 165 |
Coral Reefs | 166 |
Circulation | 167 |
Filing | 168 |
Indexes and Indexing | 169 |
Interlibrary Loan | 170 |
Indecency Online | 171 |
Fifty Cent Technology | 172 |
Descriptive Cataloguing in 131 Words | 173 |
Central Libraries vs Branch Libraries | 174 |
Eternal Promises | 175 |
Sunrise | 177 |
Reminders of Continuity | 179 |
Where Love Begins | 180 |
Occams Management Theory | 181 |
What Is Information? | 182 |
Universal Bibliographic Control | 184 |
Illuminated Manuscripts | 186 |
The Librarianship of Love | 188 |
Manuscripts | 189 |
Singular Strengths | 190 |
Closing Libraries | 191 |
Epilogue | 193 |