Library Tech Confidential

It’s been almost a year. What’ve I been up to? Well, I did read that book. Very sad. But very good.

Martha Baillie, a writer and part-time storyteller with TPL, was the subject of a write-up in today’s paper that focused on her new novel The Incident Report. Set in a fictional “Allan Gardens Library” — presumably a stand-in for tthe Parliament Street branch — it deals with the odd ups and downs of working in an often-chaotic urban facility.

From Lurking in our libraries [Toronto Star]:

Confronted by [disruptive] events, the library staff in the novel are guided by compassion and library policies. The staff are supportive of one another, which Baillie says reflects the camaraderie she has found among library employees.

About 90 per cent of the incidents in the book are loosely based on Baillie’s experiences or those she was told of by other library staff. As a result, the book provides an inside look at the kind of bizarre incidents library workers sometimes encounter.

The fascinating novel also delves into some wider themes, including “the nature of urban storytelling,” Baillie says. “Whoever is sitting behind the reference desk is an ear. You play the role of a bartender a bit.” The novel asks, “Why do we so often pick strangers to tell our stories to?”

My time as a patron vastly outweighs the two weeks I logged at a public library reference desk in college, but even that short stint had me nodding my head as I read the article. Reference work in a special library just isn’t the same… the pseudo-confessional atmosphere is virtually (but not completely) absent, but I suppose that’s why social reference sites like Ask MetaFilter are popular among we library folk.

Reviewing John Broughton’s Wikipedia: The Missing Manual in The New York Review of Books, Nicholson Baker hilariously describes that mightiest of social media reference work free-for-alls as follows:

It’s like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks. [read more]

[via Library Juice]

“Peel’s Catholic [school] board has pulled the award-winning novel Snow Falling on Cedars from high school library shelves after one parent complained about its sexual content.” [Toronto Star]

Chavez nod turns Chomksy book into bestseller - “Chomsky, who is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could not immediately be reached for comment.” [Reuters]