Fuck Yeah! Libraries

On an evening when New York state legislators passed a historic marriage equality bill, librarians at the American Library Association annual conference were entertained, moved, and captivated by the conference’s opening keynote speaker, Dan Savage, syndicated columnist and co-creator with his husband, Terry Miller, of the “It Gets Better” viral video campaign. Alluding to the pending vote in New York, Savage, who married Miller in Canada, referred to him as “my boyfriend in New York,” and said that while the couple was “enjoying the premarital sex,” drawing laughter from the audience, he was looking forward to later joining Miller, who was in New York, as his husband. Soon after, the New York Legislature voted to recognize same sex marriages.

Savage likened his video campaign to the work of librarians,who are dedicated to information and offering access to that information. He praised librarians for offering the kinds of books that can help kids struggling with their sexuality, being bullied by classmates, rejected by their families and their churches, and portrayed libraries as a safe haven for many kids. As for why he turned his Internet-based effort into a book (published by Dutton in March) Savage drew applause, telling librarians “I’m a print guy, and books are magic.”

Read the rest of the article at Publishers Weekly.

I don’t live in Portland or Boston, but maybe some of you do?  Best of luck!  It sounds like an awesome  opportunity. 

LibraryThing is hiring again—a relatively junior position, with room to advance and grow. We’re looking for someone smart and organized to help out with the customer support side of the quickly growing LibraryThing for Libraries.

You must be:

• Able to write quickly and well
• Organized as all get-out
• Able to juggle multiple tasks efficiently and with humor
• Extremely comfortable with computers
• Able to work independently and communicate effectively

We’d appreciate:

• A Library or Information Sciences Degree
• Experience in libraries or library “industry”
• Technical skills (HTML, CSS, MySQL, etc.)
• Customer-service or sales experience
• Mac lover
• Love of cheese

Duties:

• Assist Abby with LibraryThing for Libraries
• Provide customer support to libraries
• Attend trade shows
• Learn whatever we need you to learn
• Think creatively and suggest improvements
• Whatever else is needed. We are still a startup so “duties” are fluid.

Location:

Boston, MA or Portland, ME area strongly preferred. If we get enough applications we will probably not look at others–no offense.

Compensation:

Salary plus gold-plated health and dental insurance. We require hard work, but we are flexible about hours.

How to apply:

Email and resume is good. Don’t send a separate cover letter. In your email, please go through the bullets above, explaining briefly how they do or don’t fit you.

Send emails to abby@librarything.com.

More info here. 

“If information is power, then there’s no hero mightier than a librarian. Librarians are superheroes, adventurers, explorers and invaluable guides to other heroes.”

Thank you io9 for consistently showing us LIS folks love.  Click here for the full list. 

…but we wait till we get home to watch it.  If you ever wondered why most ALA/other “professional” forums talk about filtering the internet in public libraries with vague euphemisms about “inappropriate content” and always refer to “protecting children” it’s because we can’t say the following and risk it entering the annals* of the almighty ALA:

“I DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH SKETCHY DUDES LOOKING AT GERMAN SCAT PORN AND NOT ALWAYS MAKING IT TO THE BATHROOM BEFORE THEY START WHACKING OFF.”

*teeheehee