Amy West, librarian. Fighting the good fight since 1999.

Free Government Information has published an excellent blog post by Amy West, Data Services Librarian at the University of Minnesota, in response to Prof. Bert Chapman’s ridiculous, undercited, propagandist post An Economic Case Against Homosexuality.

I railed against this horrifying misuse of Chapman’s position as a gov docs librarian at Purdue in my personal blog, but chose not to mention it here. After all, the issue wasn’t one that concerned libraries so much as it was about the unethical behavior of one librarian. But now that Amy has written a much better (and less emotional) response than I ever could, I think it’s time to share it.

Just goes to show you how persuasive a rational essay that uses actual facts can be. Good work, Amy.

awesomeness, bad librarians, citation, ethics, good librarians Hide

I finally got my Google Wave acceptance. And yes, I’ve already given out all eight of my invitations. (Do you need a gmail one?)

If you’ve got Google Wave, please add me as scolford@googlewave.com

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I love humor that only librarians can appreciate fully. Today I was alerted to a fantastic blog post by author Steve Landsburg. (Thanks, Michael K.)

Suppose you’d written a book. And suppose, for some odd reason, that your middle name happened to be “And”. …

Now suppose, even more oddly, that your name contained a comma. …

Now take this one step further and suppose your name contained both the word “And” and a comma. Perhaps more than once. Suppose, for example, that your name happened to be The Fresh, Chilled and Frozen Horse and Ass Meat Research Group. Then, in accordance with its not unreasonable rules, Amazon’s software would conclude that there are three separate authors, namely:

• Chilled the Fresh
• Frozen Horse
• Ass Meat Research Group

Ah, it’s the little things that make being a librarian so special.

amazon, authorized headings, FAIL, metadata Hide

Well, it has been announced on Twitter, so I could tell you exactly who is confirmed for this spring’s Massachusetts Library Association conference. But I prefer to be coy and say it’s a secret. But I will let you in on a hint. Boing Boing!

authors, awesome people, Boing Boing, Canada, Cory Doctorow Hide

Gene Ambaum, cc Some Rights Reserved, Rochelle Hartman

Shocking news hit the library world this morning! Gene Ambaum, the rilly, rilly funny pseudonymous writer of online comic strip Unshelved just announced that he is quitting his full-time job as a librarian at … whatever library he works for. He’s going to focus his energy on the strip, and presumably learn how not to classify his personal books, CDs, and DVDs.

Best of luck to you, Gene … or whoever you are …

(I actually have met the dude and learned his name, so it’s really not that big a secret. But I’m not going to be “that guy” who spoils the fun.)

comic strips, Gene Ambaum, librarianship, pseudonyms, quitting, Unshelved, writers Hide