How the World Sees Us
A collection of quotations from the media about libraries, librarians, and librarianship. Upload a quotation.
Technology has rendered the conventional definition of personally identifiable information obsolete.
Maneesha Mithal, associate director of the Federal Trade Commission’s privacy division, quoted in “How Privacy Vanishes Online” by Steve Lohr, New York Times, Mar. 16.
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The final wobbly argument in favor of keeping the [Mendocino County, California] libraries running is that it would prevent lost jobs among the librarian class. This is true enough, but if your only job skills are a thorough understanding of the Dewey Decimal System and the ability to alphabetize, what did you expect? Tenure? But good luck in the employment market anyway.
—Tommy Wayne Kramer, in “Save the County, Close the Libraries,” Ukiah Daily Journal, Feb. 22, 2010.
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Heaven bless the long-suffering school librarians: the library was the one place I enjoyed in school…. It’s a shame that the football team got a bigger budget than the Library.
James Stephenson in “Seen Not Heard: How Obscure Security Makes Schools Suck,” Boing Boing, Mar. 11, 2010.
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Measuring teacher performance based in part on the test scores of their pupils would seem to be a no-brainer.
—Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert writing on education reform, “Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers,” Newsweek, March 15.
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Millennials are the first truly digital generation. Three quarters have created a profile on Facebook or some other social-networking site. Only half of Gen Xers and 30% of boomers have done so.
—Robert J. Samuelson, “The Real Generation Gap,” Newsweek, March 15.
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“Oh no, we would never get it back!”
—Humorist Paula Poundstone, quoting a California librarian when she asked if she could check out a book on the history of curse words, National Public Radio’s <i style=>Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, </i>March 6.</p>
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His goal was to make it not seem as competitive.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences librarian Lucia Schultz, explaining to the Associated Press why Oscar show producer Allan Carr told presenters not to use the expression “and the winner is,” March 8, 2010.
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Librarians are my favorite people, and libraries are my favorite place to be.
Agatha Award–winning mystery novelist KATHERINE HALL PAGE on why she dedicated The Body in the Sleigh to librarians. “Author’s note,” The Body and the Sleigh.
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How the World Sees Us
“The library had everything I wanted: a bathroom, a Toronto telephone book, all the morning’s newspapers, warmth, and friendly staff. Frequently in this space we critique the things the City of Toronto does wrong, so I just want to take a second to praise something that this city does right: Maintain 99 branches of the library, the biggest borrowing library system on the continent. It’s a beautiful thing.”
—Peter Kuitenbrouwer, writing in the Canadian National Post January 6 about his experience at the Ashdale branch of the Toronto Public Library, which came to the rescue when he wound up in an unfamiliar neighborhood.