Tagged with technology

I did six months at a Silicon Alley startup and lost my job in the tech crash of 2000. That was before smart phones and apps, though, so this book about contemporary startup culture was familiar, but not the same as my experience. I was old for startups, even seventeen years ago, and not a founder or marketer, so a lot of the insider stuff about VCs and reporting was outside my realm.

The author quotes former ALA president Patricia Wilson Berger in her epigraph "Show me a computer expert who gives a damn, and I'll show you a librarian." I wouldn't say all librarians give a damn or that no non-librarian computer geeks don't, but I do think that sentiment is an appropriate way to launch into Johnson's 250 page mash note to librarians. What she likes about us is what I like about us—that we are dedicated to our user population and to our professional ethics. That unlike many other experts, our mission involves educating people and providing access to self-education tools without being snotty about it. At least to your face.

As it turns out, although it was the computer expertiness of librarians that made Johnson notice us, many of the librarians and library projects she profiles in this book are stronger in "give a damn."

Before I really get started, I need to contemplate for a moment that Johnson got interested in librarians, because in researching her previous book The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiff, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries she fell in love with librarians through their obituaries. She is a loving and generous writer, but we have to admit a little quirky, right?