Dog-eared & Overdue

Category: The Atlas of New Librarianship

  • I Will Never Leave a Fallen Comrade

    In the final Thread of R. David Lankes’ The Atlas of New Librarianship (2011), we finally get to the librarian. In amongst the descriptions of skill sets, teamwork, processes, and curriculum, there is a statement which stops me in my tracks. Lankes proposes that in the case of deadlocked debate between new librarians and bibliofundamentalists,…

  • We Happy Few

    “This time, this information age? This is our age.”   -R. David Lankes, The Atlas of New Librarianship, p.135 I am a sucker for a good call-to-arms style speech. My favorite movies (which mostly come from great books) all contain rousing pre-battle speeches. William Wallace rallying his fellow Scotsmen at the Battle of Stirling, Henry V…

  • Power to the People

    Librarians don’t own public libraries, communities don’t own public libraries, the individuals who make up our communities own public libraries. That ownership comes with privilege, and it comes with responsibility. Have I mentioned yet my conviction that libraries are about people? They are not about buildings or collections or how many computers you have available.…

  • Something to Talk About

    If librarians are going to facilitate knowledge creation, we’d better learn the process through which knowledge is created. Throughout the Knowledge Creation Thread of The Atlas of New Librarianship, R. David Lankes focuses on Conversation Theory as a means of fostering knowledge creation. Conversation Theory, in my own significantly simplified definition, is the idea that…

  • My Mission, Should I Choose to Accept It

    I like having a mission. I like a solid foundation from which to spring into action and a bright goal toward which to work. The mission that R. David Lankes proposes in his recently published book, The Atlas of New Librarianship is right up my alley. According to Lankes, “the mission of librarians is to…