This Book Is Overdue!!

Marilyn Johnson has written a book in defense of librarians for the 21st century called This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. CSLA has recommended that all of us read this book for the November conference. I was reading it and trying to pull quotes from it that might be useful. The problem is that every page contains numerous useful quotes than we can use to defend our jobs. Page 1 - "In tough times, a librarian is a terrible thing to waste." This speaks to the great leveling force that librarians play to bring information and materials to everyone, not just the rich. Marilyn Johnson wrote a book about obituaries that she had researched. She says she became interested in librarians because their obituaries stood out among all that she perused. She speaks of "visionaries like Frederick Kilgour, the first to combine libraries' catalogs in one computerized database back in the early seventies." And Judith Krug who "fought censorship for four decades while running the Office for Intellectual Freedom in the Chicago headquarters of the American Library Association (ALA)."
My favorite quote so far is "In a world where information itself is a free-for-all, with traditional news sources going bankrupt and pulishers in trouble, we need librarians more than ever." Librarians can help save democracy from its worse excesses, from the oligarchy of the corporations that it has become. Our value is inestimable. We must continue to fight to save our school and public libraries. In Los Angeles that means supporting our LAPL librarians - www.savethelibrary.org/ Writing letters to Superintendent Cortines and the Board Members of the Los Angeles Unified School District. www.lausd.net Writing letters to the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News are also very helpful. Keep up the fight!! We must win this fight for all of us!!!