Librarything.com's resident librarian joins Metafilter December 14, 2006 10:59 PM   Subscribe

librarian filter
Librarything.com's resident librarian joins Metafilter. Woot!
posted by cosmicbandito to MetaFilter-Related at 10:59 PM (67 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

Can I just add that librarians are hawt?
posted by Pollomacho at 11:27 PM on December 14, 2006


Cool!

?
posted by slogger at 11:37 PM on December 14, 2006


ok
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 12:02 AM on December 15, 2006


um. 'k.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 1:19 AM on December 15, 2006


Yessssss. Come to me, my bookish pretties! The time to gather is fassst approaching, yesss...
posted by loquacious at 1:26 AM on December 15, 2006


Since MetaFilter is much more popular than Librarything, it's hard to see why this would be exciting. Maybe if mathowie joined Librarything, that would be exciting for them.
posted by grouse at 2:37 AM on December 15, 2006


I am thrilled. I haven't been so excited since my circumcision!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:38 AM on December 15, 2006


Looks like the new member might be a lady. I like those.
Welcome Abby. Do you like two faced cats? I do, I like them very much...
posted by econous at 2:56 AM on December 15, 2006


Well, since my first circumcision, at least.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:26 AM on December 15, 2006


I haven't been so excited since my circumcision!

Perhaps a bris rodgering?
posted by cortex at 3:28 AM on December 15, 2006 [2 favorites]


I, for one, etc.
posted by Joeforking at 3:38 AM on December 15, 2006


There goes the neighborhood.
posted by Brittanie at 3:38 AM on December 15, 2006


In full seriousness: Why is this remarkable?
posted by mendel at 4:47 AM on December 15, 2006


Is this like Library Blue?
posted by fixedgear at 4:56 AM on December 15, 2006


Perhaps a bris rodgering?

More a moil'd feeling of liberation.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:56 AM on December 15, 2006


I predict Jello wrestling between Abby and Jess in the near future.
posted by wheelieman at 5:37 AM on December 15, 2006


I am SO selling tickets!
It'll be worth it just for the trash talking about Dewey, LC, and Cutter numbers.
posted by plinth at 5:56 AM on December 15, 2006


Another librarian? Cool! They're like the sandhogs of the Western Canon!
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:03 AM on December 15, 2006


Well, ain't that a dewey decimal!
posted by thatweirdguy2 at 6:33 AM on December 15, 2006


Well. I guess this is what happens when you spend all your time doing library stuff and never get out into the big blue room. I guess I got caught up in a moment of synchronicity and assumed everybody was as big library nerd as I am. Apologies all around. Since this is Metatalk, I can flame out a little if you want.
posted by cosmicbandito at 6:39 AM on December 15, 2006


Since this is Metatalk, I can flame out a little if you want.

Please???
posted by grouse at 6:41 AM on December 15, 2006


Eat your heart out, Woz.
posted by Kwantsar at 6:56 AM on December 15, 2006


I predict Jello wrestling between Abby and Jess in the near future.

Keep waiting. I sent Abby a message last night saying that it would be awesome if she'd drop in and help out with the question that was clearly up her alley. She and I both work late. Usually I'll try to do that if I know that someone I know has speciic expertise that would totally rock a question.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:56 AM on December 15, 2006


I'm happy to hear, although a bit jealous that I didn't get a similar notice in MetaTalk when I joined.
posted by OmieWise at 6:56 AM on December 15, 2006


Usually I'll try to do that if I know that someone I know has speciic expertise that would totally rock a question.

Do they still have to pay $5?
posted by grouse at 7:03 AM on December 15, 2006




Please???


Yeah, well, fuck this place man. I don't need to take this kind of crap. I can go have fun somewhere else. I quit!

can I come back in yet? It's cold out here, and it smells funny.
posted by cosmicbandito at 7:11 AM on December 15, 2006


Why is this remarkable?

Because LibraryThing is a great site and Abby is a remarkable gal and it's great that she's joined. What, do you go through MetaTalk with a fine-toothed comb looking for topics that don't interest you so you can leave a snarky comment? Jesus.
posted by languagehat at 7:15 AM on December 15, 2006


Of course you realize this is only going to lead to ablachly, jessamyn and languagehat forming a tightly-knit clique that the rest of us won't be part of!
posted by clevershark at 7:23 AM on December 15, 2006


Well, I'm excited. LibraryThing is one of my favoritest places in the whole world. Welcome, Abby!
posted by frykitty at 7:36 AM on December 15, 2006


ablachly, jessamyn and languagehat forming a tightly-knit clique

I Am Not A Librarian. I just worship the ground they walk on.
posted by languagehat at 7:39 AM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]


What, do you go through MetaTalk with a fine-toothed comb looking for topics that don't interest you so you can leave a snarky comment? Jesus.

Relax, languagehat; the comment was "In full seriousness: Why is this remarkable?" That's not snark, it's, um, a request for info about why this was remarkable. I was curious, too.

I mean, it's not like you haven't griped in the past about pointless MeTa threads. As pointless MeTa threads go, this one is pleasant enough, but it's still an odd thing to announce here.
posted by mediareport at 7:45 AM on December 15, 2006


Maybe languagehat will flame out now too?
posted by grouse at 7:52 AM on December 15, 2006


What, do you go through MetaTalk with a fine-toothed comb looking for topics that don't interest you so you can leave a snarky comment? Jesus.

No, I commented because it did interest me, but I didn't know who Abby was. (I still don't, really, other than "a librarian from a website, who languagehat, Jess, and cosmicbandito know".) Previous "OMG LOOK WHO'S HERE" have been for people like Woz and Adam Savage, so I was wondering what was up, especially in light of the mix of "YAY!" and "Meh." responses.

You don't have to defend your friend from the riffraff here.
posted by mendel at 9:07 AM on December 15, 2006


I must reference my first (and still best) Metatalk thread, the Mefi Librarian callout. This place is full of librarians (and a surprising number of librarian groupies... who knew?)

I was just thinking the other day it was probably time for an update. I wish I was a librarian.
posted by nanojath at 9:30 AM on December 15, 2006


In a related story, welcome, Doug Skullery of the communications network known as the internet!

Also, the "Dude, there's a new girl in class!" vibe is a bit lacking. Can we up the creepiness but just a smidge, fellas?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:30 AM on December 15, 2006


Relax, languagehat; the comment was "In full seriousness: Why is this remarkable?" That's not snark, it's, um, a request for info about why this was remarkable.

No, I commented because it did interest me, but I didn't know who Abby was.


Sorry, I overreacted. My 90-year-old mother-in-law has gone back home, so I should be less cranky now.
posted by languagehat at 9:55 AM on December 15, 2006


That's the weirdest euphemism for PMS I've ever encountered.
posted by gigawhat? at 10:17 AM on December 15, 2006 [3 favorites]


Not to derail or snark or cause trouble, and I'm asking this question honestly, but what, exactly, do librarians do these days? Hasn't the internet, google, wikipedia etc, rendered a lot of what librarians used to do obsolete?
posted by Pastabagel at 10:43 AM on December 15, 2006


Hasn't the internet, google, wikipedia etc, rendered a lot of what librarians used to do obsolete?

Not really. The internet does a poor job at archiving. Also, more and more information that used to be in your library in book form is now being delivered through a bizarre series of proprietary databases, access to which is made easier and more sensible by librarians, often. Trying to get link resolvers to work right, trying to get you access to what you need when you need it, and trying to explain the difference between Britannica and Wikipedia is still a job being done by librarians.

And, if AskMe is any indicator, a lot of people either don't or can't use Google, or don't know how to do it well. Libraries as places are becoming one of the few public spaces left, especially in smaller towns, that are truly public. Unlike malls and churches and other business/civic areas, libraries have as a core value being available to everyone. This drives some people away, certainly, but it also is a real American-values type of thing where public spaces are made available for the public by the public. It's sort of cool that way.

Additionally, getting all the pre-Google pre-Internet information online and Googleable is becoming a librarian job lately. Trying to fight for less DRM and less-intrusive and onerous licensing on information (while the model is moving from a "you bought it" to a "you're leasing it" model) is something a lot of librarians are getting really involved with.

And then there are still a lot of librarians who can find you a good book to read or run a good story hour for new parents or whatever. Where I am the pulbic library is THE ONLY place with wireless in the entire town that isn't in someone's house. So, the library is becoming repurposed as a place where people connect, not just a place where people go to get a book or look something up.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:59 AM on December 15, 2006 [6 favorites]


Hasn't the internet, google, wikipedia etc, rendered a lot of what librarians used to do obsolete?

I've said this before, but only a tiny fraction of what's in libraries is on the internet. You can ignore that fact if you prefer to focus on the low-hanging fruit and/or only care about pop culture, but the fact is that if you get interested in any subject whose roots go back to the previous millennium you'll find yourself in need of actual books pretty fast. (Plus, like the lady said, a librarian can help people navigate the internet as well.)
posted by languagehat at 11:25 AM on December 15, 2006


Nanojath: library groupies creep me out, especially since my name can be for either sex.

Pastabagel: and some of us can help build the best gaming library around (self link sorta), at least in my opinion.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 11:31 AM on December 15, 2006


...and librarians are hot.
posted by Floydd at 11:31 AM on December 15, 2006


library groupies creep me out, especially since my name can be for either sex.
I guess it depends on whose Bathbone you're Razzling.
posted by Floydd at 11:34 AM on December 15, 2006


I thought librarians' jobs were providing pornography to small children and hiding terrorists?

*Flashes secret librarian signs and continues posting Ranganathan's Five Laws in random locations around his interactive agency*
posted by stet at 11:41 AM on December 15, 2006


I am a bit warm here today at work (must be the egg nog), but thanks for noticing Floydd.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 11:50 AM on December 15, 2006


Okay, let me be the first to suggest a sidebar for this question and the subsequent answer.
posted by scrump at 11:58 AM on December 15, 2006


I predict Jello wrestling between Abby and Jess in the near future.

Keep waiting.


What, you think you'd lose? :)
Thanks for the welcome, folks.
posted by ablachly at 12:30 PM on December 15, 2006


Hasn't the internet, google, wikipedia etc, rendered a lot of what librarians used to do obsolete?

I'm just finishing my first semester of library school, and jessamyn's 4 paragraph answer to this question nails it far better than anything my profs have said to me in the last 14 weeks.
Isn't there some way for Matthowie and all the librarians here to work out some sort of accreditation so that I can get my MLS from Metafilter? That would be awesome.
posted by Hadroed at 12:37 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]


Thanks, jessamyn and languagehat. I guess I sort of knew that. Obviously what is in most books is not on the internet, but I would not that Project Gutenberg grows everyday with the actual text of books from before 1923. I this were AskMe, I would mark jessamyn's answer as best.

but let me follow-up with this: do librarians consider it their job to know what the best sources are for finding information or reading about a topic?

For example, if I wanted to know about the origin and history of pies, would a librarian know which reference to check first, which one to check for deeper info, etc. Or would they do what I would do, which would be to start with google or an encyclopedia, then go to the pie section of the stacks and browse around? Are there layers to how information is organized?

For law, there is a precise methodology for searching that every law student is taught and that most annoyingly forget upon graduation in favor of online databases. Do librarians have methodologies for searching other subjects (one for pies, a different one for sciences, another for literature, etc)? If so, care to share those with the rest of us?
posted by Pastabagel at 12:42 PM on December 15, 2006


Pastabagel: and some of us can help build the best gaming library around (self link sorta), at least in my opinion.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 2:31 PM EST on December 15


You might be interested to learn that there are torrent files containing just about every game for every hardware platform ever, back to Pong. And as a Canadian library, there's a very strong argument to be made that making an emulation system available in your library with all these games on it would not violate copyright law (I'm not your lawyer, though). As an aside to the aside, this would be immensely helpful to someone writing a critical history of video games.

And welcome, ablachy. I just noticed that your first post was in a thread I linked to in the question I asked on Askme today.
posted by Pastabagel at 12:50 PM on December 15, 2006


Pastabagel: (way oversimplifying here so please excuse me other Libs) for me it all starts with what is known as the "reference interview" or what we call 'what do you really want.' As an academic librarian I would come at it completely differently than a public librarian.

In a public library setting your history of pies person may actually be looking for what are the typical types of pies that would be served at a Victorian England Christmas dinner, and traditional recipes for them.

In an academic library, the student may be looking for how did new immigrants adapt their traditional cooking and recipes in the new world. Or it may be a researcher who needs every article written on the history of berry pies, specifically North America but European pies as well.

Also in a public library often are looking to find a specific answer or specific book. In an academic library you are often trying to show the students how to get started on their research and create well thoughtout search strategies.

There are so many different directions a reference question can go, so we are more taught how to adapt quickly and roll with punches so to speak. I am well versed in only a few indexes and databases compared to the numbers that are available, but I am very confident in my ability to sit down at a database and quickly figure out how to proceed. For me it is more knowing about how different indexes and databases will cover certain areas than specifically what is in each one.

Sorry for the long winded answer. As usual Jess will pipe in with a much better one.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 1:02 PM on December 15, 2006


do librarians consider it their job to know what the best sources are for finding information or reading about a topic?

As usual Jess will pipe in with a much better one.


Your answer is fine, it's great really. Since this is MetaTalk and I've been typing all day, my answer was going to be something along the lines of a more succinct "Yes." At least reference librarians do, but there are a lot of different sorts of librarians who do a ton of different jobs and not all of them are soure specialists. And of course it goes without saying that every public-facing person who works in a library may not be a librarian (ie. someone who went to library school or is in some way trained to do librarian things) and there are also tons of sloppy librarians who still give Google a quick scan and say "eh, I got nothing." Morale is sometimes a problem in this profession.

Do librarians have methodologies for searching other subjects (one for pies, a different one for sciences, another for literature, etc)? If so, care to share those with the rest of us?

Dude seriously, I know you're just sort of psyched and excited and I'm pleased as punch for that, but most of us went to school for years to learn this sort of thing. If there were a handy Cliff's notes approach to it then yes one could ponder why librarians are still necessary in 2006, but the fact that an answer to this question is long and complicated, not short and simple is one of the reasons many of us will still have jobs for years to come. I don't mean to brush you off but this is not a question with a simple answer though if you wanted to take it over to AskMe, I bet people would tell you some of their tips.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:13 PM on December 15, 2006


I didn't mean to suggest that it was simple, in fact I assumed it had to be complicated, but that maybe there was a book out there that a layperson could read. Thanks for the insight!
posted by Pastabagel at 1:17 PM on December 15, 2006


maybe there was a book out there that a layperson could read.

Well there are big beefy books like this one: Guide to Reference Sources or something more general like The Introduction to Reference Work. ALA's Reference and User Services Association puts out lists of outstanding sources yearly and serious reference librarians stay on top of this sort of thing.

There's really a whole discipline devoted to evaluating electronic sources and a bunch of stuff published on it. One of the things that to me separates a librarian from other information seekers is their ability to really cut to the heart of a topic, both by doing a reference interview with a patron but also plowing through a ton of sources to figure out which ones are relevant, authoritative and useful for someone's particular query.

I'd love to write a Reference for Dummies type of book, actually. A lot of this stuff isn't rocket science, but rather a lot of esoteric knowledge that reference librarians squirrel away n the hopes that it will one day be the perfect useful information nugget.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:28 PM on December 15, 2006


Sadly Pastabagel, there is no big book that we all learned from. But if it is any consolation, when we graduate they all give us super special secret decoder rings so we access the Giggle search engine. It is like Google by indexes every piece of information that has ever existed.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 1:29 PM on December 15, 2006


The Giggle search engine requires special eyeglasses to use.
You know, the Giggle Goggles.
posted by Floydd at 2:00 PM on December 15, 2006


Goddamnit, I was disappointed upon awakening this morning not to have gotten any love for 'more a moil'd feeling of liberation,' of which I was inordinately proud, but then I figured out it's pronounced 'moil' but spelled 'mohel' and that fucks up the pun unless you know it. Which I didn't. Ah well.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:34 PM on December 15, 2006


I actually laughed and thought it was funny & clever, but then you went and ruined it.
posted by fixedgear at 5:55 PM on December 15, 2006


*cries*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:06 PM on December 15, 2006


only a tiny fraction of what's in libraries is on the internet.

Just wanted to see that again.
posted by mediareport at 6:14 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]


Another librarian? What did I do this time?
posted by davy at 9:18 PM on December 15, 2006


What's this I hear about languagehat being a librarian?
posted by horsewithnoname at 5:29 AM on December 16, 2006


It ain't definitive, Pastabagel, and this ain't AskMe, but I'll go ahead and recommend Thomas C. Mann's Oxford Guide to Library Research as a one-volume way into the mysteries. I'll also note that while I'm not myself an initiate of said mysteries, I appreciate them, and marvel before them, and, alongside languagehat, tend to offer worship where it's due.
posted by cgc373 at 5:50 PM on December 16, 2006 [1 favorite]


OMG - I saw Thomas Mann give a talk about serendipitous discovery and travelling lighthouse libraries once and have been a total fangirl ever since.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:49 PM on December 16, 2006


I made him a valentine.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:09 PM on December 16, 2006


Unlike malls and churches and other business/civic areas, libraries have as a core value being available to everyone.
Exactly - I am reminded of this every time I go to my local library. I don't know where else you could go to see such a diverse slice of the local community with nothing in common but a need for information and a certain geographical closeness. The only thing I don't like about libraries is that I keep having to give back all the treasures I find there and can't keep them to myself :-(
posted by dg at 7:39 PM on December 17, 2006


I know it's likely that no one will see this, but I don't know where else to ask: have we set up a mefites group yet?
posted by roll truck roll at 12:22 AM on January 4, 2007


« Older I really don't understand this site anymore.   |   Could the mouseover text for the number of... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments