Not that I use this as a forum to promote libraries all the time...

...but everyone knows I love libraries.

I recently came across an article revisiting the purpose and usefulness of libraries engaging in virtual worlds like Second Life--an online role-playing community that is hugely popular.

While the author calls herself "a 30-something, forward-thinking librarian", she also admits she has reservations about promoting libraries in virtual reality to people who have probably "never set their Nikes in a brick-and-mortar library". How will a virtual library have any meaning, any significance to them?

For many of us, we love libraries because they make us nostalgic. We began our quest for knowledge by reading series like The Boxcar Children and Ramona Quimby and Ralph S. Mouse. The worlds we entered through books found in our libraries changed us, developed us. And that stays with us.

The most eloquent explanation of this nostalgia, a brilliant argument for maintaining physical library spaces came near the end of her article:

"There are many great libraries that are not just places full of old books and new computers--they are sanctuaries for imagination, intellectual and creative thought...The power of place cannot be underestimated."

Forrest, Lisa. (2007) "Overvaluing the Virtual: Second thoughts about Second Life." American Libraries. March 2008. p.11.

Secret Ambition

A fellow student of mine in grad school graduates today and this past week landed her first professional job...

...as DIRECTOR OF LIBRARY SERVICES in a university.

Say what? That doesn't happen. Your first job out of school is one that pays crap, one in which you slowly learn how to run a single collection or department by working your way up through the corporate ladder.

You don't start at the top of the ladder.

Congrats to her! How very exciting.