Love in the Library

Recently, I became quite enthralled with a radio interview containing excerpts from a book about finding love and romance in the library. No, it wasn't a lurid tale of erotica from the library stacks. While many of us have heard stories of young hormonal students frollicking among the library books, rather than being a lurid tale of such encounters, the book is described as "a collection of true accounts of emotional attachments formed in and with libraries and the library field" in which "both young and old share their tales of love". Maybe so but the interview still left me with an intent to get away from my computer more often and visit the library stacks. And the reference to the song "Love in the Library" by the bard of rum and romance, Jimmy Buffet, didn't hurt either.

The CBC interview was with Madeleine Lefebvre, the University Librarian at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia about her newly released book, The Romance of Libraries. Being both single and a professionally trained librarian (well, at least I hold a Master's degree in the discipline), the interview peaked my interest as it brought back fond memories for me of the library school program at the University of Western Ontairo. While I may not have found love in the library (or any "action" for that matter among the microfiche, monographs, serials, or special collections) let's just say when I was in the MLIS program, the ratio of women to men was very much in my gender's favour. And I certainly enjoyed the attention.

The book's stories come from a variety of global contributors, mostly gathered through Lefebvre's website, www.libraryromance.com.

Among its 180 stories, some are about romances that developed in a library while others are about romances with libraries themselves. I haven't yet picked up a copy but I think I may head down to the local public library to check it out...

LIS Community Convergence

The current edition of the Canadian Library Association's Feliciter addresses the theme of convergence in the library, archives, records management, and related information management community.

IM community convergence has been given weight by last year's formal creation of Library and Archives Canada, consolidating the two former distinct organizations, and through the development of a Government of Canada IM Portal.

More recently, the Ottawa IM Summit was spear-headed by CASLIS-Ottawa President John Savage. This initiative seeks to bring together ten local information management associations to share resources and strengthen the IM community. The initial summit meetings have led to the adoption of shared resources, such as the Ottawa IM Calendar (proudly sponsored by XIST at OttawaIM.xist.com) and an effort to engage in collaborative conferences and events.

Recognizing that the IM community has been less adept than the IT community at presenting a common front -- and as such has played the poorer cousin to IT -- collaboration and a more concerted promotion of this community as a collective and cohesive entity will help raise the awareness, profile, and funding of this professional community. Such collaboration will also inevitably lead to innovative ideas on access to and sharing of information, innovative marketing techniques, and growth in the IM community membership.

It pays to be a librarian

Commenting on the Government of Ontario's release of public servant salaries over $100,000, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) recently noted that it can pay to be a bookworm.

Fellow library science workers might want to note that the City of Toronto last year paid a city librarian $179,188. CTF Ontario Director Tasha Kheiriddin commented, "this certainly makes you wish you had taken library sciences more seriously as a career option." Well, I for one did but have yet to see that kind of pay off. (Here I thought private sector salaries were going to be higher than public sector? Silly me.) A benchmark for all you librarians to take to your next performance evaluation.