Whaaa? Radio Host Judi Franco Hates Libraries!

Poor Judi Franco, a talk-show radio host on 101.5 in New Jersey who was brought to my attention for the first time by an inter-librarian listserv alerting us that Ms. Franco had "dissed" libraries on her show yesterday. She suggested that it is just easier to go buy a book instead of going to the library. Here is the response to that from the Live Journal of EELNJ. The d.j. may never read that blog or this one, but she will probably be barraged by emails from librarians statewide. We librarians have our secret societies (covens?) that enable us to pounce when threatened by these pronouncements of our obsolescence. These P of O come pretty frequently and this blog has addressed them accordingly, most recently in the post just before this one! (Scroll down to "Born on a Blue Day.") What a coincidence you might be saying. No, actually, defending libraries seems to come with the territory for librarians these days. For example: "No, I haven't been replaced by the internet." "Yes, we still have books and the Dewey Decimal System." Great cocktail party chat, not. Next, I predict with great confidence, that other library blogs will pick up this insult and run with it. However, we are preaching to the choir, probably most library blogs, if read at all, are read by other librarians, their friends and fellow bibliophiles. It's the rest of the world which needs to be set straight on this libraries-are-a-thing-of-the -past issue. To this end, librarians attend many continuing education classes urging us to offer customer service the "Nordstrom Way" and generally to make our libraries more like Barnes and Noble or a Fish Market in Seattle (honestly.) I felt so vexed by this that I just jumped up and helped a patron way more than he wanted to be helped. He backed away from me slowly waving the brochure listing BHPL's many databases at me and professed amazement and gratitude for all the info I threw his way.
Anyway, if I ever do go legit with writing (ie: not blogging,) my first editorial will be titled, "Am I Obsolete Yet?" But I've been too busy to get to it.