Bibliotech
Early in my career, it was near the beginning, I recall, it was that Virgo thing. A certain Virgo, with a Library Science degree, it was the first time I heard the expression information architect.
(Yelling) “It’s a Virgo thing!!!”
The prim, proper attire? Not just a need for knowledge, but keys to access where the material is all stored. That’s the secret.
Yeah, big crush on a Virgo–librarian type, at the time. Totally hot in a demure, subdued way. Which, in my adolescent fantasy, just makes the scenario hotter. Victorian–lace collars, and sensual delights. Never mind, not working with that, not now.
I snagged the title of the book from a ‘book list’ of ‘books about Libraries and Bookstores.’
Not to be confused with Bexar BiblioTech — San Antonio’s primo digital library.
Libraries need to take the time to ask hard questions about how their patrons are seeking knowledge and using information differently than they have in the past. Page 35.
Along about chapter 2, I realized that part of my upbringing was infected with library usage. The old downtown library used to have weird “art” movies, and some weekends, that was what we got — in a time before VHS, when analog film, 16mm, I think was the format, was most common for “home movies.” The prevailing theory was that examples of the auteur’s craft was superior to TV’s mindless material.
That came via the public library, when I was growing up, certainly a valid influence. I recall one set of images, portrayed on film, about a certain paintings called “Boogie Woogie Nights.”
“Choke on that you Danceteria types!” (Dead Milkmen, anyone?)
Can I get any two allusions further apart?
Anyway, the book?
Libraries need to recast themselves as platforms rather than as storehouses. Page 67.
The one, there are two parts, the one is a book with the title, BiblioTech, and the other is the digital arm of Bexar County’s library, Bexar BiblioTech, easy to understand the confusion, both have the exact same name: BiblioTech.
That’s what the digital library has done. I’ve been a patron for several years, yet haven’t set foot in a library building in three years, maybe.
“All information should be free.”
—Stephen Levy
Excerpt From: Wetzel, Kramer. “Pink Cake: A Commonplace Book.”
Surely I’ve noted this before, how books — printed books — allow me, as a reader, to travel through time and space. For example, the most unread novel of the 20th Century? One day in 1904… Bloomsday. All about one day.
“The type of librarians who are thriving most consistently in the digital era are those who have found a way to operate as a node in a network of libraries and librarians.” Page 92
Have I mentioned I follow a certain Satan Librarian on Twitter?
“The challenge of preserving the work records of scientists and scholars is a trickier proposition than it was a hundred years ago.” Page 102.
As duly noted, earlier — seminal, possibly telling, fiction of mine — long gone.
Yet another sidebar note, soon to be a movie? That novel dealt with some of the same questions, albeit in a Science Fiction setting, about what gets saved, digitally, and how.
BiblioTech is for people who care about libraries, and our future, how we move into the future. For people who care about what libraries are to become.
BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google
Pink Cake: The Quote Collection – Kramer Wetzel
Pink Cake: A Commonplace Book
