What to Do With This Book: Unintellectual Freedoms Opinions of a Public Librarian - Hardcover

Manley, Will

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0899505759 ISBN 13: 9780899505756

Publisher: McFarland Publishing, 1991

Synopsis

"After a decade of computerization...our image still has not changed. More importantly, our services have not changed significantly. Books are still our business.... Boolean searching is not the meaning of life. It can, however, help us to find the books we need to make our lives meaningful." So ends this most unusual work of library science. Pressed for time? Not to worry-this book has no beginning, middle or end. It's not meant to be read that way. It should be taken immediately to the staff lounge and left on top of the microwave-just the place to leave it to ensure that it is read.

About this title

From Library Journal

According to the author of this unconventional and delightful title, professional reading collections consist of two types of library science books: theoretical studies and "how-to-do-it" manuals. Both are equally boring, and both are almost never read by practicing librarians. Manley, director of the Tempe Public Library, Arizona and a columnist for Wilson Library Bulletin , has written his book not for the professional collection shelf where it will collect dust but for the library staff lounge where he imagines it sitting on top of the microwave oven--just the place to ensure that it will be read. Manley admits his book has no beginning, middle, or ending. Rather, his book is his conversation with librarians--a chatty compendium of 20 years' worth of library stories, complaints, observations, ideas, and problems. He shares his bookdrop blues and fantasies of celebrity library patrons like John Updike. "He would engage me in conversation, we would go out for coffee, a friendship would develop . . . . Then Updike would die (he's 20 years older than I am) and I would write a book entitled The Pleasure of His Company." Manley offers an unusual idea for countering librarians' wimpy images: boxing matches and wet T-shirt contests. He explains why the high priests of intellectual freedom are the biggest censors of all and suggests that computers and Boolean searching are not the meaning of life for librarians. Provocative and amusing, this is also the eloquent testimony of a writer passionate about his profession.
- Wilda W. Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"offers librarians valuable advice, and the wit of his analyses...does not render them any the less pragmatic" -- Booklist/RBB

"unconventional and delightful.... Provocative and amusing, this is also the eloquent testimony of a writer passionate about his profession" -- Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: McFarland Publishing
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0899505759
• ISBN 13: 9780899505756
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 174