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This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
by Marilyn Johnson 

We all know reading is sexy, right?  That librarians are sexy seems to be the point as Johnson enthusiastically promotes the librarians of Library 2.0.  She appears to idolize the youthful, tattooed, blogging librarians--or is she trying overcompensate for the prevailing stereotype of the shushing, white-bun-topped librarian?  She spends a great deal of time covering Second-Life librarians who work exclusively in the digital realm.  Then, Johnson's presentation of the ostensibly woeful case of the NYPL is an unexpected turn.  While she previously lauded change and progress, suddenly in the tenth chapter she digs in her heels against the integration of a circulating library in the research library.  Not surprisingly, the hip, young, blogging librarian types at NYPL are also the librarians who support the circulating library and the values I think the library stands for: research and education, yes, but also accessibility and community.

As someone who uses iTunes and an iPod but also tends a growing record and cassette tape collection, I can understand the conflict between digitalization versus preservation.  My lifestyle relies heavily upon digital technology, and yet I do not believe anything can replace the look, feel, weight, and smell of the physical book or vinyl--as media as well as art piece.  I do think that the two can coexist peacefully.  For example, when Johnson hastily attempts to reconcile the traditional role of the library with the new demands of library patrons, she seems to be talking about something like the "hybrid libraries" aptly summarized in the Rusch-Feja article.  I like the idea of the library providing one simple search process that might take the user to either digital or physical artifacts.

This Book is Overdue had me wondering--who are the heroes?  Is Johnson urging us to admire the hip, blogging, progressives of Library 2.0 or the old school traditionalists still holding down the fort?  Both.  I think her intention is to show that librarians of any stripe are indispensable gatekeepers to knowledge and the skills to find information themselves.  Since this is a book written for general audiences, the question remains whether the book is an effective argument for our case. 

On a more personal note, I find it interesting that Johnson is so tickled when she encounters librarians with a sardonic, sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor.  My plastic-framed glasses and blog may place me among her stereotyped "hip librarians", but I tend to be quite genuine and gullible and often fail at using sarcasm.  She comments on the obvious: that any profession will contain a smattering of most personality types.  I would guess that a reader not familiar with librarianship would develop a broader mental picture of what librarians can be, but Johnson's oscillation between high-tech libraries and traditional ones, with little attempt to synthesize the two, might be confusing.