[ILL-L] Friday muse: librarian reputation

[Coogan, Elizabeth]

Or the quote from Spider Robinson:

 

 

Librarians are the secret masters of the world.  They control
information. 

Don't ever piss one off

 

     Spider Robinson

 

Beth Coogan

RBN-

 

 

 

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Shand, Kelly
Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 12:05 PM
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv
Subject: RE: [ILL-L] Friday muse: librarian reputation

 

Either the security staff don't know about the Michael Moore quote "I
really didn't realize the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous
group. ... You think they're just sitting at the desk, all quiet and
everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess
with them."

Or they did and were taking it to heart.

 

I once got pulled aside and searched because I was wearing my Radical
Militant Librarian shirt in the airport.  I was hoping it would fend off
the security people.  It was very disappointing.

Kelly Shand

Yale Divinity Library-ILL

 

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Robinson, Arthur 
Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 11:48 AM
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv
Subject: RE: [ILL-L] Friday muse: librarian reputation

 

This reminds me of an experience I had a few years ago with Customs,
also at the Atlanta airport.  I had been in the UK for ten days,
spending most of my time in various libraries and in bookshops.  When I
came back I was given the customs form to declare how much I had spent
on items I was bring back.  I hadn't bought much except books-nearly
$400 of books.  A Customs official looked at the form and started
grilling me.   How many books had I bought?  (About 50.)  Were they for
business or pleasure?  (Pleasure.)  What were the books about?  (A lot
of different subjects.)  Why would anyone buy that many books?  I
explained that I was a librarian, and finally he seemed satisfied.
Maybe I should have felt special, but my impression at the time was that
the official decided that my being a librarian explained my
eccentricity.

 

 

Arthur Robinson, Reference/Interlibrary Loan Librarian (not a terrorist)

Lewis Library, LaGrange College

601 Broad Street

LaGrange, GA 30240

Phone (706) 880-8957 or 880-8289

arobinson at lagrange.edu <mailto:arobinson at lagrange.edu>   

 

 

________________________________

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Sara Hatch
Sent: Fri 8/14/2009 10:54 AM
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv
Subject: RE: [ILL-L] Friday muse: librarian reputation

When I was living in Germany two years ago we came home to the US for a
funeral, and it was one of those four part epic journeys that seems to
be the norm when trying to get to small town USA.  We traveled from New
York to Atlanta to Seattle and on.  At the airport in Atlanta, we had to
go through three different screening stations.  Apparently the security
staff had been told to be very thorough so they wanded and interrogated
every other person in line.  I was afraid I was going to miss my
connecting flight.  When it was my turn, I was ready for a whole barrage
of questions, since they had spent five minutes on the last person they
questioned.  The first question they asked me was "What's your
profession?"  I told them I worked in a library, and that I was afraid
of missing my flight, and one of the security guards nodded his head
wisely, and escorted me all the way through the security gauntlet,
handing me off to an airline representative on the other side.  "She's a
librarian," he said nodding in my direction, as though it was some
special code.  I certainly felt special.

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