League of Extraordinarily Unprofessional Librarians: Amy Wilson of the Lexington Herald-Leader provides more context into the story of a pair of public library employees losing their jobs for refusing to check out The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: The Black Dossier to a patron as per their employer’s policy. I feel even less sympathy for Sharon Cook then I did before, given that it seems not to have been a case of misunderstanding or disagreeing with the policy. Apparently she thought the book unsuitable for patrons, and thus checked it out herself and kept it checked out indefinitely in the hopes of preventing anyone else from ever reading it. Whatever you do, don’t read the comments section attached to the Herald-Leader story; it will only cost you brain cells. If you must read a comments section on the issue, check out the lively one attached to The Beat’s link to the article.
“Solve the case of the missing couch first. Nobody likes it when detectives case-hop mid issue”: Tucker Stone notes a weird art mistake in the otherwise pretty good Stumptown #1. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even notice the disappearing furniture when I read the issue. I’d make a terrible detective.
That sounds reasonable: Peter Bagge’s latest strip for Reason is entitled “Will Everyone Please Stop Freaking Out Over Ayn Rand?!?” It’ s a timely piece, given the American Right’s recent re-embrace of Rand, and a few recent new books about her. (Via Flog!)
“One in 10 Adult Book Buyers Read Comic Books, Simba Study Reveals”: But does that mean that comic books are really popular, or that books are pretty unpopular?
I thought print was dead, why do I keep finding newspaper stories on the Internet?: I got to the third paragraph of this story— “Libraries promote love of reading with graphic novels” from New Jersey’s The Daily Journal—before I was consumed with rage. Here’s the paragraph:
Graphic novels and similar genres like manga, a popular Japanese style of graphic novel that often involves science fiction or fantasy themes, and animé, also heavily Japanese, share a method. They tell stories within the context of cartoon drawings.
I couldn’t bring myself to finish the story.
November 11th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Just a quibble: The two women are library workers, not librarians. There is a difference.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Good point, Eden. My day job is a “library associate,” so I know the difference pretty well, but I get called a librarian all the time by patrons because it’s general usage seems to be “person who works in a library” instead of someone with an MLS or MIS. I’ll see about fixing it, but just wanted to leave a not here so your comment would make sense if I did.