1. The Frontier
A blast of a six–shooter in the Wild West town of Deadwood sends us galloping into the world of librarians who wrangle paper history and digital information, and cartoon librarians who move and speak in real time on your computer screen…how obituaries of librarians are tracking the changes in this topsy–turvy profession…a silly and scurrilous entry on Wikipedia stands in for the mutating web….and we cast an eye over some of the stories of heroic librarians and archivists this book will tell
2. Information Sickness
Frothing at the mouth and keeling over from too much information: science fiction or modern affliction?…on trying to understand social networking and turning to reference librarians for enlightenment…who needs librarians in the age of Google? we do!…the fools who projected the death of libraries…computers level the information playing field, and librarians are their keepers
3. On the Ground
The uneasy alliance between librarians and the computer experts they rely on as it plays out during a calamitous computer upgrade of the online catalog in Westchester County, NY—complete with an apocalyptic storm!…librarians, pressured to get out front with technology, scramble to retrain themselves…and a few outlaw librarians drive the tech guys crazy
4. The Blog People
You might not think of them as mouthy and opinionated, but librarians have taken to the blogosphere with a vengeance, networking, entertaining, instructing, and venting…yes, they are venting, viciously and hilariously, about you, their patrons…don’t judge them until you, too, have cleaned up the poop in the book drop
5. Big Brother and the Holdout Company
An encounter at a glitzy benefit with two heroes of the library world turns into a visit with the Connecticut Four, in which three librarians and a tech guy recount their 1984–style nightmare as “John Doe,” who sued the government to keep their patrons’ records private
6. How to Change the World
Librarians at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, give students from developing nations, some of whom have never used a computer, enough tech training to pursue a long–distance master’s degree and join the global conversation on human rights…a visit to Rome, where the librarians crash–train one group and graduate another
7. To the Ramparts!
Librarians to the barricades! Anarchist librarians leave the building and hit the street, using smart phones and library databases to fight rumors and panic with trustworthy information for protestors…a visit with the librarian who helped launch Radical Reference and works to expand library service for those who live off the grid and to preserve their self–published stories
8. Follow That Tattooed Librarian
Our enduring and, frankly, absurd fascination with sexy librarians and that shushing business, and how some librarians deal with it…welcome to the exotic world of librarians who mock themselves by performing precision drills with book carts…and to pink–haired, tattooed librarians downing cocktails while ear–splitting music shatters that stereotype
9. Wizards of Odd
In which your author becomes an embedded reporter among librarians in the virtual reality site of Second Life, and discovers the vibrant and gender–bending world of international librarians who meet in the 3–D Web’s corridors and dark alleys to share resources and provide reference service to other avatars
10. Gotham City
A close look at the librarians of the venerable New York Public Library as they hurtle at warp speed into the digital age…the reference librarian who helps techno–stressed writers…the keeper of the treasures in a crumbling kingdom of scholarship…the digital guru…the guardian of black history…the arts and crafts librarian…and we discover which of them survives the great transition
11. What’s Worth Saving?
Toni Morrison’s house burns, and is anyone worried about her son? No, it’s her manuscripts everybody cares about…a course in literary archives using the papers of a writer considerably more obscure than Morrison…advice from an archivist on a personal mission…how the world’s most extensive collection of boxing artifacts survived hurricanes, fire, mold, and rats, thanks to a librarian who loves boxing and a boxing archivist…the difference between librarians and archivists, and how archivists are dealing with the digital age…creative innovations from the Library of Congress…yet another way information professionals save us
12. The Best Day
Outside in the cold with a crowd of happy revelers on a Saturday morning, waiting for the thrill of the opening of a new library…the recession–battered town of Darien, Connecticut, celebrates not just the new building, its dazzling design and user–friendly technology, but its librarians, who promote “extreme customer service” and who throw open the door to taxpaying locals and free–loading strangers alike