Credo Reference Blog

The book's fantastic cover art

Last week I had the chance to attend a reading here in Boston by Marylin Johnson, author of “This Book Is Overdue,” which I have just started reading. I was excited for the opportunity to learn about her process and experiences while researching and writing the book.

In introducing the book, she started out by describing it as her “love letter to Librarians;” there were many librarians in the audience and I got the sense that they really appreciated the sentiment!

Of course one of the very first questions from the group was why she chose to write a book about librarians. In answer, she talked about her last book, “The Dead Beat” and her opinion that the most interesting obituaries she read while researching it were of Librarians so she decided they deserved a book of their own.

She described some of her experiences in researching the book – including attending library conferences such as ALA. Hearing the conference described from her perspective as a total outsider made many of the conference veterans in the audience chuckle, myself included.

Johnson talked a lot about the various librarians she met while doing her research and one theme that came across quite strongly was her sense of librarians’ fierce commitment, as a professional group, to enable access to information to anyone who needs it; so this rant by a blogger for the Huffington Post struck a chord with me. A rather off-key chord based on Johnson’s description and my own experiences with members of the profession. I understand where he’s coming from, but I think he doesn’t understand libraries and librarians and how they operate with a different mission than a business.

After the event was done she stayed and signed books for many of us. I waited in line to say hello and thank her though she couldn’t really sign my book – I have the Kindle version.  She did offer to sign my Kindle, or a sticky note to put ON my Kindle, but it’s not quite the same.

I’m not far enough along in the book to offer any kind of review just yet, but I promise one will follow once I’ve finished. What I’ll say for now is that I am finding “This Book is Overdue” to be a fascinating read with stories that range from funny to sad to inspiring to infuriating. Stay tuned…and if you’re reading the book, please let me know what you think.

Salon.com recently posted an interview with Johnson, you can find it here.