Our Own Selves: More Meditations for Librarians

Front Cover
American Library Association, 2005 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 224 pages
In Our Own Selves, Michael Gorman creates 100 new meditations specifically addressing the issues at the heart of the library profession. Reaffirming the value of librarianship and reintroducing the joys that make it unlike any other vocation, Gorman expands and follows up on his popular first collection of meditations.

From inside the book

Selected pages

Contents

Through the Years
113
1086 and All That
115
Libraries and the Internet
117
A Library Quarterly
119
Another Library Quarterly
122
Educating Librarians
125
The Beginning of the Global Village
127
On the Burning of Books
129

The Power of Childrens Books
18
Four Centuries of Information Overload
20
Places
23
The Quincy Library Group
25
Old Library New Museum
27
The Library Hotel
29
Franks Library
31
The School Library
33
Trains and Boats and Planes
35
Ancient and Modern
37
The Southern California Library
39
The Bodleian Library
41
The Ventriloquist and the Boston Public Library
43
People
45
Colleagues in Schism
47
The Life of the Mind
49
Micromanage This
51
L Stanley Jast
53
The Library Character
55
Whats in a Title?
57
Librarians in History
59
The Amherst Tales
61
Vartan Gregorian
63
A Good Gray Profession
65
Values
67
The Absurdities of Censorship
69
Culture High and Low
71
The Limits of Intellectual Freedom?
73
Patriotic Acts?
75
The Bibliosphere
77
Rules of Conduct
79
Looking Backward Living Forward
81
The Greater Good
83
Data Protection
85
Civil Rights
87
Library Cervices
89
Many Tongues
91
Libraries Unplugged?
93
The Cataloguer
95
The Belligerent Librarian
97
Storehouse of the Human Record
99
Information Commons
101
The Human Factor
103
What Is a Librarian?
105
The Lapsed Cataloguer
107
The Death of the Reference Book
109
Then and Now
111
The Core of Our Profession
131
Bastille Day
133
Technology
135
The Allure of Paper
137
The Dangerous Enticements of Predictions
139
The Quest for Authenticity
141
The Changing Freshman
143
Unitask Me Please
145
The NeverFading Image
147
What Is a Document?
149
Books of Photographs
151
Filters
153
Information Technology
155
Practicalities
157
FundRaising
159
Maps
161
Doing a Lot
163
The Curse of PowerPoint
165
A Virtual Alexandria?
167
Animal Vegetable and Mineral
169
The Little Engine That Sometimes Couldnt
171
Black Swans
173
No Child Left Unhurried
175
Avert the Boots
177
The Eightfold Path
179
The Fourth Noble Truth
181
Right View and Right Understanding
183
RightDirected Thought
185
Right Speech
187
Right Action
189
Right Livelihood
191
Right Effort
193
Proper Mindfulness
195
Right Concentration
197
The Golden Rule
199
This and That
201
Serendipitydoodah
203
Bright Shiny and Evanescent
205
Blogs
207
Beyond the Boundaries
209
Singing the Library
211
Rocks of Ages
213
The Peoples Information
215
Music Librarians
218
Hispanic Latino Chicano?
220
Retirement
223
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 16 - For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are ; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.
Page 77 - the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.
Page 18 - ... myself, the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
Page 79 - Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.
Page 75 - Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (USA Patriot Act) was enacted on October 26, 2001.
Page 99 - And for the second, certain it is, there is no vexation or anxiety of mind which resulteth from knowledge otherwise than merely by accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself...
Page 10 - But I read only the Bible.' Then you ought to teach others to read only the Bible, and by parity of reason, to hear only the Bible; but if so, you need preach no more.
Page 21 - For all books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time. Mark this distinction — it is not one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a distinction of species.

About the author (2005)

Michael Gorman is dean of library services at the Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno.

Bibliographic information