Customer Reviews

Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

While Quiet, Please does an excellent job of describing the ins and outs of library life, the best part about it is that it provides an opportunity to just simply listen to the author's voice - his perspectives on what the library's relationship should be with the public, how the librarian should fulfill that responsibility, how libraries could improve. Heavy messages such as these could drag the reader down, but the author is one step ahead in thought by providing many incredibly funny anecdotes to lighten the book up and keep the reader engaged. It's the kind heart, the humanity, though, that permeates Quiet, Please and makes the book so worth reading.

Let me state upfront that the reason I picked up this book is that I myself am a library-addict, and I have no shame in admitting as such. I visit my local public library branch (in Blue Ash, a suburb of Cincinnati) at least once a week, usually more than that. So when I saw this book, I immediately picked it up.

In "Quite, Please--Dispatches From a Public Librarian" (330 pages), author Scott Douglas brings the irreverent but very tongue-in-cheek and fun look on how he became involved working at a public library (in Anaheim, CA), eventually getting a Masters Degree in Library Sciences from San Jose Sate, and working his way up the ladder. His observations are astute. "What I quickly learned was the dark truth about librarians: they simply do not have the time to read", haha! The author understands quickly that the library is more than about books, it is a center point for the community. He describes in great, and often hilarious, details how to deal with teenage kids hanging out after school hours until they get picked up by a parent, seniors, and homeless people, all of whom see the library as much more than just a place to get a book or go on the internet. Along the way, the author brings fascinating tidbits of the history of libraries, including how Germany destroyed the main library of the Catholic University of Louvain (where I went to university, before migrating to the US) not once, but twice, in both WWI and WWII ( it was rebuilt each time and I spent many an hour there in my college days).

In all, "Quite, Please" is a terrific read from start to finish. At one point, when the author feels he needs to work on his physical appearance and starts working out, he dryly writes "I stopped after three days. I concluded that librarians just weren't made to be tough. They were made to shelve books, and you don't need a lot of muscle for that", haha! Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in libraries.

Ah, the library. Some people think of it as a nice, safe haven for some quiet studying, and others know the truth: that more often than not it is a dumping ground for bratty children, obnoxious teenagers, cranky adults, and everything else in-between. By now people know about some of the admittedly nutty folks who go to the library everyday, but what about the nutty people who actually work there? What I liked about this book is that it not only gives you stories about some of the weirdos who come into the library all the time, but it also focuses on the staff, the bizarre rules and regulations of the library, and the idiotic process of obtaining a Masters Degree in library science so that you can make a decent salary by sleeping at the reference desk and having your life threatened by ornery computer users. This is a great book, and I highly recommend it for anyone who's interested in knowing how a public library is actually run. Popcorn machines inside the library, rats in the break room, bribing children to read with promises of free burgers, librarians who don't read (and recommend books that they haven't read), old ladies who physically abuse the staff, and yes, even a one-chapter love story. It's all here.

Another nice touch is the overuse of footnotes, which some people will definitely find irritating, and various trivia about library history. There are also some bits from Douglas' McSweeney's dispatches, which will be familiar to those who've read them before and a nice introduction for those who haven't. Best of all, for me at least, is reading how an optimistic book-lover grows increasingly disappointed and apathetic about his job. The ridiculousness of policy and expectations of a demanding public take their toll, but there is always a sliver of optimism throughout the book, which was more than I expected.

I appear to be alone here with my 3 star rating. I don't know what it is, but why can't i find a cute, interesting and somewhat quirky book on this subject that I like? This book, along with Free For All sounding promising --- until I started reading them.

While this book was a little better, I found the storyline slow, boring and basically all over the place.

The fact that the author puts footnotes on the bottom of almost every page (as well as information that I really could have done without as it really does nothing for the storyline) was really annoying and totally not necessary.

Although some of the stories were okay, I found that everytime I started enjoying a story, he would simply skip ahead to something else.

I know everyone else who reviewed this book really liked it, but unfortunately, for me, it did absolutely nothing.

I was going to buy this book for myself to read over the holidays--sort of a career-path pick-me-up (I'm currently in library school)--but my interlibrary loan request came in at the last minute. I am SO glad I didn't buy it.

Basically, you've got a writer who is torn between being smug and being funny, and who unfortunately rarely succeeds at being either. Early on, one begins to wonder why the book was written...why, indeed, Mr. Douglas is even a librarian at all. In an unbearably condescending voice, he writes about how much he hated his library page job. He writes about how much he hated his coworkers. He writes about how much he hated his superiors, his library school, his professors, and worst of all, his patrons. No one is safe. And then, in the very next breath, he tells us what a noble institution the library is. Now, most of us already know that the library is a noble institution. Unfortunately, the sentiment rings utterly false when it follows a dozen pages of his childish ranting.

It certainly doesn't help that the writing is so clunky (Take this gem, for example: "Over 200,000 volumes were destroyed. It really upset a bunch of people." Imagine that!). Douglas has a particularly annoying habit of contradicting his own opinions. "There are schools for librarians," he writes, "and the idea's not as ridiculous as it often sounds." He then proceeds to explain--at length--just how ridiculous they are. In fact, check out this excerpt on the subject of 9/11: "It's a new dawn for the way we are seeking and are fed our information. For better, for worse, things will never be the same." And the very next sentence, in the very next paragraph? "Maybe the date was important to librarians, but I didn't see it."

WHA--?! About-faces like this are not uncommon. It literally boggles the mind.

Footnotes are another constant irritation. The jacket mentions that Douglas is a McSweeney's contributor, so the presence of footnotes is not exactly a surprise. But boy, what an onslaught! Two or three a page at times, all of them attempts at cleverness, none of them succeeding: "My second semester I also began making friends," he writes. And the footnote? "That sentence makes me sound like such a dork. Please don't hold it against me until you read just a little bit more."

Follow this advice at your own risk.

"The librarian," writes Scott Douglas, "was the typical stereotypical librarian - ugly, clunky glasses, hair in a tight bun, and clothing that could just as easily have been put on a man." Prepare to give up your stereotypes. Douglas is writing about a librarian in a library he visited, but he is himself a librarian, and his account of his career, _Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian_ (Da Capo) is anything but dusty, dry, quiet, or humorless. The librarians he profiles, and he himself, don't fit stereotypes, although they all seem to have more than their share of peculiarities. The memoir of librarian about his job might not seem like one that had much potential for exciting reading, especially if the reader disregards the death threats described here, but Douglas often writes with intense humanity and concern about his fellow librarians and the patrons they serve. He also serves up plenty of annoyance (often at himself) expressed with wit, and more jokes than you'd expect from the guy at the reference desk. There are, it is true, lots and lots of footnotes to his book, but they are mostly humorous asides. It is especially rewarding as a memoir as it describes without pride how the author moved from being an aimless youth to being interested in others and in the purposefulness of helping out.

Douglas loved libraries as a kid, but he didn't have a life goal of becoming a librarian. He coasted into it, from being a volunteer, a library page, because he loved books. He went to library graduate school, but continued to have his doubts about his choice of career; the book details ways that his choice was affirmed, often involving interactions with patrons, about whom Douglas writes with annoyance and affection, often simultaneously. One bunch of patrons who helped him see his way were the handicapped. "It's not that I hate them or think they are a burden," he starts out. "I'm just uncomfortable around them. I don't know what to do when I see them." But while his discomfort never goes completely away, he learned that rather than sitting bored at the reference desk, "... I could try and make a little more of the job. I started to go beyond answering the questions, and began getting to know a few of the people." He even learns to value old-lady patrons: "For the most part, they're either warm and fuzzy or bitter and rude. Either way, its fun to listen to their rambling theories about life, happiness, and why everyone should read Dick Francis." And then there was the one that insisted on being given the Oxford English Dictionary on audiotape. One kid came to the desk to say he had been threatened in the restroom by a bully with a TASER. "I feel old to say this," says Douglas, but when I was a boy we didn't threaten other kids with TASER." There is a lot more going on in the library than just checking out books, and a librarian has to do jobs no librarian school ever taught about.

Besides its great good humor, _Quiet, Please_ provides an eye-opening account of just what libraries do. It gives an informal history of what libraries have done in the past, and how things are different now. It's not just computers; one of Douglas's libraries, for instance, takes on a controversial project of giving popcorn to kids. As his boss says, "...more important than books is community! Libraries are about community! And community loves popcorn!" This is joined with Douglas's reflection that for some of the kids he sees and helps, this will be their best meal of the day. Many of the author's humorous observations are punctured by distressing ones like that, and they give his book bite. With all the funny and weird stories, however, it is best as a picture of the growth of a public servant. Douglas isn't always full of goodwill towards his patrons or coworkers, and he allows us to see that he does participate, at least sometime, in the stereotype of the librarian's crabbiness, but there is plenty of humane comedy here coming from an appreciation of both the frustration and the rewards of a difficult job. Sometimes the weirdness makes a reader wonder how Douglas can keep it up, and he wonders himself about why he stays at the job. "I was staying," he concludes, "because I liked helping people, staying because there was always someone out there who needed help knowing something."

This book sheds light on the career of Scott Douglas: from his mid 1990s job as a library page (I love that job title), his experiences of library school, and some of his experiences as a public librarian in Anaheim, California. Some of Mr Douglas's anecdotes are amusing, but his style of delivery (replete with footnotes) is definitely an acquired taste. Amusing at times, irritating at others: I kept telling myself I could ignore footnotes but sadly, I can't.

While I'm pleased to have read Mr Douglas's book, I'm even more pleased that I borrowed it from my local library: one of my favourite places to visit. As I returned the book, I couldn't help but think of my own almost fifty years experience as a public library patron and different libraries can be from each other. Mr Douglas's book has led me to muse about a number of library-related issues and to wonder, as well, about the future of libraries.

It is possible to read this book and be amused by many of the anecdotes: I enjoyed the story about the librarian who thought that Thomas Pynchon was Julia Robert's latest flame, as well as some of the vignettes about particular clients. I especially enjoyed Mr Douglas's notes of library history based on his own somewhat idiosyncratic research.

Worth reading if you are interested in one man's account of life as a public librarian. Worth considering if you wonder about the role of public libraries, and those of us (whether staff or patrons) who frequent them. The humour can be enjoyed, endured or ignored depending on your taste - but it is only part of the journey, not the complete destination.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

The story of Scott Douglas's life in the library has a great first line and one that acts as a springboard to the rest of his memoir. Policies in libraries, especially public libraries, often deal with issues involving who deals with patrons in bathrooms, patrons viewing computer ponography, computer hacking patrons, and patrons displaying sexual behavior not allowable in public, as well as with who can check out library materials, loan periods, fines, and library computer use.

Scott's dispatches begin with his initial job as a library page, follow his experiences in library school, and end with the rebuilding of the first library where he worked and where he returns as a librarian. Although many of the chapters begin with what might be considered politically incorrect statements such as "I am not a fan of the handicapped," a bit later the author corrects himself and explains that the most important part of being a librarian is "talking to people, learning who they are and why they come to the library."

Throughout the text there are clever touches. Chapters are numbered according to the Dewey Decimal System, which is used to arrange books in public libraries, and each chapter has a "For Shelving" section that is described as a "short pointless interlude." These sections contain background and historical information and are actually not pointless. There are also numerous footnotes, which add information or humor.

Anyone can enjoy this book, but for those who have worked in libraries, it is especially funny and poignant. How nice to hear from a clever, perceptive, honest, and literary librarian without aspirations for an administrative position.

I just finished reading this book, and i can't remember the last time i laughed out loud so much. This book may be cynical to some people, but this book is hilarious if people stop taking it so serious! if you read the entire book, you will see the author truly loves his job, and he truly sees the library as a haven for his desire to help the public, but in his eleven years as a librarian, the public does some hilarious things! this is a great book descripting the situations. i picked up this book because of the great reviews it has been getting, not just on amazon, but everywhere pretty much. i am going to school for library science and this was a great laugh, since everything is so serious in school; this was a great little break from all the papers i have to get back to now.

Once I started this book, I couldn't put it down until I finished it. The descriptions of the crazy characters as well as the absurd situations Douglas finds himself in are extremely entertaining. I laughed out loud multiple times while reading and was sad to reach the end. The best part about this book is that underneath the hilarious anecdotes there is a heart-warming story that reminded me why I love working in a library. I highly recommend it to anyone who frequents the library, whether as a patron, volunteer, or employee.