Don Borchert

When I tell people I work in a library, they say "What a nice quiet job" or "It must be nice to read all day".

I'm going to hand them this book and tell them this is what my job is REALLY like. Working with the public in a library is more like working as a mediator, a security guard, a psychologist, a baby sitter, a computer expert or a counselor, none of which most of us have degrees or experience in. And oh yes, now and then we get to answer a few informational questions.

Hat's off to ya, show more Don, you've gone and written the book we all wish we had the guts and the time to write! Now if only people were still reading instead of surfing the internet and checking out videos.... show less

I couldn't resist picking this up and reading it despite all the other TBR mountain books on top of it. And then I couldn't put it down - I stayed awake in bed until I was done with it, and then couldn't sleep for thinking about and also wishing for more. Believe me, I tried to be objective, because I know that stories about assorted patrons and behind-the-scenes life of libraries isn't everyone's cup of tea. But I honestly don't know how anyone could be so disinterested in this to give it show more less than a 'liked it' rating. Gracefully & cleanly written. Concise stories on a (relatively) wide variety of library-related topics. Funny and poignant, sometimes by turns, sometimes simultaneously.

Oh, to rebut some of the other reviewers - he likes kids, so long as they try to be moderately respectful, and he tries to help them when he can. He likes learning about people of other cultures and basically admits that he knows he's lucky to have been born white even though he couldn't choose that. And he never pretended that this book would be anything like a 'how to fix the library.' show less

This book should be required reading in Library schools. I laughed out loud, snickered, teetered, giggled and otherwise thoroughly enjoyed this book. As a fairly new librarian (my second career; I worked in cubicle-jungle corporate for 25 long years), this book entertained me, amused me, and finally answered a nagging question I've had for the past few years: how can someone going to graduate library school REALLY know what it's like to actually work in a library.

While in grad school I took show more numerous reference courses, a computer course, and so on, and only in one did the instructor/teacher/professor even comment on actually working in a library. All teachers in my Lib school were Ph.D.s -- and all but one had no clue how to prepare students for being librarians. They prepare you to write research papers, yes, and if you become a researcher, that's great. They teach you about archives, and if you become an archivist, that's great. But if you become a working librarian dealing with the public (or with corporate employees), they do nothing to prepare you for the real world.

Real library work includes repeatedly being asked : "where's the bathroom?" Or, other times: "do you have a bathroom?". I've had other duzzies: "can I get a piece of printer paper for every tax dollar I pay?" (we give out one or two free sheets of paper; if patrons want more they have to buy it -- at the reasonable rate of 2 cents a page). "No, I wasn't" patrons answer, as if librarians are making up a reason to tell them to stop doing what they aren't doing. "Why do you tell me to turn off my cellphone and not other people too?" One of my favorites: I told a guy to not have a cellphone conversation inside the library, and he told me "I'm just listening; I'm not talking." I gave him credit for creativity, and told him to end the call.

Library work is fun. I like being a librarian. But this book makes it clear in a humorous and accurate way that it can be a jungle out there. Highly recommended. show less

Dan Borchert works in a public library in California. He has written this book, Free For All, to let us know what can be found in the average library these days: not a quiet space where only the occasional rustling of pages can be heard, but (as the subtitle says) Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas.

Borchert is familiar with the parents who use the library as a form of free day care, with the pedophiles who roam the stacks in search of nubiles, with the mind-numbing routines and procedures of show more library bureaucracy, with the people who treat library property as their own and library staff as personal whipping boys...with life at the front lines of the library profession, in sum. As a guy who just bought a "Future Librarian" shirt, I find this book a useful source of warnings.

On the other hand, this book has provoked some controversy among librarians -- who point out, correctly, that Borchert has no master's degree and is thus not technically a librarian at all. This may not be important, but I'd trust the author a bit more if he'd mentioned it himself.

Borchert clearly believes in the public library as an institution -- he just doesn't romanticize it. Maybe that's why he annoys some librarians...maybe I could learn from him. Can't become disillusioned if you never had any illusions in the first place. show less