Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library
October will make 16 years working in libraries. I have worked in college libraries (two and four year schools). I have worked in a medical library which served a medical college and a hospital system. I have even been on the board of trustees of my local public library system. I now work for that same system, over a decade after I got my first library job working for another public library system in the state. When I read an excerpt of Overdue in Electric Literature , my initial thought was "this reads like BS, but I'll give it a shot." But I didn't buy the book. Instead, I had the library order it and put it on hold for me (like a good patron). And for the most part, my feelings were right. Amanda Oliver spent seven years working at libraries until she gave it up. Most of that time, she was a elementary school librarian in Washington, DC. After she got burned out from that, she worked nine months at Northwest One, a branch of the DC Public Library System. The librar...