A Non-Professional But Still Professional Review

books:


	• Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library Don Borchert Virgin Books, 2007 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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A Series of Interesting Events

I ordered this book because Amazon suggested it when I started to order "Quiet Please," another library memoir by Scott Douglass, and because I am considering a career in Library Sciences. I finished it in about two days. It is a humorous, enjoyable, and easily digestible read. It does not read like a novel; most of the chapters are self-contained. It was both entertaining and very informative if you are considering a career in the library, as I am.

Great book!

I throughtly enjoyed Mr. Borchert's book and hope that he continues to write many more. He has a "voice" when he writes that makes this book a wonderful read.

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A Non-Professional But Still Professional Review

"Free for All" gives a pretty accurate report of what it is like to work in a public library on a daily basis. As many have stated, libraries attract quite the spectrum of people, and this particular book is about those people including some that actually work in the library. I have worked in a public library for 15 years, and I have similar stories to those presented in this book. What this book is not is an all-encompassing study on the aspects of a librarian's job. In other words, you are not going to hear about the tireless work a librarian puts in researching a reference question or how collection development policies are developed. This is a humorous novel written not only for people who work in libraries but also the everyday patron who uses the library.

Again as someone who has worked in a public library for a decade and a half, I consider myself a librarian despite not having my MLS or MLIS. I guess I would call myself a non-professional librarian with a Bachelor's Degree in Communications. I appreciate those who have theirs. However, I see no real differences when I am doing a reference search when I am in the trenches with those who hold their degrees. I have heard the debate over what a real librarian is and what is not, and it really comes down to elitism and the snobbery of higher education. Like the professional librarians who have put a lot of hard work into their two year master's degree, I have put the same amount of effort in my services to the library field over the years, and it is a slap in the face to have them belittled by professional librarians who do essentially the same job I do but with a lot more pretension. Sometimes the work one does is more important than the person who does it.

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Librarians at the Gates

If Don Borchert worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Post Office, he probably could have produced a very instructive and entertaining account of his life on the job. As it is, he works at a public library, and so he has produced an instructive and entertaining account about his life there. He is a thoughtful observer of the passing scene and a careful recorder of the offbeat. He knows what sorts of things can turn up in an overnight book drop, and he knows what sorts of things can go wrong when a police officer introduces a drug-sniffing dog to a children's reading group. More important, he knows what a public library means to the homeless, the latch-keyed, the desperate, and the socially ambitious, as well as to the more general public. He draws upon two decades of experience, and he tells a story that is by turns funny, heartwarming, disturbing, and inspirational. I read the book in a single sitting, and I've never felt better about the portion of my tax dollars that go to the local public library.

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Good read but he's not a librarian

I know. I know. Some people don't think it's a big deal that someone who isn't a librarian calls himself one. Well, to someone who worked really hard to get my MLIS, it is a big deal. It's no different than any other degree. If you don't have your MBA and you work for a corporation with people who possess one and call themselves financial analysts (or insert any other job title that requires an MBA), would you write a book about working there and say you had an MBA just because you were an assistant? No, you wouldn't. Look, the book is funny, but for those of you who don't work in a library, librarians provide a wealth of knowledge on in-depth research, and if you read the book, you'll notice that any tales of working at the reference desk are missing. You know why? Because he's not a librarian, and he doesn't answer questions on market research, genealogy or the history plagues. We do, and we do it well. Yes, the library can be a crazy place, and we who work there have stories to tell. I'm just disappointed that someone who should know how little the public understands the value of librarians would erroneously call himself one.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Mild-mannered librarian tells all in shocking new book!

Not long ago, the public library was a place for the bookish, the eggheaded, and the studious?often seeking refuge from a loud, irrational, crude, outside world. Today, libraries have become free-for-all entertainment complexes filled with rowdy teens, deviants, drugs, and even sex toys. Lockdowns and chaperones are often necessary.

What happened?

Don Borchert was a short-order cook, door-to-door salesman, telemarketer, and Christmas-tree-chopper before landing a job in a California library. He never could have predicted his encounters with the colorful kooks, touching adolescents, threatening bullies, and tricksters who fill the pages of this hilarious memoir.

In Free for All, Borchert offers readers a ringside seat for the unlikely spectacle of mayhem and
absurdity that is business as usual at the public library. You?ll see cops bust drug dealers who?ve set up shop in the men?s restroom, witness a burka-wearing employee suffer a curse-ridden nervous breakdown, and meet a lonely, neglected kid who grew up in the library and still sends postcards to his surrogate parents?the librarians. In fact, from the first page of this comic debut to the last, you?ll learn everything about the world of the modern-day library that you never expected.

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