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jennahazzard's review
5.0
I read this when I first started my Co-op at a local public library and laughed my way through the entire book. It may have been better for me because I could relate to it, but it's a good read for anyone who's ever worked in a library before!
jennifermreads's review
4.0
Recommended by one of my library school professors. Author is/was a library assistant at an LAPL branch and he shares musings about library life. Not laugh-out-loud funny but entertaining for us librarian types.
All-in-all: a must read for those in library land!
All-in-all: a must read for those in library land!
mbincolor's review
This book should be required reading for all library card holders 16+
dixiet's review
2.0
Read the first 1/3 of the book and that was enough. The style of writing and the topics covered didn't engage me the way I had hoped they would.
ricefun's review
3.0
While Borchert writes wonderful anecdotes based on years of working in the public library, I didn't connect deeply with this book. The stories are strung together and seem to have more investment in shock value than in sharing about personal growth or learnings along the way. I did identify strongly with the authors path into a library career - and I chose not to complete my master's in library science for exactly some of the reasons Borchert cites that make library administration a difficult career. I love the bibliography at the back of the book, and the recommended reading list from library colleagues. I think that nearly every book - especially non-fiction - should contain these lists to lead to further study.
sde's review
3.0
I'm a librarian, although it's been a long time since I've worked in a public library. Yup, life in a public library is pretty much exactly as he's outlined here. If you don't work in a library, you might find this eye-opening.
trudilibrarian's review
2.0
This book was okay and I found certain passages more than a little amusing (I did laugh out loud several times). Unfortunately, Borchert is a one-note guy and I found the book as a whole to be a superficial treatment of public libraries. What Borchert has essentially done is string together a bunch of colorful anecdotes (librarian "war stories") but offers very little insight into what makes the job so great and why public libraries are so important to their communities. He hints at it, but never really gets there. I know his goal was to make us laugh, perhaps even shock us, but I found the lack of real substance disappointing and uninspiring.
sonia_reppe's review
4.0
This would be entertaining for anyone who hangs out at the library a lot, but I especially enjoyed and got something useful out of it as a new public library employee; only at Borchert's library the employers are city workers (civil servants, as he calls them), which is not the case for all libraries.
blevins's review
2.0
Come to find out, Don Borchert works in a library district pretty close to the library district I work at. I found his recollection of library related stories fairly disappointing and kind of pedestrian. I was expecting more humor rather than the by the numbers rehashing of what each library department does, what he's done at that department and Borchert's opinion of the people drawn to do that work. I don't get the sense that Borchert really likes what he does as he spends a lot of the book complaining about things or belittling whatever tasks he has to do or his co-workers do. Borchert seems to do a little bit of everything at his small branch, he's not a librarian although in his system I guess everyone who works there aside from the pages [who he rags on] and facilities is called some sort of librarian. That's different than the library I work at where there are clearly defined titles and job duties ranging from librarians to clerks to management to pages to facilities. There aren't that many official librarians in my library since you need a Master's degree to join the club. I should be taking notes on dealing with some of the people that frequent the library as it could be something with more humor rather than some of Borchert's misguided tangents about social and economic issues, his personal history and how it relates to his job [it doesn't] or some of the other tedious moments of this book that should have been much more enjoyable.