Quotes About Libraries

In the course of working on a project to promote my library, I have been looking for quotes about libraries.

I guess I took for granted that it’d be easy to find really positive quotes, about why libraries are important, how people benefit from using their library, etc. And it was, but what surprised me were a few not-so-positive library quotes.

The first resources I checked were our various quotation books. One of them, The Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Quotations, had four library-related quotes, and they all were less-than-glowing:

People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subway.
-Simeon Strunsky

If you file your waste-paper basket for 50 years, you have a public library.
-Tony Benn

A library is thought in cold storage.
-Lord Samuel

There is nowhere in the world were sleep is so deep as in the libraries of the House of Commons.
-Henry “Chips” Channon

Not that my frail ego was shattered by this discovery, but it was surprising. There’s a lot of cheerleading that goes on within librarianship (such as American Libraries‘ “How the World See Us” section), and I guess I’ve been so insulated by this that anything to the contrary was shocking.

But after the initial shock wore off, I could see the humor (and accuracy) in them, too.

And in case you’re looking for more quotes, here’s a few websites with library-related quotations:

• http://www.useful-information.info/quotations/library_quotes.html
• http://www.quotegarden.com/libraries.html
• http://www.ifla.org/I/humour/subj.htm
• http://marylaine.com/exlibris/cool.html
• http://classiclit.about.com/od/litlibraries/a/aa_libraryquote.htm

Certainly not an exhaustive list, but they have a lot to pick from. I think my favorite of the moment is:

A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.
- Jo Godwin

See Also

• Gone Traveling
• Reference Question of the Week - 8/24/08
• Amazon Request List
• EBSCO Taking Blogs Seriously
• Reference Question of the Week - 8/24/08

Posted under Library, Random | 2 Comments »

Thinking Like a Librarian

Instead of a reference question this weekend, here’s another quote from a book I’m reading - Fruit, by Brian Francis. It’s a novel about an eighth grade boy, Peter, who, uncomfortable with his body (and his talking nipples), takes a job in his school’s library so he doesn’t have to go out and play with the other kids at recess. His rational for this is:

The truth is, I’d rather be in the boring old library putting books away and making ditto copies for the teachers than outside with everyone else. It’s safer.

So, I wonder how many people working in libraries today are there for this exact same reason.

And speaking of how librarian’s think, here’s another quote from the book. This one comes after an argument Peter has with his nipples, over whose fault it is that they are abnormally large:

I got out the masking tape and shut them up. I was so angry at my evil nipples. Who did they think they were, anyway?

Who among us at the reference desk hasn’t thought that before?

book, Brian Francis, Fruit, librarians, nipples, quote

See Also

• Phone Book Follies
• Book Binding Tutorial Videos
• Reference Question of the Week - 8/3/08
• Quotes About Libraries
• Found Bookmarks

Posted under Books, Random | 3 Comments »