Library Fads

Are you the sort of person who starts salivating and wants desparately to share your thoughts and feelings when any of the following topics arise: Library 2.0, library blogging, library RSS, library IM, library podcasting, library marketing, library gaming, library advocacy, Such-and-such @ Your Library, information literacy, "millenials," "nextgen"...[insert latest "hot" library fad here].

Does anyone ever really get excited about this stuff? Or are you all faking? I really want to know, because that way I can decide: should I feel like I'm in on the joke and just chuckle as you pretend to care deeply about this stuff, or should I eye you suspiciously and slowly back out of the room?

The Annoyed Librarian sits in rooms with people who seem to wet their pants with glee whenever the latest in a long line of boring and transient fads is mentioned. They want to discuss this stuff seriously, and how it will "impact" them and their twopenny-halfpenny library in Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky. As if any of this mattered. Are they serious? Or just desparate to seem concerned and knowledgeable to someone? Or desparate to seem relevant and up-to-date like those "Library Five-O" types over at the ALFL?

The Annoyed Librarian feels like she's taking crazy pills. How can anyone take these fads seriously? Especially since the ideas are almost always inherently stupid, incredibly boring, or just a rehash of something libraries were already doing in the past, but with a new trendy name.

It's no wonder people don't take librarians seriously. I can't take them seriously, and I am one.