Wednesday, December 10, 2008

You've seen me naked.

There's a whole chorus of idiot librarians who chant, "Give 'em what they want" when it comes to what libraries should do for the public.

Why the hell did I go to library school to learn liberrianship if all I'm going to do is what people tell me? You think I went to medical school? You think I'm a doctor? You think you can walk in off the street and demand some new drug that you don't need and could probably kill you and that I'll just sign a prescription because the pharmaceutical company gives me a free week in Kyoto if I do? Wait. Bad example.

According to CosmoGirl (yes, I read CosmoGirl; I'm a lifetime subscriber):

A significant percentage of teens (ages 13-19) and young adults (20-26) have electronically sent or posted online nude or semi-nude pictures or videos of themselves:
• 22% of teen girls
• 18% of teen boys
• 36% of young adult women
• 31% of young adult men
[Reposted from USAToday, but the original survey data are here.]

So let's extrapolate some math based on these numbers. If 22% of teen girls and 36% of young adult women have posted naked pictures of themselves online, which is a 63% increase, then by the time you reach the perfectly ripe age of the.effing.librarian, 100% of us have posted pictures or video of ourselves naked on the Internet!

But let's get back to the naked teens. If the girl or boy wants help sending their naked or semi-naked pictures to someone on the Internet, should we help them? Should librarians just give them what they want? There's a whole list of things librarians shouldn't be doing, and when I get some free time, I might compile it, but right now I'm watching Quark, so maybe later.

I think I went to library school to learn what librarians should and shouldn't do. I don't accept free publications from hate groups and distribute them in the library. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm censoring important information. Unfortunately, our job requires us to judge things worthy of distribution. If we only do what people want of us, then why the fuck don't we just keep Amazon.com or some adult DVD site open on a public computer and let everyone order whatever the fuck they want and the library will pay for it?

Because, guess what? We don't fucking do that. Librarians know better than that. Or it seems, up to a point. But don't get me started on that list, the two Betty's are wearing hot pants (yes, still watching Quark).

What we should be telling out patrons is:
"Don't you realize that five minutes after you upload that photo, it's going to be in that guy's email?"
"No, sexxybabii is not a good password."
"Don't you understand how this shit works???!!!"

So go and look for my video; search for librarian and fine booty. I know that's what you want.