About
At its founding, LibrarianShipwreck was intended “as a resource, soapbox, forum, and gutter for those interested in the future of librarianship. Amongst our interests are libraries, archives, activism, radical librarianship, history, technology, cats, sweater vests, and other fascinating things. We hope to rile you up.”
Since then (as the site’s actual content makes obvious) the main topics of the site have become focused primarily on technology, critical theory, and impending doom. This may or may not be a result of the fact that the main author on the site may or may not be pursuing a PhD that sits at the intersection of the history of technology and disaster studies (with a dissertation project focusing on Y2K). Beginning in March of 2020 this site has also provided a home to weekly compendiums of Plague Poems.
You may or may not like what you find written here.
Questions may be directed to librarianshipwreck[@]gmail.com.
We can be found on the Twitter: @libshipwreck and @rowmyboat
And now also on Mastodon: @librarianshipwreck@mastodon.social; @plaguepoems@mastodon.social;
We do our best to put up new content regularly.
[Your librarians have not been visited by the authorities. Watch closely for the removal of this notice.]
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LibrarianShipwreck 
Radical librarianship and sweater vests? Goodness! That’s a mixture I have to see!
Radical librarianship and CATS???!! Goodness! That’s a mixture i have to see!
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I’m happy to see this blog but seriously annoyed that it is anonymous. You should take responsibility for what you write!!
Pleased to meet you. You are most welcome to visit my blog whenever you get the chance. 🙂
I’ve nominated you for the Premio Dardos Award! Here’s the link: https://danicapiche.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/premio-dardos-award-thank-you/
Congratulations! 🙂
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So, it happened. This summer our “librarian” at the private college prep school I work at decided to convert the library into a “learning commons”. Everything worth knowing is on the internet, students aren’t checking out books, so why not get rid of them in favor of “collaborative spaces”….coffee shop to be added soon…
My God, when did we decide to follow the students? When did we decide that since they don’t know how to use books, that we don’t need the printed word anymore? “Collaboration” is a stupid skill promoted from Silicon Valley–it’s meaningless and worthless in the development of a thinking human. Hell, I’ll go Godwin here–we’re on the road to producing more Eichmanns whose evil will be banal because they never learned how to think.
Hannah Arendt, in her lectures on moral philosophy (collected in Responsibility and Judgment) says: “Thinking and remembering is the human way of striking roots, of taking one’s place in the world into which we all arrive as strangers. What we usually call a person or a personality, as distinguished from a mere human being or a nobody, actually grows out of this root-striking process of thinking.”
We’re developing a generation of rootless nobodies…
Your post is already a few years ago and sadly as pertinent as ever. Our university, Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, has indeed turned its library into a “learning centre” built around a coffee shop. For sure, there are still a few old books on the few remaining shelves, but the argument (close to what you say) is that all relevant knowledge is available on-line and even books are digital, thus no requirement for physical paper copies. Instead of shelves, there are computers and 3d printing machines and VR goggles.
I love you, Librarian Shipwreck! ❤. Without you I’d never get through the next 4 years. Sincerely, Lauren Letellier, Library Volunteer, Roeliff Jansen Community Library, Copake NY
There’s very good writing here. May I suggest that a pdf version be made available as a link at the bottom of articles?
I appreciate your work and would love to credit you by name!
On an Aerospace contract some years ago, I had the fortunate opportunity of the company being located on the neighboring block to the technical university of the country. Of course, I knew immediately where I would spend my lunch hours; perusing the plethora of books.
To my heartbreak, I could not find any but a few here and there seemingly locked away. I perservered and stumbled upon a partially hidden spiral staircase to the cellar. Before me were real bookselves with real books. Vast amounts of treasure. I was alone and in heaven/nirvana I jested. The lighting was automated and location attenuated. In the floors above buzzed a hive of students, researchers, staff and faculty.
The most wonderful lunch breaks I did find from that day on.I was always alone and yet not so.
I spent my university years in the stacks dreaming about the world ahead.
A library holds within all that is with out.
Thank you for being here,,,,