Sunday, June 2, 2013

Extreme Librarianship

"Extreme Librarianship" is my first book idea, and it was all inspired by this PBS POV piece.

Watch A Visit From Biblioburro on PBS. See more from POV.
I first saw this video a few years ago, and that's when I came up with the idea for the book. I was inspired by this teachers commitment to literacy in such adverse conditions, and this got me thinking about what other conditions librarians around the world were practicing their craft. So, this lead to a brainstorming session of what I meant by "extreme." For the purposes of the book, I decided "extreme" would be remote or unexpected locations, and/or physically extreme/ hazardous conditions. Here is the brief list I came up with:
  • Peace Corps.
  • Military/ Carrier or Submarine
  • Cruise Ship
  • Scientific Expedition
  • High Security Prison
  • McMurdo or other Antarctica location
Overarching ideas/ hopes I have for the book, based on this brief list are: 
  • Show that people have information needs everywhere, though different, these people have dedicated themselves to informing their users. 
  • Struggles based on location and user population. 
  •  Debunk “librarian” stereotype. 
  • Librarians are still needed all over the world >> librarianship/ libraries are not dead. 
  •  Fulfill my desire to travel/ take photos. Meet new people. Learn about my chosen profession. 
  •  This book will be focused on usable/ actionable information for professionals/ expanding idea of what profession is, rather than information about countries/ generalities.