Arkiv's Wacky World of Electronic Resources: Library Humor!

This post will be a bit on the lighter side.

Well, one thing's for sure...if you're going to work in a library and keep your sanity, you have to maintain at least some level of humor. Luckily, the people I work with do, although this hasn't always been the case. I remember when I was still in the hotel business, there were people that would rather torture others including themselves than step back and take a less serious look at things.

OK, enough rambling and on to today's post. I don't know why there hasn't been a sitcom set in a library; I for one think there is enough material to keep it going for many seasons! Well actually, there was a short-lived series on Australian TV called "The Librarians" two years ago. Unfortunately it's unavailable on DVD here in the States. For those interested, here is a link to the website.

My first introduction to library humor was Will Manley's column in American Libraries. If you do not have a subscription to this journal, you can always go into a database, such as MasterFile Premier and do a search. He has also written quite a few books of which "Unprofessional Behavior: Confessions of a Public Librarian" is my favorite.

Hungry for more, I did a web search and came across this group from Australia (apparently they have a better sense of humor than us!) called Warrior Librarians. This is the old website but a new blog was started last year and can be found here. They also published a book which I ILL'd back in 2005. Had some humorous bits, but then I stumbled across the now almost legendary comic strip "Unshelved". This also spawned a few books. The strip was most effective when it dealt with everyday going-ons in the library, but often it got just downright silly.

Only a few days I was introduced to "Shelf Check", an online comic by a librarian in Minneapolis. Like "Dilbert" it's hit-and-miss, but when it hits home, it works beautifully. Here's a couple of frames as an example (just click on them) >>>