Lesson 9-Library Dogs are Pretty Awesome

Ace, the Northern Onondaga Public Library Dog, came to visit our class along with his human, Meg. Ace is a registered Therapy Dog and Canine Good Citizen who spends his time working split shifts between three branches in the NOPL system. He also comes with his very own barkcode--and is available for patrons to check out. Meg told us that Ace is loved by old and young alike. He is a serene soul who is patient with young people just learning to be gentle with their furry friends, and a good companion to any patron who is looking for a reading partner.

Our collective student reaction to Ace spoke volumes to me about the effect he must have on library patrons. I am not a "dog person," but I still found myself smiling and putting out my hand when Ace sauntered by my chair. I could picture my grandmother with him sitting at her feet while she read magazines; or my former preschool class visiting him to practice gentle touches and to talk about pet care. I'm sure I was not alone in imagining how great it would be to play with him during our class break.

During our boot camp week, we talked a lot about innovation, about connecting with your community, about not being afraid to try new things. I think librarians in general love that theory. And I think that we too often get lost in the weeds when attempting to apply that theory. Ace is a great example, a living example no less, of the application of innovation in a meaningful way. Ace didn't just show up at the library one day, bark twice, and begin his Library Dog adventure. Employing a therapy dog at the library started as a good idea someone had to fill a longing in their community. Ace's human, Meg, was brave enough to ask "why not?" More importantly, she was brave enough to navigate the bureaucratic obstacle course that generally accompanies such ideas.  We too often respond to unconventional ideas by throwing up our hands and saying, "Wow, that's a great idea, but we'll  probably never be allowed to do it." Next time you are tempted to do that, stop and think about how to overcome the obstacles to making a great idea into reality. In Meg's case, she found out what was necessary to make this great idea work (finding the right kind of dog, getting him the proper training, etc.) and shared her willingness to roll up her sleeves and make it happen. Then she did.

Library dogs are pretty awesome. And librarians like Meg are pretty awesome, too.

You can find more details about Ace (and some other cool programs) at the Northern Onondaga Public Library website: http://www.nopl.org/ace

I Will Never Leave a Fallen Comrade

In the final Thread of R. David Lankes' The Atlas of New Librarianship (2011), we finally get to the librarian. In amongst the descriptions of skill sets, teamwork, processes, and curriculum,  there is a statement which stops me in my tracks. Lankes proposes that in the case of deadlocked debate between new librarians and bibliofundamentalists, "we will have to do something painful. We will have to leave them behind" (p. 172). To me, this is not something painful, but something inconceivable. My language, and therefore my blog entries,  heavily reflect military culture. I suppose that is not surprising, considering that regardless of what other roles I have played in the last eighteen years, the one constant is that of Army Spouse. This culture in which I've lived my entire adult life does not allow for leaving a comrade behind.


Soldiers' who undertake a mission together subscribe to a common ethos that defines their guiding beliefs, binds them to each other, and emphasizes duty to their community. The core of the Warrior Ethos is in the following quote from the Soldier's Creed, which can be found at http://www.army.mil/values/soldiers.html:

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am not proposing we continue to engage in unproductive conversation, or that we apply hard core conversion tactics to bring artifact-centric librarians around to our way of thinking. I am proposing that we show them the value of our mission by example--by continuing to carry the mission out effectively and gracefully. I suppose you could say that bibliofundamentalists didn't sign up to improve society as facilitators of knowledge creation anyway; that they weren't really ever part of  the mission to start with, so what does it matter if they are left behind?  It matters because they are great resources; it matters because they are our potential allies; and it matters because if we can eventually inspire them to come along with us, our mission is guaranteed to succeed.