A library was nothing without its people. You say library and there’s this iconoclastic image of an old-lady librarian telling people to be quiet and not to run. But the thing was, that lady—that iconoclastic...

There’s something deep in the heart of every person that wantsto protect culture. The only thing about my pending career thatwas changed because of 9/11 was that I began to see it was the community,not...

To be great at something, you must look to the great ones of thepast and improve on the ideas and techniques that they started. Iwas motivated to do better—to improve on the ideas of others.

They have schools for librarians? Do they teach you how to properly sssh people?

We don’t have to destroy the library of the past. We just need to give it a face-lift.

It took a bit of popcorn and a library snack bar to make me realize that being a librarian was about more than just giving people information. It was about serving a community. And if...

I like to imagine that library school was started because of some sort of silly bar bet where a guy got really plastered and told his buddy that he could convince people that librarians needed...

The loudest elderly women always had the quietest elderly husbands.

…killing rats wasn’t in my job description.

There was the smell of old books, a smell that has a way of making all libraries seem the same. Some say that smell is asbestos.

Plenty of patrons had asked me strange things, but this was the first who asked me where my car was parked. It was almost comical to look at the man, because he actually thought I...

I am convinced that grandkids are inherently evil people who tell their grandparents to “just go to the library and open up an e-mail account – it’s free and so simple.