SemiConscious Dot Org

In 2006, librarianship was a Hot Job.

In 2007, it was “hip.”

Now, in 2008, librarianship is a Best Career.

Oh, joy.

Yeah, that’s just what the profession needs. All across the country, library budgets are being slashed and positions eliminated, patron traffic and reference usage plummet, and the general perception of the public library as an obsolete institution spreads ever farther. So by all means, let’s convince more people to take out tens of thousands of dollars each in student loans to pursue a pathetic joke of a “degree” that amounts to little more than a glorified union card. More people to drive up competition and drive down wages for the ever-dwindling pool of jobs in the field…a field which doesn’t pay for shit to begin with.

But that’s not even the worst of it. The worst part is that, somehow, you just know that anyone attracted to librarianship because they read about it in a “Hot Jobs” list will be a natural recruit for The Library 2.0 Cult. There will be more Hipster Librarian dingbats around to drive everyone batty with endless, pointless debate over the “meaning” of a vague, awkward marketing term that means absolutely nothing whatsoever. Eventually, the debate will get so insular and self-referential and “meta” that it will create a Black Hole of Stupidity and disappear up its own ass.

Sort of like this post.

Those of you with no frame of reference to the exceedingly closed circle of the library blog world, who have never heard of “Library 2.0” and have no fucking clue what I’m talking about, should consider yourselves lucky.