Quiet, Please by Scott Douglas
- Title: Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian
- Author: Scott Douglas
- Publisher: Da Capo Press
- Year of Publication: 2008
- Pages: 330
Quiet, Please by Scott Douglas
As a recent graduate of library school, I took offense to most of what Douglas has to say. His stories about working with the mentally disabled, physically disabled, elderly, and teenagers are, for the most part, loathsome. They are loathsome because of his attitude towards, and ignorance of, those groups of people.
If a tag cloud was created using all the words in this book, I’m sure that “hate” and “hatred” would be two of his most used words. How can someone work in a public library that hates so many different kinds of people? How can someone who publishes a book about hating so much still keep a job working with so many different kinds of people?
There were parts of the book where Douglas says something like: “[Being a librarian] is my life, my passion. I look ahead and see the road is long, but the road is bright” (p. 318). He makes these statements after pages upon pages of either complaining about his career choice and making it sound like a job for people beneath him, or telling a story filled with ignorance and arrogance about a patron he did not understand or bother to learn from.
Additionally, Douglas employs footnotes and “pointless interludes to fill your mind with nonsense” (p. 4). This format is gimmicky and a waste of time. The writing is not at all challenging, and the author’s use of the gimmicky format adds to his condescending and pedantic tone of voice. Overall, I found this book infuriating. It gives a very bad representation of librarians in America. (.5/5)
Tags: book review, Library Blogs, public libraries, quotes, Scott Douglas