One of the other librarians emailed this morning asking if the rest of us had gotten an email from an outfit called Librar Labs.
We hadn't, but I looked them up. And yeah, this whole webpage can fuck off:
How can it fuck off specifically? Let us count the ways:
Oh, shut up. Even calling yourself "AI for Librarians" doesn't change the fact that you are CLEARLY gunning for our jobs. This thing is selling itself as a way to replace librarians with $15 an hour parapros.
1. Oh? And where is all this data going? Who are you going to sell it to? Because Moms for Liberty would LOVE to get its hands on this fucking info.
2. "Ready for action"? Who processed all those books, jackass? And why do you think cataloging is somehow the time- or labor-intensive half of "process and catalog"? Because I promise you it is not.
1. Books get cataloged before they go on the shelf. Otherwise the system doesn't recognize them at checkout and they have to be briefed while the patron stands there awkwardly. Since I'm in a high school, this often means the student is late to class while I hold them up, which means I have to write a pass, which is more work for me. BOOKS GET CATALOGED BEFORE THEY GO ON THE SHELF.
2. I can spot misplaced items already. I have eyes. So do my students.
3. Why would I want to run inventory without touching the books? How do you think I find the ones with shelf wear, bug damage, or rolled spines? By definition, those are the ones I WON'T catch when they come through circulation. They don't come through circulation! That's why they have shelf wear, bug damage, and rolled spines!
1. The "struggle" is money, fyi.
2. Libraries are SUPPOSED to be run by teachers. That's what a school librarian is. A school librarian is a CERTIFIED TEACHER who also has an MLIS. They are not paid extra for that MLIS, by the way. If a teacher is running your library, they cost the same with or without that MLIS.
3. "not to need a trained librarian" is saying the quiet part loud here.
I don't memorize commands in the ILS. Our ILS has tooltips and a comprehensive manual for that. Stop making it sound like we manage libraries in a Unix terminal or some shit.
This is absolutely aimed at administrators who don't even set foot in their schools' libraries.
.....*sigh*
1. No. They can't.
2. "Running the entire library" is like five percent cataloging. It is 95 percent communication and relationship-building. "The love of reading, the community and curiosity," as you ghouls noted above.
3. Whose mobile phone? And what permissions does your app help itself to while it's there?
...I have a feeling they had to say "world's" to make the dataset big enough to make this claim un-fact-checkable. Because [citation needed].
I'm sorry, what? Did you just admit your system DOESN'T catalog everything at a glance like you just said it would? Did you just imply that I WILL have to "touch spines" to get books cataloged under our barcode system? How the fuck else would I check them out to students? Do you think I'd just scan the ISBN? What if the item doesn't HAVE an ISBN, or the book has been damaged or the ISBN covered up? What if I have multiple copies of the same item, which have identical ISBNs? Am I just fucked then, or do I have to ADD A FUCKING BARCODE?
Because I DO have multiple identical copies of books. Because this is a HIGH SCHOOL. Where certain books get POPULAR and MULTIPLE KIDS want to check them out and if I DON'T have multiple copies my WAIT LIST gets a MILE LONG and kids forget or give up and then DON'T READ A BOOK. My job is to GET KIDS TO READ BOOKS. You see how not having multiple identical copies sort of UNDERMINES MY JOB.
ALSO, FOR THE RECORD, it sounds like this "snap a photo" approach only works on books with live ISBNs. Yet they're also trying to sell it to academic libraries, which often house (a) books too old to have an ISBN, (b) books encased in buckram the moment they arrive, and (c) both.
I have a high school library. It includes several books put together by student groups, several books that are local history compilations gifted to us from the township, and a wholeass case of former yearbooks. I guarantee this system will not recognize those.
Does it only do books? Because a LOT of K-12 and academic libraries maintain more than books. I have a board game collection that has to be cataloged, for instance. Our elementaries still have a ton of DVDs, which teachers do still use. The local university has microfiche; half the second floor is maps.
WHERE IS THE DATA GOING? This website promises student data security, but it says nothing about what's on shelves. WHERE IS IT GOING? WHO WILL BE ABLE TO BUY OR ACCESS THE DATA ABOUT WHAT'S ON OUR SHELVES? YES THIS FUCKING MATTERS. A LOT. FUCK OFF.
This site also implies you can somehow process books without knowing your cataloging system. You can't. That little tag on the spine that tells you which shelf it goes on and where? THAT IS CATALOGING DATA. YOU CAN'T MAKE THAT LITTLE TAB WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING YOUR LIBRARY'S CATALOGING SYSTEM. WHICH IS A THING YOU LEARN IN LIBRARY SCHOOL.
I hate these people and their app so fucking much. Fuck the whole way off.
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