Or Ellie Hasn’t Actually Read the Classic, But She’ll Still Act Smart for Borrowing Elements from It
Not too long ago, I was skimming the GameRT Discord when I saw a message. Since I’m not sure of the sharing policy for screenshots, I’ll only share a description and the poster’s message. It was a screenshot of a Reddit post showing a copy of Kingdom Come: Deliverance for the Xbox and the Redditor learning that day that their library had games for borrowing. The GameRT poster said:
Once again a random Reddit post does a better job at promoting what libraries do better than libraries.
Praising Reddit aside, if that didn’t condense the crisis I’ve been experiencing lately in a single passive-aggressive statement, I don’t know what else would.
My crisis goes deep, but not deep enough that I want to quit the MLIS program. If the professors haven’t been telling us that we can go beyond libraries with our degrees, I would have given up all hope and tried my luck with livestreaming as a career. More on that later. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d almost say with certainty that our professors are quietly warning us about the struggles and dangers the field is facing—if we don’t steel ourselves, we’re better off taking our ideas and work elsewhere.
I replied to the OP, which started a short but much needed venting session. Librarians, for all their knowledge and desire to branch out, are stubborn as hell. Constantly scrimping for extra funds from the usual sources, performing tasks in-house when outsourcing may save time, overlooking opportunities for external support… all on top of being bullied by helicopter parents and threatened to be jailed by politicians… while ignoring many of the troubles that probably keep them in cycles of scarcity and struggle.
In this little world, I’m taking a creative approach in addressing these matters.
“Oh, Ellie, are you’re tapping into your inner furry?” you say accusingly. Sure, if that makes you feel superior, go on ahead and believe that. I’m going by the MST3K principle: robot puppets can say outlandish things with impunity in ways human hosts never can. Plus, there’s a lot more to play with when you have an animal cast. I like the idea of a pig and bull in higher management who refuse to listen to some programming ideas.
If a skunk of a librarian wants to spray me for saying the quiet parts out loud, let ’em. Maybe then the birds will start squawking about how the rot’s coming from inside the barn and not from the shadows beyond the field.