Dumpling in a Hanky

I am, as you may know, a member of CILIP, the professional body for information professionals. There are two main reasons I'm a member. I am a Chartered librarian, and I take my commitment to maintaining this visible badge of my professionalism seriously. I have revalidated my Chartership within the previous assessment system, and I have submitted my Revalidation within the new system. To continue being a Chartered librarian, I must be a member of CILIP (although currently the commitment to continue to revalidate my Chartership is voluntary, and has been so for the length of my membership since approximately 2001). So I continue to be a member. I am a registered CILIP Mentor, and I help to guide those information professionals who are keen to be professionally qualified through the Chartership/professional qualifications process. I could not abandon midway through that process the people who are looking to me for guidance in their professional development. So I continue to be...

There's been all sorts of publicity about Wikipedia since it first appeared, and opinion among the librarians I know has swung from "that's potentially useful" to "that's a bit dodgy, I don't think I can trust it", and finally on to "that's a good start for finding information on all sorts of stuff, but I need to be aware of its shortcomings". So, I know Wikipedia's handy, and I know I have to be wary of certain stuff (it's notorious for being maliciously edited on pages covering contentious topics, and amusingly Wikipedia has a page on malicious edits/vandalism on Wikipedia ), but I don't know how to look into the workings of it and assess it properly. I know the editors are volunteers, but how do they become volunteers, and how exactly do they edit pages? And what are the systems in place to stop or flag up unreliable edits? If I'm going to explain to my service users why they should or shouldn't rely on a Wikipe...

Who would have thought that Eminem secretly yearned to be a librarian? Is the life of a rap star not exciting enough for him, that he wants a career change to a more cerebral calling? In fact, it seems that he not only wants to be a librarian, but he wants to be the BEST librarian, as the lyrics of his recent song with Rihanna show: At 1.36, he proudly declares: "but it was confusing 'cause all I wanted to do is be the Bruce Lee of loose leaf." Bit odd, really, seeing as most librarians loathe looseleafing with a passion, but to each their own, I s'pose...