My apologies for not being hurry-hurry with my next installment of the Flash series but yours truly is occupied with a full blown job search. That said, I think I have an a promising lead. Off in the far away land of Independence, Iowa a woman was recently arrested for not returning a library book. That’s right! She wasn‘t reported to a collections agency. She was flat-out arrested. Seeing as the city of Independence will no doubt be out of a Library Director – or more than likely a fall guy librarian – I propose that they select me as the next replacement.

I promise! I won’t arrest anyone for keeping inspirational books about a teacher’s quest to inspire students to write. Suddenly e-books sound a little more promising than usual.

On my way to work this morning I caught a section of the Diane Rehm Show discussing libraries and economic hard times. I didn’t have time to listen to it all, and can’t download the podcast until the cable company fixes my internet, but the link is available online. At it’s heart the topic is really interesting… are libraries more important than usual during economic downturns? Given that I don’t plan on buying any new CD’s (or books) soon I’m inclined to say, “yes.”

Segment Replay:

• Libraries and the Economy (Media Player)

• Libraries and the Economy (Real Player)