The Accidental Systems Librarian, 2nd ed.
Gordon, Rachel S. .
Medford, N.J: Information Today, 2012
Companion website

This is a straightforward little book: an overview and breakdown of the skills that fall under the “systems librarian” title, with a variety of anecdotes about what the work looks like in various institutions. and lots of additional resources.

It generated a bit of buzz when it came out, and there were a lot of reviews – mostly by well-established names in the library tech world, people who (may have started out that way but by now) are in no way whatsoever “accidental.” I wasn’t sure when I started how technical – or how self-referential – it would be; I was pleasantly surprised. It’s entirely readable, accessible, well-organized, and relevant; and effectively describes the key commonalities and differences between a wide variety of roles that fall under the systems umbrella without straying into excessive anecdata.

What struck me most about it – as a dead-on target audience reader, a tech services paralibrarian in the very early stages of strategising a move into systems work – was how much I already knew. I don’t mean this in a dismissive way, but rather in an inspiring, validating way; it was like reading The Five Love Languages and Parenting With Love and Logic, when my kids were already tweens, and finding that there was a language and a rational underpinning for the thing I’d been striving for all those years, wondering if what made sense to me made sense to anyone else. It does. This book, more than anything else, reassured me that I’m on the right track.

I recommend two readings: the first for the overview and the second for notetaking, because there will be lots and lots of notetaking. And subsequent linkhopping. And RSS subscribing. Plan to spend many more hours on followup material than on the book itself. I haven’t begun the second read yet; I have a very, very busy month coming up and I’m currently working through Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability. Sometime in September, I’ll pick up Accidental Systems Librarian again, and share my annotations here.