About Me
The aim of the SurRural Librarian is to revolutionize the small Rural Library experience, including personal, cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing library users from what is seen as false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures.*
I’m Pam Burke, the librarian at the Marlboro School, a small, public k-8 school in rural Vermont.
Like many solo-librarians, along with promoting the love of reading, I teach computer skills, library skills, info lit. I do all the computer support in the school - classrooms and faculty - maintain the network, upgrade everything as well as collection development, cataloging, shelving, plant watering, what ever comes up, work on the website. Then I sleep.
I’ve also been a librarian in a couple of tiny colleges and one large University. That was fun, but not nearly as fun as all this. Though blogging librarians are all over the place, I started this blog because I don’t hear enough voices of rural school librarians. I think those of us who work closely with small populations and in demanding jack-of-all-trades positions have much to say, but rarely the time to say it.
I tend to write about internet technologies, children’s literature, rural & school libraries, fair use, and whatever else seems relevant on any given day.
My aim is to approach daily tasks and issues with an eye toward simplification, common sense, and rejection of library norms that don’t promote my vision of Library as Happy Place for All.
Thanks for reading.
*All credit due to Wikipedia and Tom Waits