Librarians on Wheels

I know, when you normally think of librarians on wheels you think of those old boxy bookmobiles rambling around on county roads, delivering books to patrons in areas not fortunate enough to have a real standing library. But that's not what I'm talking about. Instead, I'm talking about roller derby librarians, who smash ribs and stereotypes at the same time.

Meghan Gaynor, that's her in the front in the red, is actually hanging up her skates. Apparently, being a roller derby queen (and yes, Jim Croce is playing in my head right about now) is not a sport that one normally plays later in life. Like beer pong, it's an activity best enjoyed by those of the younger set.

But then this got me to thinking. We used to have carhops back in the day, where the waiter or waitress would bring your food out to you in your car while on skates. Why can't we adopt that business model (since libraries nowadays will accept anything from the business model) and just put skates on our librarians? It should please administrators as we would be able to get a book off the shelf just that much faster. Laid off half the staff? No problem, just throw them on some skates and they can zoom around the library and all your patron service problems arising from decimated funding will vanish almost as magically as your book budget did.

There could be one downfall though. I can only imagine the endless committee meetings about what type of skate would be allowed. One side arguing for old school, another for in-line. One side arguing that we must preserve our cultural traditions, the other arguing about the need to embrace new technology. And in the end, the patron just wants to know where the section is for 796.21.