This is what I dreamed last night.
I was on a web development competition team with Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and a few other men. I was the only woman and the only librarian. Google doesn’t hire many librarians, it’s a cultural thing. And many traditional library schools have taken “library” out of their names to up the job prospects of their graduates in the tech market. At U of M, they call themselves the School of Information.
In any case, we were in a competition to build the next great web app. And those lousy, rotten Old Boys Network mansplaining jerks decided I wasn’t good enough for their team. Part of it was that I was a woman, part of it was that I was a librarian. They kicked me off. I got mad, and then I got even.
I decided to hack into their app and over-write it with my own creation. They tried to lock me out but ah-hah! I was too smart for them. I got in, and locked them out instead. Desperately, they worked to regain control of the server where I was deleting their work. They tried to track me down and the chase was on. With only my trusty laptop, I stayed one step ahead of my old team. I coded the new app in my car, driving to a different parking lot every half hour as they would geo-locate me and hone in.
The competition had multiple teams and a deadline. We were going to be judged. It was going to be public. It was going to be huge. Despite their best and frantic efforts, they couldn’t boot me out of the system, didn’t know what I was concocting, and they were terrified. I owned them.
Finally, my app was complete and the unveiling began. I had improved on Amazon. I had created a version of Amazon that, when searched for books, displayed your local library’s holdings on the right hand side of the screen in a clear and easy to use box that allowed you to check out your desired title and have it shipped to you from the library, or, if it was checked out, to place a hold with one click. The ability to buy the book from Amazon was still in the middle of the screen. You had your choice. I won the popular competition hands-down.
Obviously, I am not the first person to have this idea. We’ve actually been trying to do something similar on the web at work for years. The difference, of course, is that in this self-aggrandizing bit of fantasy, I actually accomplished it while being hunted by Jeff himself.
When librarians fantasize, when we play the hero in our own storytelling, this is what we dream about. We rock it for the betterment of patrons.
Plum Librarian LLC 