This Book is Overdue: how librarians and cybrarians can save us all/Library: an unquiet history

Battles' Unquiet began with a 2000 Harper's article ("Lost in the Stacks: the Decline and Fall of the Universal Library") while Overdue was inspired, according to Johnson, by her prior work on obituaries ("the most engaging obit subjects were librarians" (p. 5) which inspired in her the idea that "libraries were where it was happening-wide open territory for innovators, activists and pioneers." [...]the librarians (and others) primarily responsible for the "democratization" of the research branch of the New York Public Library are lauded for their foresight and technological savvy, yet much of that chapter is devoted to describing the downsizing of the research function of the library, its special collection, and the host of special relationships created by that unique mixture of collections, librarians and users.