I love librarians. That's why I wrote this Ode to Librarians as a tribute to these all-too-often overlooked and underappreciated Guardians of Knowledge.

Who read to you in elementary school? Who helped you master the Dewey Decimal System? Confess, who helped you get countless homework assignments done and done well? Who else introduced you to the beauty of the written word? And who was online doing esoteric searches with a mere text interface years before you? Fess up.

A librarian, that's who. So read my Ode to Librarians.

"And while on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, their powerful political connections or great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media.

The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."

Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007)

An interesting tangent: librarians in porn. Whodda thunk?