Author Interview: Scott Douglas
July 30th, 2008A few posts ago, I reviewed Quiet, Please by Scott Douglas. I thought it was great…very funny and engaging. Scott agreed to answer a few of my ridiculous questions and below you can read his excellent answers. So check out my review…and go get a copy of Quiet, Please!
Why write this book? Why did this story need to be told?
People think about librarians and they think lonely women in buns sitting at the reference desk, and occasionally telling a loud child to be quiet. I wrote this book for a lot of reasons, but one reason was I wanted to break the stereotype; I wanted to tell people that the librarian with the bun may still exist in some libraries, but, by and large, the librarian today, and further the library today, is much different.
What are your thoughts on the ongoing battle between Solitare, Free Cell & Minesweeper?
I’m much more into Scrabulous these days; I like to play my wife while I work. I cheat and make her think my vocabulary is much higher then it actually is! When I have no Internet and have to rely on the basic Windows card games, these days I’m a big fan of Spider Solitaire. Minesweeper always required too much thinking and FreeCell hasn’t been the same since I found out the cheat code. (editors note: cheat code?!?!)
You mention in the book that some of the characters are a combination of co-workers or exaggerated. I imagine the people you worked with still know which character they are. Have you have any problems with co-workers due to this book?
Memoirs are truth as the author sees it–there’s no such thing as a memoir without bias; people who know me and have worked with me knew this going in. Everyone whose read it identifies with several people–not just one. Even the people who agreed to be in the book had appearances and characteristics changed. So no one has complained to me. The goal was to write characters that are in all libraries, and judging from the feedback I’ve got so far I’ve accomplished this, because every library has characters like the ones in the book. The only people who seem to have a problem with it is librarians I’ve never met; most librarians have said it’s great, but there’s always going to be one who would have told it different. Librarians come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, and each has different views on what the library is and what the library should be. My view of libraries tends to be a bit more progressive; some of the ideas are a bit shocking and controversial to librarians who want things to stay the same.
Do you think the public library really has a chance to keep up with Starbucks and Borders? Is selling coffee the solution?
I’d like to see libraries co-brand with Starbucks; if a Starbucks opened in a library, I think it would be a huge success! It would be a win-win situation for both, and would give the library some great extra revenue. There’s no reason why libraries should lose business to Borders or Barnes and Noble—our products are free after all! The real challenge is getting the community to know A.) that they exist, and B.) that they have things the bookstore doesn’t have (like free wi-fi, free computers, computer workshops, story times with free crafts, etc…plus it’s just a nice place to meet other people in your community).
What advice can you give to a person who wants to write for a living, but doesn’t have anything to write about, so instead they just read and comment on stuff that other people have written? Theoretically, of course.
Everyone has an interesting story to tell! You just have to ask yourself what’s interesting about me? You could of course take the easy route and get a job at a library–you’d have enough interesting stories to fill an encyclopedia in less than a year!
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July 30th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Maybe you can write a book now that you have “life stories to tell”.
August 20th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I’ll have to get this one – sounds interesting!
You might also be interested in the book Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert – funny, weird, and so true!