"In the public psyche, a librarian is a woman of indeterminate age, who wears spectacles; a person with either a timorous disposition or an austere disposition, wearing a long sleeved blouse buttoned to the neck; someone who loves silence, likes books, and suffers people. Librarians don't laugh. They are covered with a thin film of dust. They have pale skins, which, when touched (as if one ever could) might flake and prove to be reptilian scales."
From "Between the Stacks", by Barry Bowes
(London: Landesman, 1979)
From "Between the Stacks", by Barry Bowes
(London: Landesman, 1979)
6 comments:
Hi Jen,
Your post reminded me of an article that was in the New York Times recently:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/fashion/08librarian.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190251811-NMwX9Zh/N/Oto6NPyNyfiQ
The article kind of bugged me, because of all the stereotyping going on. When I was searching for the article, I came across this:
http://annoyedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/07/take-hip-librarians-please.html
Sheesh.
Very interesting quote. I am sure that a slight few of us fall into this description (and we shouldn't demean those who do), yet I am aware that the majority of *new* librarians no longer fit into the category that Bowes describes. We can only hope that movies such as The Hollywood Librarian (http://www.hollywoodlibrarian.com/) will dispell some of the stereotypes that have lingered on longer than librarians with buns have. I like to think that the library world is full of varied personalities and we must be careful not to sway the stereotype in the complete opposite direction towards all librarians being outgoing and crazy lol.
I can't see librarians following this gross stereotype. Society changes and so do the people in it. Part of humanity is adapting to its surroundings: survival of the fittest. I think libraries will fail if they don't adjust to changes in people's lifestyles. The introduction of the internet to the library is one change I remember years ago. It's interesting to see the transformations that are currently happening in some libraries today (as illustrated by your last entry)
It reads like an extract from the library porn genre of fiction. Yes, there is such a genre - a quick search of google will turn up lists of titles - librarians have looked at this and the stereotype has been extensively researched.
Tell me you watched that movie, "the Librarian: Quest for the Spear" that was floating around at Richview a while back. If you didn't, you need to! It was sooo hilarious.
Post a Comment