People think librarians like cats, cardigans, books and Colin Firth in a wet T-shirt. This may not be true for some people, but it is for me. Does this make me the stereotypical librarian? The past few days have made me start pondering how librarians define themselves, and how people outside the profession view us.
Honestly, before talking to professors and students, I thought it was a fact universally acknowledged that librarians love to read books. I was wrong. There are numerous people in the program who do not love reading.
Librarians don’t only express themselves through books, but by helping communities and advocating for intellectual freedom (one of my favorite concepts now). These people have an appreciation for information and promote unlimited access for it to patrons.
Every profession has stereotypes it must handle, and we are no exception. How we deal with these preconceived is what’s important in the future.
P.S. Literary tattoos are becoming more popular in the media. Here is a website that showcases some nifty quotes from famous poems and books. Who knows, maybe this will be the new stereotype for us: Librarians have literary tattoos! Or QR code tattoos!
http://www.contrariwise.org/
1 comment:
I love Colin Firth in a wet t-shirt too! And books. And when Prof Lankes was talking about the e-book version of Pride and Prejudice with the links and things that could be available all I could think was, "well if they put a link to Colin Firth in there, I think a lot of women could get on board with that idea."
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