Last week I criticized a lazy journalist for doing what lazy journalists do: write about stuff they know nothing about. In his case, he knew nothing about libraries, but wrote with the assurance of an expert. That’s why he ended up sounding stupid, with his talk of bun-wearing shushers and dark-framed glasses.
A media image problem for librarians is that people who write for news organizations apparently never use public libraries. Their knowledge of librarians is based entirely on old movies with librarian characters written by screenwriters whose knowledge of librarians was also based entirely on older movies with librarians characters.
The only movie librarian written by someone who knew about librarians was Carole Lombard in No Man of Her Own, who is pretty and slightly odd and described as being “a bit of a handful,” but somehow that type didn’t catch on.
So it goes. Most people who stereotype librarians don’t know anything about librarians and don’t use libraries. But on occasion, someone gets it right.
For example, a letter to Washington Post last week had nothing to do with librarians, but the writer’s daughter had obviously visited a library or two in her time.
In a discussion of medicine ruled by assistants aided by computers rather than doctors, the person wrote, “As my perceptive daughter said to her new doctor, who sat typing into a laptop instead of looking at her and listening to her, ‘Are you a doctor or a librarian?’”
That one hits a bit close to home, I bet. Right now, at just about every reference desk in every library in the country, a librarian or someone who the public probably thinks is a librarian is staring at a computer screen and ignoring the surrounding library patrons.
Their eyes might be temporarily redirected in the direction of patrons asking questions before they dash back to the computer screen to look for the answers to those questions.
My stereotype librarian is a pleasantly plump, middle aged white woman who really likes to help people and can’t understand why more people don’t want her help. Is there someone like that on your staff, or is it just the librarians I’ve known over the years.
I’ll leave the question for all the readers who work in libraries and thus know what real librarians are like. What are the REAL librarian stereotypes?