Newsletter (July 2007)
J U L Y 2 0 0 7
Librarian Trivia
Did you know that the “Alice” in Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Restaurant” was a librarian? Yes, it’s true. An article in the June 15, 2007 Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA) newspaper about singer Rick Robbins, reports that “Arlo Guthrie…befriended Robbins at the Stock-bridge School in the early ‘60s where the librarian was a woman named Alice Brock, who became the protagonist of Arlo’s anti-war anthem, ‘Alice’s Restaurant.’”
Breaking the Stereotype
If you hate the stereotypical image of librarians, then find a way to help burst it. That’s what a group of librarians in Edinburgh is doing. Staff from the National Library of Scotland are using their brawn as well as their brains to shatter the librarian stereotype as they compete in football tournaments. The May 30, 2007 edition of The Evening News (Edinburg, UK) quotes the football team’s manager as saying, “This tournament is a chance for us all to...show that librarians have more to their game than alphabetical order and cardigans.”
Another librarian from the United Kingdom is on an adventure most people would consider unlikely in their conception of librarians. But British librarian Stuart Hamilton, and his friend Dave Toolan are literally walking across the United States. You can follow their trek across the country at www.walkingthestates.com.
The Stereotypical Male Librarian
While we’re talking about stereotypes, we all know the stereotypical image of the female librarian being a frumpy matronly woman with glasses and her hair up in a bun. But what’s the stereotypical male librarian?
For answers to this question, be sure to check out the feature article in Issue #3 (2007) of Feliciter, the journal of the Canadian Library Association. In the article, “Keeping Up Appearances: Looking Like a Librarian in an Age of Paranoia,” Guy Robertson tells about his experience of being questioned by a Customs officer at the airport about his planned activities in the United States. The article states the Customs officer told him “You tell me you’re a librarian. You don’t look like a librarian. No, you don’t. I’m refusing you entry to the United States.”
This experience leads Mr. Robertson to question what a male librarian should look like. Librarians and library technician from across Canada provided him with answers. Amusingly, the appearance factors range from broken glasses with masking tape wrapped over the break, an ugly tie with soup stains, worn out loafers or other shoes with one shoelace untied, or white gym socks and sandals during warm weather. Other characteristics included carrying a huge bag of books when traveling, to looking like a scared cat and speaking very quietly. Sadly, the male librarian stereotype is a dorky, poorly attired man, not much better than the female stereotype.
Retired Librarian Pens 112th Book
Yes, you read that right! According to the Redlands Daily Facts (June 15, 2007) Michael Burgess, the retired Head of Collection Development at the Pfau Library at California State University San Bernardino has written one hundred and twelve books, with his most recent book to be available in September! Where does he find the time?
He writes under the pen name of Robert Reginald. You can find out more information about him at www.millefleurs.tv.
Librarians in Animation
I haven’t seen this, but Mike Thaler’s children’s book (grades K – 3) The Librarian From the Black Lagoon has been made into an animated film. To learn more about the film, and to view a trailer, visit www.librarianfilm.com.
For a funny little animated film with a silly librarian character, there’s also Magnumrush! (www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gu8KfZiBHM). This little detective comedy was made as part of the 2007 48-Hour Film Fest in Chicago.
Another animated film you may want to check out on YouTube simply for some amusement is an episode from Dexter’s Lab, in which Dexter finds out how difficult it is to serve as the head of a library. You can view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqJFTIjIdUA.
New Book About a Glamorous Librarian
“When Belle da Costa Green died in 1950, she was hailed as perhaps the country’s best-known library director, a gutsy woman of mysterious origins.” This sentence appeared in Sam Robert’s column in the June 24, 2007 New York Times and it definitely sparked my interest. Described as a glamorous woman, Da Costa Green was the director of the J. Pierpont Morgan Library in Manhattan and a confidante of Morgan. The daughter of the first African-American man to graduate from Harvard, her life is chronicled in a new biography An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege written by Heidi Ardizzone (Norton, 2007).
I’ll have to add this to my summer reading list!
Do Librarians Need Etiquette???
The first posting (2005) on the “ALibrarian’s Guide to Etiquette: A Polite Librarian is a Good Librarian” blog (http://libetiquette.blogspot.com/) reads “Librarians are strange people. There’s no exception to this rule. Many are unknowingly awkward, dirty, unsocialized, and rude. The Guide is meant to be a reference source for those poor souls who walk among us.”
Many of the postings on the blog are in jest. And of course, everyone should have proper etiquette. But I still must take offense to the statement about many librarians being unknowingly awkward, dirty, unsocialized, and rude. I’ve never known a dirty, or rude librarian, and less than a handful of librarians who I would consider slightly awkward or unsocialized at times. Am I alone, or am I being overly defensive of the profession?
Why the Monthly Emails?
A new email subscriber asked me why I have the website and the monthly emails. Primarily I had the website created to promote my book Casanova Was a Librarian: A Light-Hearted Look at the Profession. The reason for the monthly emails is a different story.
When I submitted my final manuscript for the book to my publisher last June, I knew a year or so might pass before I would actually see the book in print. But after submitting my final manuscript, I kept finding interesting librarian related information I would have liked to include in the book. Wanting the future purchasers of my book to feel like they had the most current information, I decided I would start sending out my monthly librarian fun emails to share the most recent librarian related information I discovered until my book was in print.
My book is now in print. But surprising things have happened over the past nine months. From the very start of my monthly emails in November 2006, I found a very supportive base of Australian subscribers, for which I am grateful. (I never imagined international interest in my book.). I discovered that a lot of the librarian-related information that I find of interest, is actually of interest to others. And as a librarian in the later stage of her career, my ongoing look at today’s librarians has renewed my interest in the profession, something that had waned in years past.
I’m not aiming to be a recognized source of librarian humor, or information on the image of librarians, or anything of that nature. There are already wonderful established sources for this information, like the Warrior Librarian website (www.warriorlibrarian.com) run by Amanda Credaro, and the Librarian Image website (www.librarian-image.net) run by Ruth Kneale. I continue to send out my monthly “librarian fun” emails simply because as a librarian, I just want to share some of the entertaining information I uncover with library users, staff, and other subscribers to my monthly emails. And we all need something fun in our inbox every now and then. (Of course, I still do hope some of my subscribers will consider buying my book!)
Where’s the Fun?
Okay, I promised you some monthly fun. So, I have a new quiz posted on my website (http://www.casanovawasalibrarian.com/quiz.htm). If you need a little push to click on the quiz link, below is a quiz question to wet your appetite.
Question:
Which if the following is not to be found in the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php)?
- Watson libbers Library Joke (audio file)
- Some Old Egyptian Librarians, by Ernest C. Richardson (1911) (full text of the book)
- A Librarian in Time (feature film)
- Youth Services Librarian Cheer (audio file)
- The Librarian (1947) (vocational film)
Want more quiz fun? Click http://www.casanovawasalibrarian.com/quiz.htm
Book Cart Drill Team Winners
For all you competitive sports fans, if you haven’t heard yet, the winners of the Third Annual Bookcart Drill Team World Championships held at the ALA Annual Conference are:
First Place The Book Divas (Houston)
Second Place The Gettysburg Funky Shelf
Third Place Delaware Diamonds
The Christian Science Monitor (June 27, 2007) did a wonderful article on the event. Check it out for more details.
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For More Information About Librarians…
Be sure to purchase a copy of my new book, Casanova Was a Librarian: A Light Hearted Look at the Profession available from McFarland (www.mcfarlandpub.com), Amazon.com, and other retailers.
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Congratulations to Claire Nield, this month’s Librarian Fun winner. Thanks for reading along with me!
Send an email to Casanovawasalibrarian@hotmail.com with “Librarian fun” in the subject line and you'll receive interesting librarian related information in your email inbox once a month.
