Personality Plus

There’s more than one librarian who performs stand-up comedy (it’s me and one other person) but due to fear from the library she worked at over free press and library promotion, she was “let go”.  Libraries could use a little fun, and they could especially use some decent advertising.  Jobs are being cut, funding is being slashed and libraries are being accused of becoming obsolete.  So they should be taking what they can get in the realm of positive PR.  Instead, libraries insist on personality-less librarians whose anonymity is somehow connected with keeping library users’ information private.

One of the biggest downfalls of public librarians is in their staunch approach to remaining anonymous while providing very personal services to people.  From finding the next book to read, to looking up information on health issues and legal matters, the people who patronize the library often have to open up to a librarian about their personal lives in order to find the materials that they need.  From the point of view of a librarian, remaining anonymous keeps the library services consistent and keeps people who have personal questions from embarrassment.  Legally, every library user’s information is kept unidentified and their searching and borrowing histories are cleared systematically.  So there should be general concern for privacy, but does there really need to be anonymity on both sides of the reference desk?

Imagine your favorite coffee shop or bar, isn’t part of the appeal the people who work there?  And you probably have a favorite bartender or barista who you hope will be working when you stop in.  Personal relationships between people are important, especially at the places outside of our homes that we choose to spend time.  We want to feel welcome and comfortable.  Shouldn’t a library feel the same way?  We should be able to get know the librarians who help us find interesting things to read, who help us use databases and perform research, and who are behind the desk when we walk into the library. 

In all reality, librarians need to lighten up in order to shirk the image of the crusty, hermit crabby lady who sits behind a large stack of books muttering about the demise of the card catalog.  Libraries need to be more than books, information, and a physical building.  They need to be a place that people want to go, a place to spend time, a place with personality.  That’s what informs almost every decision we make about where we want to go outside of our homes.  There are enough painfully boring and inanely infuriating trips to public agencies that we have to make, the library is not and should not be one of them.  It’s a choice to patronize the library (that’s why we call people who use library services, patrons), and it should be a fun, inspirational, or at the very least - enjoyable experience.

 

Personality in government means a lot.  It means giving a face to a name, and it means making connections with people.  Librarians with personality give the entire library a better reputation.  Librarians who talk about the library outside of work are some of the best advertising the library has.  Libraries need people who are fun, outgoing, and engaging to greet and welcome people into the free public space that we all pay into.  What libraries don’t need are more rules, policies, and procedures that often boil down to fear of progression and change.  People need stimulation, knowledge, and human contact.  Libraries have those things, but people need to know that.  Personality is not just a plus, it is a must have for any business to survive.  Libraries that want to survive need this as well.

So let’s stop telling people what they can’t do in libraries, and let’s stop stifling librarians’ personalities and ideas.  Professionalism can encompass knowledge and respect while still allowing people to be people.  And that’s really all anyone wants.

Sexy Old Librarians

Boring, old, visually impaired, socially inept bookworms usually turn into librarians.  So do sexy, vintage, cat-eye-glasses-wearing, brunettes (never blondes unless they are made out of plastic).  We either need to sex it up ourselves or people will do it for us in Photoshop.  American librarians have been plagued with image problems since the creation of public libraries in the nineteenth century.  Originally, librarianship was championed as an ideal profession for women by none other than the infamous Melvil Dewey (of the Dewey Decimal System that we've all come to not really know or love).

Dewey thought that women would be great for the job because, being women in the nineteenth century, they would put up with a lot more shit than men, plus they would love sitting for long periods of time using his racist cataloging system (there have been some improvements to this, but it's still pretty pro-Western, White, Christian). He was also known to fondle and grope his female students; so it's no wonder that maybe some of the backlash from this was that women wanted to be taken seriously and not seen as sex objects.

Dewey is a creep

It's also amazing that so many women were able to elicit change in a profession and society that were designed to "keep them out of trouble" (old Dewey again).  In 1893, less than twenty years after the founding of public libraries and  librarianship in America, the World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago and featured a Women's Building that showcased a library of women's literature and  was staffed by female librarians (handpicked by Dewey - gross, but still cool that they were able to exhibit women's literary achievements and history at a time when this wasn't widely viewed as relevant).

By the 1920s female librarians were seen as progressive, and picked up steam again in the 1970s when civil rights movements had taken shape and equal opportunity employment and pay were at stake.  In 1969 a group of female librarians petitioned to form the Social Responsibilities Round Table Task Force (SRRT) on the Status of Women in Librarianship at the American Library Association.  These women were not taken seriously until a few years later, when they finally rounded up enough disenchanted female librarians who reported dissatisfaction and disgust with discrimination and sexism within the ALA and librarianship. 

Today, librarianship is not just for women (and hasn’t been since it began), although the stereotype persists.  Media outlets and pop culture in general continue to tout women librarians as either sexy or old (although Nancy Perl continues to be awesome despite what toy makers have deemed her action figure super powers to be).  While male librarians tend to be completely forgotten in general society (women still make up 82% of professional librarians).  There is one documented sexy old guy who was a librarian:  “Cassanova the famous 18th-century lothario ended his life as a librarian. Librarians could use that to sex up their image” (The Know-It-All).  See? That should make male librarians feel good about their own stereotypes.

So while the typecast persists, librarians press onward, bringing books, DVDs, and tattoos to the public every day (except Sundays at some libraries) for free. How’s that for sexy?

What to read when there’s nothing to read (and there's nothing to watch on TV)

On a recent trip to San Francisco, my boyfriend and I stopped into a well-known independent bookshop and asked for some book advice. I wanted to find a book for my mom, so I asked the book clerk what he could recommend as a good story that focused on relationships between a mothers and adult children. He told me that he didn’t have any ideas because he wouldn’t normally read anything of that genre but wished me luck on the search. Thanks, sir.

After returning home from our trip I went to my local library branch and asked a librarian the same question. Instead of telling me that the type of novel I was looking for wasn’t a favorite genre of hers, the librarian asked me further questions to narrow the search and find a book that would be a good fit. I ended up with She is Me, a book that I would never have found without asking the right questions because the cover was sort of teenage-angst meets Sophie Kinsella. And I would never have asked those questions had someone not taken me through the process of reader’s advisory.

Looking for a new book to read when you aren’t sure what you feel like is more daunting than finding something to watch on TV, Netflix, or the internet because it’s a huge investment of time. And if the book you end up reading is lame, then it becomes a chore to read, and you're back to looking for something on YouTube to fill the void. It's a vicious cycle, but one that can be remedied with a little TLC, tender library care (librarians are also very good at alliteration).


                         
 
The Reader's Advisory interview is a way for a librarian to connect with the library user on a personal level in order to find the right book. Through asking the reader what he or she liked or didn't like about a book, a librarian can read the users' mind... almost. This is much less less frustrating than using Amazon to rank books because if the title that is recommended to you obviously sucks, you can yell at someone in person - especially if the book is for your child. It's every librarian's dream.

Reader's Advisory is important not just because the most virtuous thing someone can do is to help another person find a book, but because reading makes everyone better - even reading the entire box set of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books (the best week of my life). Librarians love to read - I feel appropriate making this across-the-board statement because it would be weird if they didn't - unless they work in the tech department, but then who cares. But seriously, librarians are here to encourage people to enjoy reading. We want it to be fun, just ask! Or we'll come find you wandering around aimlessly in the reference section - c'mon, no one likes it over there.

So the next time you're wondering what to read after The Women's Room and goodreads tells you that you'll like the Shopaholic's series, head over to your local library and ask someone who gives a shit.

Ladies in Libraries

I recently read A Strange Stirring by Stephanie Coontz, a book that breaks down Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique, and describes the clash of cultures between working and non-working women in the 1950s and early 1960s.  She describes the feelings of inferiority and lack of completeness that middle class homemakers felt at the time that The Feminine Mystique was published.  As someone who has never known a world where we are expected not to join the workforce and actively kept out of it, I was surprised at how relevant I found Coontz’s summary of the infamous book. 

As a woman who is studying and a part of a profession that is predominantly made up of, and led by women, I am proud to be a woman who works.  But I know that this is still not the case for women in many fields today.   In archiving the history of my local library, the North Hollywood Regional Branch, I was struck by the fact that when the branch opened in 1929, it was operated completely by women.   In looking further into the history of librarians in Los Angeles, many of the City Librarians have been women, dating as far back as 1880.  But they too have struggled in a society that was dominated by men, especially those men who served on the library board. 

From 1947 – 1990 there were 2 City Librarians in Los Angeles and both were male.  This was during the time that Friedan was speaking to educated middle-class homemakers.  Women who had the intellectual training and ability to be a vital part of the workforce were told that they should not want to join the ranks of the professional class.  Many of these were the same women who had been productive in the workforce during World War II, furthering the blow to these women’s egos and sense of self.  Meanwhile, millions of women at this time needed to work out of economic necessity, furthering the divide between working women and wives and stay-at-home wives.

It was during this time, from the late 1950s throughout the 1960s, often called the public library’s “golden era” due to increased federal funding for public services that the library prospered.  The increased demand for librarians brought many professional women back into a workforce that has historically been female led, as well as female-friendly to those the library served.  The public library has traditionally been a safe space for un-biased learning.  In an era when a woman’s education about the world most certainly ended after high school, or college for some, it was a space for continued enlightenment.

The public library continues that tradition today.  It is a place to seek answers to questions without shame or embarrassment.  It is a place for facts in a world where women’s choices are often relegated based on fear.  It is a cultural place in neighborhoods and communities where women who are full-time mothers deserve to spend time with their children during the day.  It is a space for book discussions and for activism with neighbors and friends.  In my experience, I have witnessed the public library as a place for all women, whether behind the reference desk or standing in front of it, to further literacy and intellect regardless of working status.