If your typical image of a librarian looks like the photo above, prepare yourself as your world is about to be rewritten as I debunk the traditional image of librarians. All librarians are alike.I know, when you think of librarians, the mind conjures up an image of an elderly woman with a tight bun, thick rimmed glasses and a stare that forces people into silence submission. Trust me, we're not all like that. Librarians can be a little quirky, it is nature of the profession, we're "Jack-of-all-trades, master of none" type of people with interests dotting over the entire spectrum of knowledge. I recently attended a state-wide conference for librarians (North Carolina Library Association Biannual Conference) and believe me, we are a varied and diverse population of people. Librarians are just in it for the books.Yes, librarians are usually bookish, but we're in it for more than just books. Being a librarian is a customer service type of career -- we're in it for the people and connecting people to information. It is very rare to find a non-people person working in a public or academic library -- if you do, go find another librarian so I can keep my point. We're a service driven industry dealing in information and that extends beyond print books...just saying. Librarians just sit around all day, reading.Yes, you have probably witnessed a librarian reading at the front desk -- I can almost guarantee you that we're looking at something that just came in and we're flipping through it to see what it is about. We're naturally curious people! The majority of librarians out there are very active people -- we're up helping people find something, we're reshelving material, we're tidying up (seriously people, push in the chair after you leave, it is kindergarten 101), we're checking book drops throughout the day, we're fixing printers, we're helping with technical problems, we're watering plants...you get the picture. It is a very active job. Now, I'll admit some library positions do require a lot of sitting like if you're a director, there is a lot of doing budgets and statistics in the back but the majority of the profession is on your feet. We'll be unemployed in the next ten years due to the death of print mediaFirst, I would like to point out that librarians have been around since ancient civilizations such as the Library at Alexandria in ancient Egypt and we've survived through countless changes throughout history. The coming of the internet and its coinciding components such the rise of the e-reader and tablets, will not eliminate the profession of librarianship. Actually, it has enlarged the prospects of libraries and librarians as we are no longer a single brick-and-mortar institution, we have online tools and collections to assist remote users in addition to local users. The new technology has caused us to change our services and focus, but it is not the death of librarianship, it will take far more to kill the Library and Information Science/Studies profession. We're all cat people, with an outrageous amount of cats at homeSeriously, we're not all cat people. I currently work with five people and three of us have dogs, some in addition to have cats. We're not all crazy cat ladies and men. I will admit that some of us do have a plethora of cats but that is a personal choice, not one tied to the profession.
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AuthorA public and academic librarian shares her views, thoughts, and tales of being a budding librarian in the 21st century Archives
November 2017
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