The librarian stereotype, if you are not familiar with it, is the bun-wearing, bespectacled, sharp-edged shushing spinster, the woman Donna Reid’s character in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life would have been had she not married Jimmy Stewart’s George. There has been much backlash within my profession, most markedly in recent years, against this stereotype (see particularly The Hollywood Librarian and You Don’t Look Like a Librarian). While I applaud these efforts, I sometimes think there is a jagged edge of self hatred hiding in this discourse, mixed with generous portions each of anxiety and self-congratulation: we seek to distance ourselves so much from the stereotype that we go around boasting about how we love noise in the library, how we hate the smell of old books, and, goodness, we would never own a cat or wear glasses. See, look, we have tattoos. We like to make music videos.
Do read further! I still think it'll only help patrons find me if I continue to pull my hair back and wear my glasses. Really, it's the glasses. Also name tags might work...
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