Hello librarians! Leah here. I wanted to share with you a really rad idea going on over at 8bitlibrary.com! It’s called Project Brand Yourself a Librarian, a concept first launched here
and was initially devised from a series of Twitter conversations between @justinlibrarian and others. I’ll let Justin and his cohort JP describe the project for you themselves in their interview with ALA
So considering branding yourself at ALA Annual in DC! Also check out 8bitlibrary for some fun info on gaming and libraries. You can also follow them on twitter and become their fan on facebook!
Laura Wimberley is a 30 year old reference librarian at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. You can read her blog at Libri & Libertas or follow her on Twitter.
I’m beginning to wonder if we librarians, as a profession, spend too much time worrying how people perceive us.
Yes, I know that the shhhhing bunhead image keeps people away, but the sexy librarian means we’re not taken seriously, yadda yadda yadda. But there were two pop culture moments last week that made me think we might be blowing this out of proportion.
September isn’t just the start of the school year. It’s also (just as importantly for some people) the start of a new television season. And the first episodes of two different shows highlighted how two different comparable professions react to mainstream media depictions of themselves.
These issues of self-presentation and authority in the classroom are important, live concerns for faculty, and are often discussed in the faculty blogosphere, but this show has not, and, I confidently predict, will not make a dent. (In fact, the only mention I could find of the show on a faculty blog or website was on the CV of a theater professor who actually appeared on it.)
Why not? Public university and community college faculty are, like librarians, also dependent on public perception (although, as states slash their support, increasingly less so.)
I think there are a few reasons. One, faculty won’t admit to watching sitcoms (Buffy or Big Love, maybe, but not something this truly mainstream). We, on the other hand, are responsible for disseminating all media, so it’s less detrimental to our credibility to notice schlock. Two, faculty don’t see themselves as a larger collective – they see themselves as historians, or mathematicians, or anthropologists first, and professors en masse second; librarians see ourselves as librarians first and as academic, public, special, or school librarians second. This minimizes the number of portrayals a professor will identify with and bother to critique, versus the number a librarian might. Finally, though – and here’s the part we should consider emulating – I think faculty let their work speak for itself. If you have conviction that your teaching and research make a difference, it doesn’t much matter if people think you’re absent-minded or effete or stodgy or any of the other professor stereotypes. When people attack the work itself, then yes, faculty will stand their ground. But the pop culture caricatures? Who cares?
Case in point – contrast How I Met Your Mother with the series premier of Community, a new show set at a community college. Community doesn’t depict any librarians (yet), but nearly the whole episode takes place inside a library. It’s an homage to The Breakfast Club (and a very funny one at that), but in that movie, the kids were locked in the library as punishment. Here, a diverse group of adults chooses to come to the library to study and accomplish their goals.
Check out the clip “Sharks, Pencils, and Ben Affleck.”
Who wouldn’t want that happening in their library?
This is a great depiction of library as place. And that, in the end, is what matters – what people think of the library as an experience. How they think of librarians in general is something we can let go.
Interested in submitting something to the Young Librarian Series? Check out the submissions page or send us an email at: younglibrarianseries@gmail.com. See you next week!
Leah here and I wanted to let you know that we will post book club details on the site, so you can keep up to date. This way those of you who don’t live in the Chicago area can keep up to date with what we are reading and those of us who are in the Chicago area can participate remotely if need be. I have created a category called The Book Club, which can be accessed by the clicking on the pull down menu on the right hand side of you screen. In case you missed it, here is Carrie’s posting about the creation of the Young Librarians Book Club.
If you plan on showing up or have any questions please contact Carrie at: ca_straka[the at sign]yahoo[the dot sign]com. Otherwise feel free to post your thoughts below on the book! And happy reading!
Would you like to be interviewed for the Young Librarian Series? Or do you know someone you think should be featured? Send an email to: younglibrarianseries@gmail.com or visit the SUBMISSIONS page for more details! If you aren’t in the Chicago area, don’t worry! All you need is access to a camera and a computer. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!
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