September 3, 2010

How do you feel about it?

Over on Will Unwound, Will Manley is hosting a series of guest posters. The first one was Andy Woodworth, of Agnostic, Maybe, and his post is titled "How do you feel about the Librarian Image?"  It was an interesting post about how his attitude towards the inevitable stereotype of librarians has changed - originally irksome, he has "learned to stop fretting and embrace the stereotypes." Here's to intelligent and passionate!

Just as interesting to me were the multitudinous comments, both accepting and dismissive of the stereotypes, including plenty of examples and stories. One subtheme I learned about - being unaware myself as I've pretty much only worked solo - is the intra-library stereotype situation. Much was made of the sexual stereotype as well, and we even delved into pop culture via Project Runway.

As I noted in my own comment, I can only hope that the view changes in the next 25 years more than it has in the last 50... and it's up to us to help those changes along!

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