Not Your Ordinary Librarian

New book alert!

"Not Your Ordinary Librarian: Debunking the Popular Perceptions of Librarians" by Ashanti White is now available!  Ms. White took a longer historical view of the image of librarians in pop culture (unlike my book, which only looked at examples from the Internet Age) and picked up many of the classic stereotypes (such as Marian the Librarian, and It's a Wonderful Life).

Librarians have long struggled to combat some of the negative stereotypes about their image and profession, but to do so effectively it’s necessary to look at these perceptions in a historical context.

 Take a look! (My copy's on order now!)

Call for Papers: PCA/ACA

The Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association annual conference will be held March 27 - March 30, 2013 at the Wardman Park Marriott in Washington, DC. Scholars from a wide variety of disciplines will meet to share their Popular Culture research and interests.

The Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Popular Culture area is soliciting papers dealing with any aspect of Popular Culture as it pertains to libraries, archives, museums, or research. Possible topics include descriptions of research collections or exhibits, studies of popular images of libraries or librarians, relevant analyses of social networking or web resources, Popular Culture in library education, the future of libraries and librarians, or reports on developments in technical services for collecting/preserving Popular Culture materials. Papers from graduate students are welcome.

Prospective presenters should enter their proposals in the PCA/ACA 2013 Event Management database at http://ncp.pcaaca.org. The deadline is November 30, 2012. Please direct any queries to the Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Popular Culture area chair:

Allen Ellis
Professor of Library Services
W. Frank Steely Library
Northern Kentucky University
Highland Heights, KY  41099-6101
USA
859-572-5527
ellisa@nku.edu

Celebs Go Librarian!

Short but sweet:

• Spike Jonze wrote and directed a librarian love story with a twist.

• Betty White's gonna play a cranky librarian on "The Middle"!

• Keith Richards always wanted to be a librarian...

Also, keep your fingers crossed for David Hoskins, a librarian competing on Jeopardy this week!

In the "not so much fun as cause for giant worry" column, don't forget that "When one library is in trouble, all libraries are in trouble." Do you have something to share with these grassroots organizers? Use the tag "savelibraries" in your content.