Be nice and polite. I am quite sure that your professors taught you that, as well.

um, what?
I’ve worked at a bazillion libraries: academic, special and have also worked as a contractor inside public libraries. They all come in different shapes, sorts, sizes, plumbing, flavors, and income brackets. Seriously, your unnamed Ivy League must have a sickly bunch; thankfully they were all rounded up and kept in one spot. Hopefully they are getting the medical attention they need?

sincerely,

one of the tan, skinny ones

About 10 years ago, in one of my earliest library jobs (a paraprofessional position at an unnamed Ivy League university) a colleague commented to me that there are virtually no librarians of normal weight. He didn’t mean they were all fat – he pointed out that most seemed to be either freakishly skinny, or obese. “Freakishly skinny” does not mean supermodel-esque, but rather unhealthily thin, often with a grey pallor… not just old ladies and men, but younger women who look like little old ladies.

Now, having worked at several libraries and attended several ALA conventions, this seems to be true. Has anyone else noticed this? It is true that if you take a cross-section of the general US population the majority will be fat. This is something somewhat different.

And has anyone noticed the large number of handicapped librarians? I am by no means knocking handicapped people, as I have one in my immediate family. But the number of people in wheelchairs or with canes or riding around on rascals (motorized scooters) seems disproportionately high. Why would this be? Why is the make-up of a cross-section of librarians not similar to that of other professions?

Along these lines, that stupid column in American Libraries called “How the World Views Us” (or something like that) which basically reprints ANY and EVERY instance of someone else mentioning the word “library” is so ridiculous and so desperate. Some librarians get all excited if anyone else even recognizes the existence of libraries or librarians. It’s pitiful.

And this whole tattooed librarian thing (in general, not just that piece) is obnoxious. I’ve written this before, but we seem to be replacing one stereotype with another. Can’t we just try to be a normal profession with the normal range of people? Nerdy, average, hip, cool, outdoorsy, whatever? It’s ridiculous and desperate to try to paint librarians as “hipsters”. It also excludes just as many people as the traditional stereotype does. I’m a normal person who looks normal… attractive but not stunningly gorgeous… healthy, fit, normal weight, wear normal clothes from a variety of stores… not someone anyone would assume from appearance to be a librarian, not someone anyone would call a “hipster,” just a typical early-mid 30s woman one would assume was some kind of a white collar worker. That’s it. We can probably “smash stereotypes” by looking NORMAL and blending with the rest of the population. We don’t need to embrace weird or consciously try to smash stereotypes.