Julia spent the rest of the afternoon at the reference desk. She liked helping people find what they were looking for, and she liked the fact that a library was designed to make finding information easier. No putting a purple book on the shelf by the window just because it looked pretty there. No sticking another tome on the bottom because it had bad energy.
No, in a library, there was a logical plan. Call her weird, but Julia loved the Dewey Decimal System. At one time, she’d considered becoming a cataloger before deciding she preferred working with the public.
Because the Serenity Falls Public Library wasn’t large enough to have a separate readers’ advisory librarian to deal with fiction requests, Julia handled those as well. Which is how she came to be speaking to Mabel about a mystery she was looking for, one she’d seen in a book display the library had a few weeks ago.
“It has a red cover.” Mabel fingered her pink curls as if doing so might prompt her memory. “I do remember that much. And the title had something to do with a place.” [p. 135-136]
Title: Good Girls Do Creator: Linz, Cathie Publisher: Berkley Sensation Date: 2006 Type: Text
“I was there when the kids came in for Story Hour and saw that poster for the first time. They were scared. Their eyes got big, and one little girl started to cry. And I liked it that they were scared. I thought, ‘That’ll pound the do-right into em, all right. That’ll teach em what’ll happen if they cross her, if they don’t do what she says.’ And part of me thought, you’re getting to think like her, Dave. Pretty soon you’ll get to be like her, and then you’ll be lost. You’ll be lost forever.
“But I went on, just the same. I felt like I had a one-way ticket and I wasn’t goin to get off until I rode all the way to the end of the line. Ardelia hired some college kids, but she always put em in the circulation room and the reference room and on the main desk. She kept complete charge of the kids… they were the easiest to scare, you see. And I think they were the best scares, the ones that fed her the best. Because that’s what she lived on, you know – she fed on their fright. And I made more posters. I can’t remember them all, but I remember the Library Policeman. He was in a lot of them. In one – it was called LIBRARY POLICEMEN GO ON VACATION, TOO – he was standin on the edge of a stream and fishin. Only what he’d baited his hook with was that little boy the kids called Simple Simon. In another one, he had Simple Simon strapped to the nose of a rocket and was pullin the switch that would send him into outer space. That one said LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AT THE LIBRARY – BUT BE SURE TO DO RIGHT AND GET YOUR BOOKS BACK ON TIME.
“We turned the Children’s Room into a house of horrors for the kids who came there,” Dave said. He spoke slowly, and his voice was full of tears. “She and I. We did that to the children. But do you know what? They always came back. They always came back for more. And they never, never told. She saw to that.” [p. 501-502]
Title: The Library Policeman Creator: King, Stephen, 1947- Relation: Four Past Midnight Publisher: Signet Date: 1990 Type: Text
“We’ll have to have one card file with the names and addresses of the borrowers,” Ginny said. “On those cards we’ll write the titles of the books they borrowed and the date they borrowed them. Then we’ll have another card file with the titles of the books. On those cards we’ll write the names of the members who borrowed them, and the date the books are due to be returned. On the first blank page of every book we’ll glue a slip of paper. On it we’ll write or stamp, if we have a rubber date stamp, which we should have, the date the book is due. Also, we’ll have to have a control calendar card file. On the date which corresponds to the date the book is due to be returned we’ll write the title and the name of the borrower. And the first thing we’ll do every day when we open shop is check that calendar file to make sure the book is picked up if it hasn’t been returned previously.”
Lucy moaned and pulled strands of her blond hair across her face. “It’s all too, too complicated. I’m glad you’re the business manager, Ginny. Calendar card file, rubber date stamp, books borrowed, books due, names, addresses, titles — it’s all too much for me!” [p. 18-19]
Title: Ginny Gordon and the Lending Library Creator: Campbell, Julie, 1908-1999 Publisher: Whitman Publishing Company Date: 1954 Type: Text
Miss Pynchon was already at her desk when Monique showed up that Monday morning. Monique looked nervously at the clock on the desk: eight-thirty. She was half an hour early. She breathed a sigh of relief; for a moment, she thought her watch might be wrong, and she might have been late. In the Library, the consequences of being late were extreme.
“Good morning, Miss Pynchon,” said Monique meekly taking her seat at the desk opposite her supervisor’s. There was a stack of antique books for processing; it was Monique’s job to affix the bar codes on the inside front cover and record the process in her logbook. This stack of books, like all books in Monique’s section of the Library, was a collection of antique books that Miss Pynchon had acquired at auction on behalf of an anonymous donor.
Miss Pynchon didn’t look up from her work as she said, “Good morning, Monique. That’s a new dress, isn’t it?”
Monique nodded. “Yes. I bought it on Sunday at Flirt!”
Miss Pynchon didn’t look up as she said, “A little tight, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Miss Pynchon.”
“Tsk, tsk.” [p. 3]
Title: Borrowing Privileges Creator: Morley, N. T. Relation: The Library Publisher: Venus Book Club Date: 2002 Type: Text
The School of Librarianship was in Suzzallo Library, a cathedral-like building that seemed elaborate after Cal’s neoclassical Doe Library. In the main room of the library school we were assigned desks in predictably alphabetical order with our names neatly typed on white paper and pasted to green desk blotters.
There were forty-eight women and two men in the class, fewer than half direct from undergraduate work. Most had worked in libraries, saved money, and aimed for professional credentials and higher pay. The women referred to the school as the Cloister, and “the Missionary Spirit” was a phrase we often heard from instructors. I soon discovered to my chagrin that I had suffered needlessly through Advanced French Grammar. This university counted quarter, not semester, units.
The first quarter we all took the same classes. Fortunately, memories of the Ontario Public Library reassured me that being a librarian was more interesting than learning to be one. Cataloging exasperated me because I do not have an orderly, logical mind and could not see why it was important to snoop behind pseudonyms to find an author’s true name. Why should Mark Twain always be cataloged under Samuel Langhorne Clemens with a cross-reference card from Mark Twain? Reference work was enjoyable. Each week we were given ten questions and the resources of the university library to find the answers in a sort of intellectual treasure hunt. Once, when I was wearing the red dress, a man who worked at the reference desk actually whispered, “You look like bait in that dress.” He did not, however, turn into a prince. [p. 163-164]
Title: My Own Two Feet: A Memoir Creator: Cleary, Beverly Publisher: Morrow Junior Books Date: 1995 Type: Text
She was completely unaware that her particular level of dishevelment, normally caused from thinking about sculpture while assigning call numbers, worked to imbue her bookish physical authority with such a level of chaos that men assumed she was a slut. Her easiness was further particularized, however, with a cool distance that arose from her own intense ambitions. Making art meant she had to keep a lot of herself for herself. The result was that as Audrey was chewing on a pencil, thumbing through an old edition on Kinetic Art, men watched thinking, “I’m a bad boy, she’d fuck me, and she wouldn’t call the next day because she’d be doing something smart and righteous.” Her set up was, to be blunt, irresistible. Many men in her life had been fascinated with the librarian stereotype.
Assumptions had run rampant that, sexually, Audrey’s co-workers should all have some kind of Jackie Bouvier perspective, infamously described by Gore Vidal as a notion that sex was untidy and therefore unappealing to the ultra-fastidious. Many times, Audrey’s inherent sexuality surprised and delighted her partners. She functioned like a properly ordered card catalogue. The neat logic to her approach and system made for a more direct and efficient interaction between patron and product. Audrey’s sexual encounters almost always ended in mutual orgasm. [p. 26-27]
Title: Sexy Librarian: A Novel Creator: Weist, Julia Publisher: Ellen Lupton Date: 2008 Type: Text
“Blandings Castle?… But this is the most extraordinary thing. I’m going to Blandings myself in a few days.”
“No!”
“They’ve engaged me to catalogue the castle library.”
“But, Eve, were you only joking when you asked Clarkie to find you something to do? She took you quite seriously.”
“No, I wasn’t joking. There’s a drawback to my going to Blandings. I suppose you know the place pretty well?”
“I’ve often stayed there. It’s beautiful.”
“Then you know Lord Emsworth’s second son, Freddie Threepwood?”
“Of course.”
“Well, he’s the drawback. He wants to marry me, and I certainly don’t want to marry him. And what I’ve been wondering is whether a nice easy job like that, which would tie me over beautifully till September, is attractive enough to make up for the nuisance of having to be always squelching poor Freddie. I ought to have thought of it right at the beginning, of course, when he wrote and told me to apply for the position, but I was so delighted at the idea of regular work that it didn’t occur to me. Then I began to wonder. He’s such a persevering young man. He proposes early and often.” [p. 58]
Title: Leave It to Psmith Creator: Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville), 1881-1975 Publisher: Overlook Press Date Copyrighted: 1923 Type: Text
Title: Chatham Square Branch, children lined up at librarian’s desk, April 11, 1910; “The Night Library” Creator: Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940 Relation: Lewis Hine Lantern Slides of NYPL Branches Date: 1910 Type: Still image
Batgirl From the old “Batman” TV show is an excellent case in point of this phenomenon. A cold and distant librarian by day, Barbara Gordon eschews the Dewy Decimal System by night and becomes the confident and defiant crime-fighting Batgirl. Batgirl is hot, Barbara Gordon is not, and neither seems sexually attainable. Batgirl is brassy and defiant, and Barbara is so intelligent that no man would ever find her attractive. Note also that Batgirl is another example of the “Miss Jones Syndrome,” by way of Clark Kent. Take the glasses off of the librarian and put her in a clingy outfit and she is instantly desirable!
It’s also worth noting that the Batman TV series was high camp and rather silly, and Batgirl’s role was usually to get captured and the rescued by the final episode. She was only allowed to kick or push villains in a fight - she was not allowed to punch them. The writers thought it would make her look “unfeminine.”
Tonight we are going down, under the ground… to Office 99, a small, neat cubicle, airless and white, at the end of a corridor in the third subbasement of the Empire City Public Library. Here, at a desk that lies deeper in the earth than even the subway tracks, sits young Miss Judy Dark, Under-Assistant Cataloguer of Decommissioned Volumes. The nameplate on her desk so identifies her. She is a thin, pale thing, in a plain gray suit, and life is clearly passing her by. Twice a week a man with skin the color of boiled newspaper comes by her office to cart away the books that she has officially pronounced dead. Every ten minutes or so her walls are shaken by the thunder of the uptown local racing overhead.
On this particular autumn night, only the prospect of another solitary evening lies before her. She will fry her chop and read herself to sleep, no doubt with a tale of wizardry and romance. Then, in dreams that strike even her as trite, Miss Dark will go adventuring in chain mail and silk. Tomorrow morning she will wake up alone, and do it all again.
Poor Judy Dark! Poor little librarians of the world, those girls, secretly lovely, their looks marred forever by the cruelty of a pair of big black eyeglasses! [The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel by Michael Chabon, p. 267]
Title: Old Flame Creator: McCarthy, Kevin Creator: Brereton, Dan Creator: Konot, Sean Relation: Michael Chabon Presents the Amazing Adventurs of the Escapist. Vol. 1 Publisher: Dark Horse Books Date: 2004 Type: Still image
He looked around the room and clicked his tongue in patent disapproval. “Oh my! You have let things slip, haven’t you?”
My cheeks flushed, even though I didn’t have any reason to be ashamed of the basement. Once a librarian, always a librarian, I guess. The cascading books did make me feel vaguely uneasy. Like I’d been caught red-handed ducking out of work early, leaving part of my job undone.
Wait.
A statue of a cat had just transformed into a living, breathing man before my very eyes, and I was worried about shelving books according to the Dewey Decimal system? I shook my head. “Just a second,” I said. “Before you start to criticize me, let’s get a couple of things straight. First, I take it you’re a familiar?”
“And I take it you’re a witch.”
“No, I’m a librarian.” [p. 51-52]
Title: Girl’s Guide to Witchcraft Creator: Klasky, Mindy L. Publisher: Red Dress Ink Date: 2006 Type: Text
Title: The Librarian Contributor: Twogood, Arthur P. Publisher: Vocational Guidance Films, inc. Publisher: Carl F. Mahnke Productions Date: 1946 Type: Moving image
Thanks to his mother, who had taken Emma under her wing after Teddy’s death and mentioned her occasionally in her letters, Sam knew she still lived in Serenity and still worked at the town’s library, where she’d recently been promoted to head librarian. She was still single, as well, but lived quietly in the small house she’d bought a couple of years ago.
A steady, responsible young woman making a decent, respectable life for herself despite the tragedy she had suffered. A woman who should, by all accounts, want nothing to do with the likes of him.
So why had she written to him out of the blue?
Title: The Major and the Librarian Creator: Benjamin, Nikki Publisher: Silhouette Date: 1999 Type: Text
As he halted before her, though, Rory, well… halted. Because he vaguely realized that she was standing on a rung at such a height as to put her thigh directly at his eye level. And, less vaguely, he realized that there was a side slit in her straight, black skirt. It was conservative enough to be acceptable for a librarian’s wardrobe, but open just now — thanks to her position on the ladder — in such a way as to make a professor of history take notice. And somehow, this particular professor of history found the sight of Miss Thornbury’s leg to be strangely… arousing?
Oh, surely not. [p. 44]
Title: The Temptation of Rory Monahan Creator: Bevarly, Elizabeth Publisher: Silhouette Date: 2001 Type: Text
Title: The Librarian Creator: Reiss, Winold, 1886-1953 Relation: Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro Publisher: Survey Associates Date: 1925 Type: Still image
The person at the return desk sits on a high stool and presides over four or five large trays of cards. These cards are set on end and arranged by date. Each one of them belongs in a little pocket in the back of a book which is out of the library on loan. When a book is returned you have to open that book, not the date on which it was loaned (this date having been stamped on a slip of paper in the back of the book) find the card among the thousands in the trays, and put it back in its little pocket, having first removed another card (the “reader’s card”) from that pocket and stamped on that (with a miserable little stamp attached to a lead pencil, which sometimes stamps clearly and usually does not) the date on which the book is returned. I have read over that sentence four times and I do not believe that anyone could exactly understand it. But I understand it and so will anyone who has ever performed the ghoulish operation. The others don’t matter. Then you give the “reader’s card” back to the person who has returned the book — unless he has had the book out longer than the rules allow. In that case you tell him, or her, how much he owes the library — at two cents a day, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he pays over that money promptly and without a fuss. Often he has computed it himself and has the four or six or eight cents, or whatever it is, all ready. In the other case he, or she, makes some kind of a fuss.
On a “rush-day” when there are over two thousand books returned, there is the possibility of about twenty fusses during the day, or say fifteen between three and five in the afternoon and seven and half-past eight in the evening, which are particularly busy periods. The books, as fast as they are returned, must be hastily glanced at, to see if they have suffered any obvious injury, and then placed on a truck which is wheeled off by a messenger as soon as it gets full, to be replaced by an empty one. I have known a decent looking man to return a book which was simply dripping with mud and muddy water and to declare up and down that there was nothing at all the matter with it, that he had not dropped it into a mud puddle, and that we were a lot of cranky old maids anyhow, and if we didn’t keep quiet and give him another book and say no more about it he would write to Andrew Carnegie “and have the whole lot of us fired.” The number of persons , by the way, who are on intimate terms with Mr. Carnegie is appalling. One old woman, who insists on abstracting the directory from the registration desk just when it is most needed, gets a letter from him nearly every day, and she informed me last week that “Andhrew had got his eye on yez.” [p. 47-48]
Title: That Girl at the Library Creator: Pearson, Edmund Lester, 1880-1937 Relation: The Library and the Librarian: A Selection of Articles From the Boston Evening Transcript and Other Sources Publisher: Elm Tree Press Date: 1910 Type: Text
