the loveliest librarian

Adventurous librarianship of this kind he enjoyed. Book selection was another pleasure, and not merely because it fed a voracious appetite for reading. He went rampant on continental literature, and to this day the library retains the reputation for it that he made. I tried very hard, however, to keep him out of the lending department, because he interfered as a matter of course with the system I had devised - not to assert his authority, but, as I saw it, to exercise a residual perversity which said ever so plainly that he was not so impractical as I had successfully proved (he was the most impractical man I ever knew). But it was like keeping the tide back, and time and again I was brought in to resolve confusion caused solely by his own disregard for basic rules of order.

He had a habit of moving quietly among the readers, speaking to one or another, and recommending a book to a bewildered wanderer. He kept his eyes open all the time, noting what books were borrowed or left untouched, and who chose them. Back in the office, he often waited like a broody hen, clucking with complaints: the book that someone wanted and was not in the catalogue (my responsibility), or it was that bumpkin of an assistant he saw picking his nose again. And that stunning creature with golden hair and the neck of a swan — “Suffering God, man, you can’t have missed her? Pure Botticelli. Go down and find out who she is.” [p. 55-56]

Title: The Young Librarian
Creator: Foley, Dermot
Relation: Michael/Frank: Studies on Frank O’Connor
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date: 1969
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

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.”

Title: Media Cliches: Men Seldom Make Passes at Girls Who Wear Glasses
Creator: Dr. Zaius
Relation: zaiusnation.blogspot.com
Date: 2007
Type: Text

Jean Lennon put on a little more lipstick and nodded approvingly at herself in the mirror. Then she picked up her books and walked into the studio waving at the crew busy with lights, cameras, and microphones. The television show would go on in twenty minutes. The producer walked over to her. He looked worried. “Hello, Jean,” he greeted her. “What are you doing today?” He tipped his head so as to read the titles of the books in her hand. Jean handed one of them to him, opening the other at a brilliant color spread. “Two gorgeous new travel books on Italy,” she answered. “Look, isn’t this beautiful?” “Beautiful,” he echoed abstractedly. “Listen, Jean, we’re on a spot. One of the other guests can’t get here; his car broke down in some forsaken hole a hundred miles from nowhere. Can you fill fifteen minutes instead of the usual ten?” Jean nodded, laughing. “Don’t worry, Ed. You know me when I start talking about books. You’ll have to shut me up by force.” [p. 18]

Title: So You Want to Be a Librarian
Creator: Wallace, Sarah Leslie, 1914-1988
Publisher: Harper & Row
Date: 1963
Type: Text

Librarians take special pleasure in finding answers to what may seem like difficult questions. “Who was the first man to fly?” “When was the United States Secret Service organized and why?” “How much did the United States pay for Alaska?” “What is the weight of a person’s skin?” “How are TV ratings figured?” “How many new books were published in 1962?” Often the quickness and ease with which librarians find the answers seem like sheer magic to the questioner. Unlike magicians, however, librarians are willing to explain how it is done—which reference book is the right one to use, and how to use it quickly. From their training, librarians have learned what books to turn to in order to find different kinds of information, and they enjoy sharing this skill with others. [p. 16]

Title: What Does a Librarian Do?
Creator: Busby, Edith
Publisher: Dodd, Mead & Company
Date: 1963
Type: Text

A librarian? It didn’t seem very promising at first sight, for the only library I remembered seeing in our travels was a gloomy forbidding place where borrowers chose books from a catalogue without even seeing them first. The librarian was a bad-tempered old man who glared at me from beneath bushy eyebrows and waited irritably for me to make my choice. Every book I wanted seemed to be out and, in the end, he usually lost patience and gave me the first one that came to hand. On one occasion it was Mrs. Haliburton’s Troubles by Mrs. Henry Wood, a story of the sad trials of a clergyman’s wife. At the age of eleven this was scarcely a suitable choice. Certainly my own experience of a library had not been a happy one!

But the more I thought of it, the more I liked the idea. I was sensible enough to realize that I shouldn’t be able to spend much time reading during library hours, but at least I should be surrounded by books and that was a happy thought. [p. 14]

Title: How I Became a Librarian
Creator: Colwell, Eileen
Publisher: Thomas Nelson & Sons
Date: 1956
Type: Text

Male librarians are especially wanted for the top jobs in public library systems. They will continue to be sought for administrative positions in this profession for a long time to come. Young men also have excellent opportunities for appointment as college and university librarians, and as special librarians particularly in the fields of science and technology. The bookmobile librarians are generally men, too.

Were men meant for library service? Yes, most certainly. Men have always played important roles in the history of American education. And the library can be considered an informal educational institution. Because there is so much to know today, education has become a lifelong process for both students attending college and adults desiring to increase their knowledge. Men can, and will, work together with women in public and other libraries to bring increased learning opportunities to these people.

Yes, the future indeed looks bright for members of the male sex in the field of librarianship. [p. 63]

Title: Some Day I’ll Be a Librarian
Creator: Splaver, Sarah
Publisher: Hawthorn Books
Date: 1967
Type: Text

“Should librarians be glamour girls?” asks Dudley Randall of Lincoln University in the Wilson Library Bulletin. “There is nothing wrong with glamour in itself,” Mr. Randall goes on to say. “I think that in a library there is room for all kinds of people—the beautiful and the homely, the bold and the shy, the extrovert and the introvert; but I believe that as far as glamour is concerned, that librarian is the most glamorous who gives the best service.” [p. 228-229]

Title: Librarians Wanted: Careers in Library Science
Creator: Paradis, Adrian A.
Publisher: David McCay Co.
Date: 1959
Type: Text

This librarian, then, is teacher. Let there be kindly affection toward fellow staff members. Some are quite as crotchety as she. Honest forgiveness, when all are honestly busy, is easy and essential. Ten staff members and eighty-five collegiates was close quarters! It can be enjoyed—but all, including the librarian, must be quite able to look into the glass for personal blemishes. There will be some.

Fuss and feathers have no place in this, or any other, institution. Too many essentials need doing for precious time to be wasted on nonentities. Recall that courtesy and a pleasant manner are free. They are not time-consuming. And they are expected of public servants. [p. 41]

Title: One Librarian
Creator: Diehl, Katharine Smith
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Date: 1956
Type: Text

What pops into your mind when I say “librarian”? Is it someone who is pleasant, well-groomed, who smiles and seems anxious and ready to help you? No? You don’t mean it can be that “prim, spinsterish librarian who carries about with her the faint aroma of library paste, and who peers shyly at the world through blinking, book-strained eyes.” David Smith of the Wall Street Journal said this. He shook everyone up a bit when he published his outspoken article on the shortage of librarians and why it exists. He feels (and I agree) that this old, hackneyed stereotype of the librarian has been so firmly implanted in people’s minds that it is going to take a bit of doing to erase it. Barbara Toohey, librarian, poet and writer, launched on this subject in the Wilson Library Bulletin a while ago. She felt that the librarian is all too often pictured as a “…dismal creature with the hem half out of her skirt…clutching a damp wad of Kleenex in each hand….A male librarian, when considered at all, is to most people’s minds a misfit, with a dominant mother, one ten-year-old, double-breasted, navy blue, pin-stripe suit, two umbrellas, and three pairs of overshoes. (You can’t be too careful!)”

Such images! But, unfortunately, these ideas are still prevalent among some people. You who have visited the progressive libraries everywhere in our country know that the librarians who work in these places bear little resemblance to those old stereotypes. But the image dies hard. [p. 17-18]

Title: Your Future as a Librarian
Creator: Clarke, Joan Dorn
Publisher: Richards Rosen Press
Date: 1963
Type: Text