the loveliest librarian

 

“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

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

“Did you take the library job?” he asked, giving her small hand a quick squeeze. “Or did old lady Bender scare you off?”

Jinny looked up at him and said lightly, “That’s my new boss you’re talking about. I took the job, and I know I’ll like it. I won’t regret it.”

Joe’s mouth tightened. “I hope not,” he said. “Just remember that when you want to go somewhere some Saturday night and have to work.

He just doesn’t understand, she thought sadly. He can’t grasp how I feel about books and the library, and the hush and marvel of it…everything in the world you want to know, right there between covers! All the wonderful thoughts and beautiful deeds. The old books with their dark covers and thin paper, and the new ones with their bright dust jackets. The people who simply must read all the new books, and the determined old people like Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Boyce, who are catching up and reading all the classics they promised themselves they’d read someday, when they found the time. Why can’t I make him see? Why does he see things only in terms of practicality? [p. 18-19]

Title: Jinny Williams, Library Assistant
Creator: Temkin, Sara A.
Creator: Hovell, Lucy A.
Publisher: J. Messner
Date: 1962
Type: Text

Book in hand, she stooped to the lower shelf, only a couple of inches from the floor. “Darn!” she muttered, rising quickly. “There goes a perfectly bran’-new stocking!”

“Yeah,” Vicky said grimly, “this is no job for hosiery. I’d go bare-legged if the Chief would let me; which he won’t. Do you wear garters?”

Una, ruefully examining the extent of her disaster, said, “Yes.”

“Your socks stand a better chance if they’re rolled. I have some darning silk in my locker; I’d better go down with you. Walk stiff-legged: don’t bend your knee.”

Giggling, they slipped down the stairway, almost colliding at the foot with a tall youth who was ascending with an armload of books. He stepped aside to let them pass, then went on up with his head in the air.

“Who’s he?” Una asked.

“Ross Ashcomb, one of Us. The Boy Page. He really does a lot of other things, too, but page is his official rank. He works in the reference department and despises girls and ignorance.” [p. 26]

Title: Bright Heritage
Creator: Provines, Mary Virginia
Publisher: Longmans, Green
Date: 1939
Type: Text

Amy had felt that way from the morning twelve years before when, her face tear-streaked, she had wandered into the warmth of the library. It was a bitter, snowy day. The library was deserted. Miss Adamson, pudgy and white-haired even then, had taken the miserable little girl back into the workroom and listened as Amy poured out her tale of woe. She had been punished by her aunt for reading instead of doing her chores. Her cousins teased her because she didn’t like playing their wild, boisterous games, and she had at last decided to run away. Miss Adamson had washed her visitor’s tear-stained face, fed her part of her lunch, gave her a copy of Charlotte’s Web to read, and finally asked Amy if she would like to help her here in the library.

Amy had been speechless with joy at the offer, and forgetting about running away, had almost happily gone back to the house on Bent Street. She couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful than spending her time in the peace and quiet of the library, seeing all the new books before anyone else, even perhaps being allowed to peek occasionally between the fascinating, forbidden covers in the adult section. Twelve years later, with a library degree finally triumphantly achieved, Amy hadn’t changed her mind. She still couldn’t imagine ever wanting to work anywhere except in a library. [p. 5-6]

Title: Librarian With Wings
Creator: Thum, Marcella
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Date: 1967
Type: Text

“A lot of people,” he went on, “have quite the wrong idea about librarians. They think of them as glorified shop assistants. But there’s much more to it than that. There’s a great deal of work behind the scenes which the public doesn’t see, and a librarian has to be a very knowledgeable person.”

“Does one have to take examinations?” asked Deborah.

“Yes indeed. And there are certain qualifications necessary before you enter for the Library Association Examinations. What’s more, you won’t get a good post unless you pass them. To begin with, you must have your G.C.E. with five passes at ordinary level, one of these being in English Language. Later on you will have to show a certificate in a modern foreign language, so it will be useful if you have already got that too.”

Deborah was thankful to realize that she was suitably qualified. But she was growing a little uneasy. The interview was going to take longer than she’d though, and she was petrified she’d miss her appointment at the hairdresser’s. Tonight was the Old Boys’ Dance at Cranworth Grammar School and Nicholas was taking her. Michael would probably be there, too, and she wanted to look her best. [p. 8-9]

Title: A Library Life for Deborah
Creator: Owens, Joan Llewelyn
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Date: 1957
Type: Text

She was proud of her work. Her father, now dead, had been a full Professor of Literature at Caldwell, the local college, and Kathy had grown up surrounded by books. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to go east, to Columbia, after leaving Caldwell with a Bachelor of Arts, and to take a degree in Library Science. And how much she had learned! In the beginning, like so many other people, a “librarian” had meant simply the attendant behind the desk in a reading room. Only gradually had she come to know of the enormously varied duties and opportunities in library work, and of the rewards, other than money.

In the Rutherford Library the professional librarians, at least those working with the public, usually wore neat blue smocks. So the blue smock, for Kathy, had become a symbol; a symbol of service to that great portion of humanity which struggled to lift itself from the mire of ignorance through reading.

It was a thought she kept to herself lest she be laughed at and chided for girlish enthusiasm. To many librarians, as to people in all walks of life, their work was simply a chore by which they earned a living. Not so with Kathy. [p. 98-99]

Title: The Blue Smock
Creator: Sayle, Helen
Publisher: Arcadia House
Date: 1958
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

“I’ve been thinking about being a librarian. I’ve even been reading up on it. Did you know that there are librarians in these United States who make eighteen thousand dollars a year?”

Don whistled. “I always listed them with teachers and preachers as the downtrodden of the earth, so far as salary was concerned.”

“I don’t mean that many of them make money like that. I suppose the Library of Congress pays its head man that, and maybe the library in New York and the big ones like that. But all the big library heads, like our Mr. Settle, make around ten thousand a year. I think that’s what he makes.”

“So you think you’d like being head of a big library?” Don asked, more to keep the conversational ball rolling than that he really cared.

“No, I don’t,” Kitsy protested. “I doubt if they’d give a job like that to a woman, unless she was a hundred years old and as efficient as the mischief. I thought maybe a school librarian. Maybe in a public school. A lot of them make five thousand. And then I’d be teaching, too.” [p. 187]

Title: Kitsy Babcock, Library Assistant
Creator: Sargent, Joan, 1905-
Publisher: Avalon Books
Date: 1958
Type: Text

“The trouble is we seem to get all the clottish borrowers in on Friday evenings,” said Mrs. Potter. “Or perhaps it’s just that I notice them more and have less patience with them when the place is crowded.”

“I think I remember most of the tricks,” said Molly. “I’ll be on the look-out for them.”

There was certainly quite a number of lazy borrowers who tried by various dodges to get Molly to choose their books to save them the trouble of thinking. She found it wasn’t easy, in the rush, to distinguish them from borrowers who genuinely and justifiably needed help and advice, or who really had forgotten their spectacles and were not just pretending they had. There was the usual number of queue-jumpers; a few uncivil borrowers and a good scattering of children who had been sent to fetch books for parents, relatives and neighbours. There were also, of course, the inevitable few who had lost their tickets. Molly mustered her tact cheerfulness and patience to deal with these, but lost all patience with a man who, on leaving the library and being asked to produce his borrower’s ticket, declared that Molly had not given it to him when he came in. Molly distinctly remembered doing so and refused to let him take out a book until he had searched all his pockets. This procedure yielded no ticket, and neither did a quick search of floor, shelves and counter. The man was adamant and rude. Molly grew furious. Then, suddenly, her memory clicked back to a similar incident two years previously.

“Your hat!” she said.

The man looked at her as though she had taken leave of her senses.

“Did you, by any chance, stick the ticket in your hat?” she asked, pointing to the trilby which he held in his hand.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” said the man, holding up his hat.

“You did! Look!” said Molly triumphantly. There indeed, tucked securely into the ribbon band, was the missing ticket.

With a curt “good-night” the man handed over the ticket and stalked out of the building. Molly laughed and, oddly enough, after that felt much more cheerful and in command of the situation. [p. 120-121]

Title: Molly Qualifies as a Librarian
Creator: Lonsdale, Bertha
Publisher: Bodley Head
Date: 1957
Type: Text

Caroline MacWilliams would certainly not have been Lysander Bayard’s idea of a suitable young lady librarian. She was much too attractive, to begin with. Father would have disapproved in no uncertain terms of the discreet touch of make-up that enhanced her large hazel eyes. He would have objected to the coral-pink lipstick that contrasted so delightfully with the healthy tan of her clear skin.

He would have frowned on the jaunty white straw cap that perched on her short-cropped brown hair. He would certainly have gasped in Victorian outrage at the scantiness of her cherry-colored skirt, showing legs that never belonged behind that golden-oak service desk. He would have thought her red-and-navy shoes not at all sensible in spite of their low heels, and her matching handbag much too smart.

Yet Miss Bayard found that all the things here father would have disapproved of added up to a most appealing whole. Caroline’s brand-new diploma in library science was convincing, her letters of recommendation reassuring, and her warm smile completely irresistible. Two minutes later, the Bayard Library had a new assistant librarian. [p. 15-16]

Title: Headlines for Caroline
Creator: Hughes, Matilda, 1922-
Publisher: Bouregy
Date: 1967
Type: Text

The door was closed but Isabel could see through the glass that a light was on. She started to knock and then hesitated. Was it a good idea to disturb Miss Roberts before the library officially opened? Yet if she waited all the vacancies might be filled, and this year she wanted so much to be a librarian’s assistant. She didn’t know why for sure except that it would give her more time to be in those magic surroundings. She could never explain to herself why the library affected her the way it did. There were the great rows and rows of volumes, the colors muted and blended until they seemed to be more than just a collection of books. They assumed personalities all their own, like great people she might want to know and be with, hoping that some of the elements which caused the greatness might permeate the atmosphere and enter her own body by osmosis. Whatever the cause, the fact remained that Isabel felt herself a better person, a more inspired student when she was in the library. More than that she felt an uplift to her ambitions and her purpose in life, whatever that might turn out to be, that made it worth while for her to be there even if she did not so much as open a book. [p. 8]

Title: Calling for Isabel
Creator: Jeffries, Virginia Murrill
Publisher: Longmans, Green
Date: 1951
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

Isabel was looking about the place, realizing that she had never been inside it before. It was really a delightful little building, with large pleasant windows, a fireplace and mantel at one end, and book shelves around the walls.

Georgia was looking about also. “Where’s the reading room?” she asked. “And the stacks.”

“Reading room!” said Mrs. Hopkinson. “Thank fortune there isn’t any. Folks have to take their books home to read, which is as it should be. And what did you say about stacks? You mean smokestacks? There’s a chimney,” waving her hand toward the fireplace. “But smokestacks go with railroad engines, not with libraries, I guess you’re a little mixed.”

Georgia accepted this rebuff meekly, but tried another question.

“Is there a card catalog?”

“We don’t need one. There the books are, on the shelves, and folks have eyes, don’t they?” Mrs. Hopkinson was getting ruffled. [p. 64-65]

Title: Turn in the Road
Creator: Dickson, Marguerite Stockman
Publisher: Thomas Nelson & Sons
Date: 1949
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

Their talk was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Mr. Havelock excused himself as he lifted the receiver. Consternation showed in his face as he listened to the voice at the other end of the line.

“Oh no!” he exclaimed. “Do I understand you to say, Mrs. Archer, that Miss Withers won’t be able to run the Bookmobile, after all? I’m sorry, of course, that her mother is so ill. But that leaves you in quite a predicament, doesn’t it? You are trying to find someone to substitute for a few weeks, eh? What’s that? Miss Withers may not be able to take the job at all, because the doctor has ordered her to take her mother to Arizona as soon after the operation as she is able to travel? Dear me, Mrs. Archer! What will you do?”

He listened attentively for a moment or so. Then he said, “Yes, of course, I’ll be on the lookout for anyone who applies for a teaching job who might conceivably be able to run the Bookmobile for you, until you can find a permanent person. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Archer. Good luck!”

He turned from the telephone with a scowl. “Isn’t that just the way!” [p. 12-13]

Title: Nancy Runs the Bookmobile
Creator: Johnson, Enid, 1892-
Publisher: Messner
Date: 1956
Type: Text

Being a new girl, she realized that the odd jobs were to be hers. The staff members weren’t going out of their way to make her hustle; but it was natural that she should be the one to take care of the little jobs that no one else wanted to tackle, particularly if comfortably seated. She supposed that would be her lot of the summer. In a way her lethargy was so deep that she didn’t care. Being unmindful of it was the easiest way; if she let herself get annoyed she would rankle with the injustice of the whole setup. Miss Nichols was kind, but very busy; the staff members were so busy they could only be casual.

Title: With a High Heart
Creator: De Leeuw, Adèle, 1899-
Publisher: Macmillan
Date: 1945
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

Jean set off for the long bus trip across town. She felt very important starting off for her first day on her first job. She carried a book as usual, and her lunch just as she had when she left for school. In addition she had a lovely bouquet of Paul Scarlet roses she had picked from the garden to grace the library desk. She was sure everyone must know she was a children’s librarian on her way to work. She felt so much like it!

By chance she sat down beside a young man who was reading a book. Unconsciously she peeked over at the title with that irresistible impulse that bookish people cannot control. It was a Viking Pocket Edition of something, she could tell. She peeked again to get a better look, and saw that it was Rabelais he was reading. Feeling satisfied, now that she knew, she opened her own book, Ruth Sawyer’s Picture Tales from Spain. [p. 18-19]

Title: “Miss Library Lady”
Creator: Pfaender, Ann McLelland
Publisher: J. Messner
Date: 1954
Type: Text

The microfilm reader fascinated Anne. It had been so helpful in the libraries where she had worked the last two summers. But she had never before had the responsibility of a machine, as she did now. She arrived early on her second day and went to the metal cabinet beside the machine to study the films which the library had collected. It still seemed a miracle to her that the contents of a whole book, or a big issue of a newspaper, could be recorded on a small roll of film less than two inches wide. [p. 67]

Title: Anne Fuller, Librarian
Creator: Radford, Ruby Lorraine, b. 1891
Publisher: Avalon Books
Date: 1957
Type: Text

Lirael had seen some of the Library, on carefully escorted excursions with the rest of her year gathering. She had always hankered to enter the doors they passed, to step across the red rope barriers that marked corridors or tunnels where only authorized librarians might pass.

“Why do you want to work there?” asked Sanar.

“It—it’s interesting,” stammered Lirael, uncertain how she should reply. She didn’t want to admit that the Library would be the best place to hide away from other Clayr. And in the back of her mind, she hadn’t forgotten that in the Library she might find a spell to painlessly end her life. Not now, of course, now she knew that the Sight might come. But later, if she grew older and older without the Sight and the black despair welled up again inside her, as it had done earlier today.

“It is interesting,” replied Sanar. “But there are dangerous things and dangerous knowledge in the Library too. Does that bother you?”

“I don’t know,” said Lirael, honestly. “It would depend on what it was. But I really would like to work there.” She paused and then said in a very low voice, “I do want to be busy, as you said, and forget about not having the Sight.”

The Clayr turned away from Lirael then, and gathered together in a tight circle that excluded her, speaking in whispers. Lirael watched anxiously, aware that something momentous was going to happen to her life. The day had been horrible, but now she had hope again. [p. 75-76]

Title: Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr
Creator: Nix, Garth
Publisher: Harper Trophy
Date: 2002
Type: Text

The next afternoon Torrey spent learning about a library. There seemed to be no end to the things she had to learn, details of filing and sorting and shelving. She had learned the principles behind these various processes at Library School, but ease of application would come only with practice. Also, each library had certain rules and arrangements of its own. These had been found to work at some time and had been carried along through the years because it would involve too much time and trouble to change them.

Torrey caught herself saying more than once, “We didn’t do it that way in Library School.” [p. 117]

Title: Bright Particular Star
Creator: Garthwaite, Marion
Publisher: Scholastic Books
Date: 1958
Type: Text

When Lois mentioned the reason for her trip to the library, Miss Randall surprised her by offering her a job as a part-time librarian.

“Just this morning at the quarterly meeting of the Board of Trustees I was given permission to employ two part-time workers for my staff. I’ve been trying to convince them for a long time that we should not depend on volunteer help to run this library efficiently.”

“I don’t think I’m the librarian type,” protested Lois.

“Nonsense,” said Miss Randall. “There’s no such thing as a librarian type. There are as many varieties of librarians as there are varieties of teachers.”

“Perhaps,” conceded Lois. [p. 62]

Title: Lois Thornton, Librarian
Creator: Brady, Rita G.
Publisher: Abelard Schuman
Date: 1959
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