(Bull)Shhhhhh(it)

I held the same beliefs about libraries and librarians even after I had begun working at my college library. I worked in technical services, processing periodicals (magazines) and government documents (senate pamphlets), and it was tedious work that had to be done in a certain way. If it wasn't, someone would pull the stick out of their behind and teach you something about making mistakes (not really, they just told you what to do next time). Until I started working in a public library and then later attended graduate school for library science, I had no idea what librarians are all about.

Libraries are understaffed and underfunded, so forget the glitz and glam.


In addition to the idea of a library as a quiet, dusty old place with a stack of books and a card catalog, two stereotypes are applied to librarians: the sexy librarian who will take her clothes off in the book stacks, and the old librarian who scowls behind her glasses, wears a tight bun, and has a tighter face. The library, I believed, was a silent place where said librarian sat behind a big desk guarding knowledge, dusting off the rarely-used books if someone should happen to stumble in and request the most obscure and out-dated information.

Good luck finding these outside of a sealed vault!


Allow me to shatter all myths.

The Library:

A public library circulates more DVDs than books. I can go to work for 12 hours and not touch a single book all day. Snot-nosed kids sneeze on every possible surface and who knows what the sticky goo is on half of our materials.

Libraries are loud and busy, and are focusing on buying computers more than any other material. Rightly so, on account of the online databases and other information that are available electronically. Those of you who are looking for drawers of card catalogs and leather-bound volumes of literary texts will be disappointed when we tell you that the typical public library houses the hottest in paperback romances, mysteries, and 60 volumes of each Twilight title. This is assuming that people come in requesting books. Usually people just want to know the answers to questions like, "What do you call those Irish midgets again? The green ones?" They're leprechauns, by the way.

The Librarian:

And for those of you looking for the sex-addicted librarian, you're at a loss. I'm sure some librarians struggle with sex addiction, but for the most part, librarians have a healthy sexual appetite on account of the fact that they're human. I have met more sorority-girl-type librarians than anal-retentive grandmas, and even the grandmas could use a drink after a particularly bad shift. Why? Being a librarian is customer service, the way selling knives door-to-door and being a greeter at Banana Republic are. Librarians provide services and they do their best to give you what you need with a smile and only occasional angry utterances that you can't hear. I'm sure some technical services and cataloging librarians sit in basements all day with little or no contact with the public, but being an isolated librarian is a thing of the past. In fact, librarians deal with so many stupid people so often they tend to hate people and be filled with inexpressible rage.

This is inappropriate work-attire and feet are not allowed on furniture.


I'm sure librarians like the one in Roald Dahl's Matilda exist somewhere, but for the most part, kids come into the library screaming and waiting in line to play computer games after having chewed up all the available books. Adults pretty much act the same way, except when they wait to play computer games they complain. Romantic ideals have been dead and buried a long time in the library world. If you want a hot lady to show you her Camus collection, join on online dating site.

When I Get Older

When I was almost a teenager, and even after I had already become one, I thought I would grow up to be a totally different person. In fact, I thought I would be a totally different person by the time I started high school. It was some time around the age of 13 that I decided that when I was a senior in high school, I would be a tall, skinny red-head (with an interesting face) with a boyfriend (who has a car), and will be on one or possibly two sports teams. I would put myself through an Ivy-league school by modeling fashion and hell, I may even become a well-known fashion model. I'd get loads of money and free clothes and then, when I get fired in my mid-twenties, I would have my Ivy-league education to fall back on for money. This second job, I imagined, would be a writer, possibly a professor either before becoming a writer, or being a professor while writing. Maybe I would be a journalist.

I imagined myself waking up as famous and red-headed as Lily Cole.


That's a tall order for a tween, but it seemed reasonable. I didn't think through how this would happen, how I would wake up a skinny redhead one day with the grades and money for Harvard, but I figured it was a given. Besides, if you watch enough John Hughes movies, you think that by the time you hit high school you'd be able to pass for 21.

Unfortunately, the weight never came off (in fact, a lot of teenage girls gain weight), and school was too boring to interest me, and why would I get up at 5 am on a Saturday for sports team practice? I never had a boyfriend then, and I thought my peers were too annoying to go to cool parties with (they never had cool parties anyway). I became so pretentious even I couldn't put up with myself. My political ideas were so anarchist that they didn't even make sense. How could I possibly be in the fashion and advertisement industry if they are so obviously brainwashing corporations trying to own our souls?

I'm 23 now, with my non-existent modeling career behind me, and I still need to lose some weight. My features are about as round as they were when I was 12, so I guess you don't grow a new face when you become an adult. As easy as it is to be one tv now (what with all those reality shows), I've slowly come to terms with the fact that I will never be famous, least of all for winning a high-fashion beauty contest (some of my frumpy clothes can attest to that). I didn't go to an Ivy-league school (not even close!), and my graduate school isn't exactly high-class either.

In spite of that, I can't imagine another course my life could have taken. It's basically almost perfect now, all things considered, even if I'm not making thousands of dollars a week being an interesting-faced model.

Revamped

I really got sick of my blog. It turned into one of those directionless, pointless, rambling blogs in which I complain about anything and everything, but I don't really put any sort of thought or effort into it.

So I have decided to start all over again, albeit pessimistically. I'm going to write about the reality of my life as compared to the ideas I had when I was a kid, or the ideas other people might have about the things I do (such as working in a library). Sounds depressing, but I think it would be interesting to explore the daily disappointments and lifelong disillusions that people (me specifically) face. At a certain point in your life you simply have to ask yourself, "what happened to the Tooth Fairy?"