Riding the wave
Saw this on the Archives and Archivists listserv, From the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07
My reaction to most of these types of articles is usually, "Meh," but this one refrains from adding a negative to the many positives in the piece. It's not very long and I apologize in advance for when the NYT pulls it from the free content section.
Aside from the many commonalities between myself and the dorks in the article, there is also this small telling nugget:
"In the last few years, articles have decried the graying of the profession, noting a large percentage of librarians that would soon be retiring and a seemingly insurmountable demand for replacements. But worries about a mass exodus appear to have been unfounded."I can't honestly say that I believed the hype that we'd all be given great high-paying jobs straight outta school, but I'm glad someone finally copped to it. Not that this now debunked myth ever applied to our fair city.
9 comments:
It's LIS schools that are graying and closing.
Yeah, the "graying" of the profession is really just the status quo --- young people, generally speaking, don't go into the information professions (unless we're talking about the tech-heavy side...)
Usually it's middle-aged to older folk who become librarians, thus keeping the field gray. We youngin's are the weirdos. I actually kinda like it that way.
Now if only we could get paid more...
As for those Williamsburg hipsters --- they can go fuck themselves with their own coolness.
See, the whole thing I don't get is the guessing the drinks Dewey numbers, because I only know the ones for things like terminal diseases (613.9) and manga (741.59), you can't or at least shouldn't, make a drink that tastes like either of those!
I'm a cataloger and even I wouldn't be so dumb as to give drinks Dewey numbers.
I'd probably just punch the bartender instead.
Wow. I think it's time for some anger management...
If this didn't summarize my angle on the Gray Lady's slow news day, this other one covers it.
Only a story if it happens in New York, as ever; yawn.
All professions have their stereotypes; doctors are jerks, lobbyists are evil, accountants are extremely boring...How was this article worse then the general stereotype of alice the librarian from ghostbusters?
It wasn't. If that wasn't good publicity, what would you consider to be good, keeping in mind something a national audience would actually read.
DM:
I don't disagree; however, profiling the jerks in trendier-than-thou Williamsburg of all places to show that librarians drink booze and have tattoos (gasp!) was just ridiculous.
We do that shit here but we don't run around dressed like posers, playing obscure indie rok, and drinking beverages coded with Dewey numbers.
Yes, I think it's true an article showing librarians as everyday folk who have a wide variety of interests wouldn't get very far in our over-sensationalized mainstream media, but to single out the dorks in NYC to re-purpose America's notions of the Librarian as a bun-wearin' book-huggin' noise-shushin' spinster is going too far in the other direction. Oh, now librarians are too-cool-for-school? Perhaps I, the average library user, am not worthy of asking for assistance at the library now.
An article about the closing of library schools (and of libraries themselves!) due to budget cuts and severe lack of funding would be more useful and more meaningful. But readers don't want to see depressing stuff like that.
Besides "it's all on the 'interweb' anyway" right?
Getting down off my soapbox now...
um, just wanted to say that i love my fellow librarians, hip or not. and maybe even sometimes i think about joining your lot--mostly because of the whole "information = power" thing, and i love media. the charming nerdiness and the parties are just bonuses.
Come toward the dorky-named umbrella drinks... you are getting sleepy, sleepy...
I personally know two librarians that are able to retire but don't. So it may not be so much that the profession should be having tons of jobs open (for the same not that great pay but personally, I like the fact I can read blogs in my job while getting paid little versus working overtime and feeling stressed out and getting paid lots...vast generalizations but that's all I got) but that the jobs that should be opening aren't because older librarians want to keep them. That's not to say that there are jobs opening and they are also being down away with, smooshed into another person's job description or being re-written all together or a million other things that could be happening. I too believed the hype. That's how the library school gets to keep their numbers up and the retention rate steady. :)
~The Booklahver
Post a Comment