Reflection Blog #6: Librarian Guides and Adventurous Information Professionals

Our LIBR 200 lesson on librarian stereotypes has been among the most thought-provoking so far (which is saying a lot, given how much material we have covered already)—and it has made me rethink how this profession appears in popular culture or gets viewed by society as a whole. Ever since childhood, it seems, I had been acquainted with the stereotype of the “old maid librarian,” as mentioned by Debbie Hansen in her lecture, and the no-nonsense “enforcer” touched on by Ellen Greenblatt.

But I will always remember how my earliest impressions of librarians were as the silent guardians to vast collections of books. They worked behind the scenes at a public library, pointing those who either needed help or had no idea how to use a library in the right direction. In that light, I suppose they seemed like a type of technical support—or as if they simply “came with” a library and embodied all the knowledge contained therein. For there was no doubt in my mind that librarians were wise or knew a great deal. In my imagination, they would have been the ones the main character of a story came to for hard-to-find information or sage advice in locating some mystical object or unraveling a mystery.

In hindsight, a lot of movies did enforced this image while I was growing up. For instance, the film Matilda (and the children’s story that it came from) featured a young girl named Matilda who managed to fulfil her love of reading—and empower herself in many other ways—by visiting the public library. The librarian, an older woman in sharp-framed glasses notices the child coming in day after day and finally gives her a library card. After that, she disappears while Matilda continues to grow intellectually in-between implied visits to the library. She no longer needs to be there for the storyline to work.

Even in children’s cartoons like Peanuts, where the characters did spend time using a library, the emphasis was more on books and the facilities. And if anyone spoke above a whisper or grew too loud, librarians were the silent and invisible force that kicked them (like Snoopy) out of the building. Other cartoons such as Rugrats did have library episodes where the young cast of characters tended to get introduced to the world-opening wonders of their public library. Yet then the adults would have to fill out tons of paperwork for the library card, while the librarian herself (usually always a woman in these cases) would stare them down like a vulture—searching for the smallest flaw on which to call them out. Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends even had an episode where a young boy has an overdue book and has to dodge an array of ninja-like librarians who are out to get him (as if he were a criminal) to slip it into the return slot—neglecting to realize that he would have to deal with the librarians anyway.

Such cartoons tended to use librarians for humor or comedic effect. And while I didn’t think much of that at the time, it was clear these shows perpetuated the overall cultural stereotypes against librarians and warned me as a child not to cross them in any way.

As an adult, I have come to know better—that librarians are highly educated information professionals who fight for intellectual freedom and truly want to help their patrons in every possible way. Still, I regret to say there are few stories I have read (despite being an ardent bibliophile) or heard where the main character is a librarian and performs in that role throughout the tale. The lists for these books on the Canvas website were helpful, but it still stands.

One example is Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book, where the rare book expert and conservator Hanna Heath gets the offer to help save the Sarajevo Haggadah—a religious text passed from one person to the next during a period when illuminated bibles had been banned. Using clues found in the book’s gutter, and at different points in the text, Hanna manages to piece together the journey this text must have made over the last few centuries. This information helps to form the basis for the rest of the story, which veers between a historical novel and a romance. Yet Hannah as a rare book expert gets the assignment due to her background in helping to preserve illuminated manuscripts and goes on a long journey as a result. Although, Hannah even goes so far as say she was far more used to the quiet comfort of her scientific lab to such an active or dangerous environment at one point, implying that her line of work is pretty reclusive. So while Brooks does go out of his way to portray the rare book expert as delighting in her work, and some of the process involved, it becomes the launching point used for an adventure that he suggests wouldn’t have been available to someone in that profession.

This perspective is interesting, especially when combined with the thought of an “information professional.”

In fact, I have read quite a wide selection of stories and watched several movies with main characters who would fall into the information professional category. They may not work in libraries or assist patrons within a library setting, yet in many ways their interaction with resources (often books) and use of vast knowledge to help people overcome difficulties or make a variety of contributions places them in this role.

One example is Walter Moers’ The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear. In this novel, the title character relates one long wild yarn about many of the different places he had visited or seen during his life. From his first memory as a baby set adrift in an acorn shell on the high seas, to entertaining ghastly goblins with crying displays, to tramping over a desert made of dried brown sugar, he covers a lot of ground while searching for the perfect place to settle. Each location has a problem or issue that provides a social commentary in some way, but Bluebear is able to overcome them all with the help of a mental encyclopedia inserted into his head by a seven-brained professor who studies dark matter called Professor Nightingale (and yes, this story is as wacky and complicated as it sounds).

So Bluebear especially is the “walking encyclopedia” sometimes attributed to librarians, and using this knowledge he is able to help those he meets along the way and get out of more than one tough scrape. There is also a point, closer to the end of the novel, where he participates in an event in Atlantis (before it disappears off the earth; though this time it doesn’t sink beneath the waves) known as the “Duel of Lies.” The event is actually an oral storytelling gladiator-style competition, more or less, and the participants spend all their time preparing for it by reading books or learning the subtle fact of creating fictions (which he wins, by the way).

By the end of the novel, Bluebear retires to a forest where he becomes a teacher, researcher, and boasts an archive of literature. He writes stories about his adventures and is a guide to whom everyone in the surrounding community comes when in need.

With this said, Bluebear is essentially a librarian in the sense of his education (both from his worldly experiences and knowledge of literature) and the role he performs in helping those he meets. Yet “information professional” might be the term used to describe him best in this capacity because of all the stereotypes connected with the librarian profession—whereas, saying he is an “information professional” makes him sound more active and up to speed on the latest developments.

With this said, the implication I have begun to notice again and again is that “librarians” tend to get stereotyped as slower, quieter, and older individuals (unless they lead a double life as mentioned by Greenblatt). But an “information professional” is a term without the same stereotyped connected to it, and almost gives the impression of a tech-savvy or adventurous person.

Of course, I believe this impression is gradually changing. There is hope that librarians and this job title might have begun to shrug off those stereotypes in popular media.

For example, my chosen fan community is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic—and the main character in this series is a librarian. Twilight Sparkle lived (up until the season 4 finale) in a library and acted as the librarian for the town. But she also became an authority, resource, and guide for all the residents. And when trouble struck, she leaps into action with magic and knowledge at the ready.

With any luck, this might signal a change in how people view librarians as a whole—regardless of whether or not they are also “information professionals.”