The painfully clichéd librarian..

[78saab]

Hello!


I was just wondering, since this is the book forums, if anyone else fits into the twee cliché and actually is a librarian / works in a library / hangs out in the library. So far in my job i have come across a depressing lack of likeminded music-tastes in my collegues : (

But seriously.. come hang out at the library! we have DVDs and everything!! Ha...


Bill.

[grumpytimes]

i work in libraries too! well at the moment i'm only working casually at a library and more seriously at a second hand bookstore. way to smash those stereotypes!

when i first started my job in library in london we were have a staff party soonish and a collegue sent an email regarding the music choice and finished it with "and remember, as always, NO BELLE AND SEBASTIAN".

but on the whole i've come across heaps of like minded work mates music wise. i've swapped mix cds in all my jobs and there are a few people from my favourite auckland bands working at the library i'm at now!

[KingPanda]

I used to be a librarian. I don't think any of the people I worked with would have known who B&S were, let alone like them.

[Carys]

My partner's a Librarian, and I used to work as a Library Assistant in the same library. Two of our colleagues sometimes know what we're talking about musicwise. On the other hand, with lots of tweed and terribly mild manners, I fear R is as stereotypical as they come (although he plays some rockin' guitar in his spare time).

[bocken]

The painfully clichéd librarian would be the prim lady with the serious glasses and her hair all-up-in-a-bun wearing a cardigan, who becomes some sort of sex-woman upon removal of glasses and cardigan and letting her hair down. Which is probably most people anyway, if they were only wearing a cardigan to start with.

In my experience librarians are a bit like the Nick Hornby line about pop music, viz 'am I sad because I listen to sad music, or do I listen to sad music because I'm sad'. You don't really get big swaggering twats walking around barking orders behind the issue desk. Not here anyway. Especially when I'm in charge. I only wanted to work in one because it became clear I wasn't really cut out for much else. But here I reckon a lot of the library staff while not especially twee, are 'into' music of some sort. It's something to talk about.

[alongwalkhome]

I have an MLS, but didn't go into it as a profession. I am a proofreader though. Same thing, but with cat sweatshirts instead of glasses on a chain.

[bocken]

I have an MLS, but didn't go into it as a profession. I am a proofreader though. Same thing, but with cat sweatshirts instead of glasses on a chain.

Oh, I had this too. So that's where it started?

[will]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't immediately think "Manhattan Love Suicides" when they see "MLS".

I've often thought about becoming a librarian, but somehow never quite got around to it (much like almost every other job I've thought about getting).

[alongwalkhome]

The course is pretty fucking boring; I just happened to have really fun people on mine. I'm the only one who didn't become a librarian, but that's cuz I always wanted to be an editor and thought killing another year doing a master's in something practical was a good idea. So, the library students seem to do fairly well getting jobs in the profession (well, ones my age anyway).

It's not a waste of time degree--over here anyway--mind, cuz employers make this nonsensical assumption that you're organized, which I am most definitely not.

[KingPanda]

I shot myself in the foot with that one by taking 18 months to do a thesis you're meant to do over the summer. Oh well.

[Woodbine]

I'm not a librarian, but I work with people who look after antiquarian books. Does that count?

[alongwalkhome]

I shot myself in the foot with that one by taking 18 months to do a thesis you're meant to do over the summer. Oh well.

Where did you do your course? I was at Manchester Poly.

[Carys]

I shot myself in the foot with that one by taking 18 months to do a thesis you're meant to do over the summer. Oh well.

That's what my partner's doing. Only, it's shooting us both in the foot, because he's working now over the holidays when we're supposed to have fun or something.

I keep umming and ahhing about a career swap into Libraries...

[KingPanda]

Where did you do your course? I was at Manchester Poly.

University College Dublin. Great days, Gay, great days.

[Mr Bear]

Is it true that one can do a degree in library studies? How long does it take to learn the Dewey decimal system (and the alphabet)?

[grumpytimes]

Is it true that one can do a degree in library studies? How long does it take to learn the Dewey decimal system (and the alphabet)?

mocking other people's career is awesome, thanks a lot...

[KingPanda]

One thing about working in libraries is that it does remind you how many tards there are out there who like to make lazy generalisations about people in professions they know nothing about. Maybe working in libraries also makes people less inclined to do the same about other professions. I would like to think so.

[Carys]

Is it true that one can do a degree in library studies? How long does it take to learn the Dewey decimal system (and the alphabet)?

Librarianship is a profession: most Librarians in the UK have a postgraduate degree (MA/MSc) in Libraries and/or Information Science. You need to have at least a degree in Library Studies to be a Librarian - most have more than this, as well as several years experience in other fields.

[alongwalkhome]

I love you, C.

Mine's an MSc in Information Science. It was at the "dawn of the Internet" and I spent my entire internship doing research online (no one had their own computers or Internet accounts yet) for MBAs at Manchester Business School. They were such pains. I have a BA in English and Sociology and the library course expected you to have both a BA and work experience first. It was actually a pretty competitive course to get on. There were only around 30 of us and probably only a half dozen programs in the UK. I wouldn't call it a difficult course, but it's professional training and that's what people use it for: an exploration of the types of careers they can achieve as an info scientist. My friend Dave has gone from being a film archivist (yes, library degrees yield a wide variety of professions, including all sorts of archival work--esp. combined w/what the person had done at undergrad) to a TV producer. I have another friend who works in a book "clearinghouse" of sorts choosing the books that will be read by school children all over the north west of England. She gets to read pretty much every children's and YA book. Heaven.

Oh, and for what it's worth, cataloging (not every system, btw, uses Dewey--MBS had it's own) is a) pretty freaking difficult; b) barely used by librarians as you think of them. Cataloging is its own separate profession for the most part. And American and the UK are amongst the few that use the LOC cataloging system.

I'm an editor. Not everyone uses their MLS to become a librarian, but a surprising amount do, and "libraries" exist everywhere--mostly in corporations, universities, and museums. The stereotypical public-library librarian represent only a portion of career possibilities--many of which have nothing whatsoever to do with books.

[squirrelboutique]

One thing about working in libraries is that it does remind you how many tards there are out there who like to make lazy generalisations about people in professions they know nothing about. Maybe working in libraries also makes people less inclined to do the same about other professions. I would like to think so.

Way to elevate the debate by using a slur for disabled people though.