“You’re going to be one of those sexy librarians!”

I’m almost a librarian, yadda yadda, you know this already. For the past year and a half (actually more like two years), I’ve dealt with the ridiculous stereotypes surrounding librarians and librarianship. Let’s review some, shall we? It’s sure to be a quiet, orderly journey, but some sassy ladies might rip off their glasses. (Watch out!)

If you do a Google Image Search for “librarian,” and you have your SafeSearch off, you get a weird mix of gray-haired old ladies and sexy bespectacled women with heaving bosoms. There’s this interesting Halloween costume, which is unfortunately not for sale anymore. There’s this old lady cartoon; doesn’t she look friendly?  

So what are the stereotypes here? Why do they exist? How can we get rid of them? I actually wrote a paper about this last year, but it was really boring. I promise this will a) have more pictures, and b) not have Chicago-style formatted citations.

The Old Maid

You know this one. The older lady who never married, owns twelve cats, eats bran flakes for every meal, and turns her nose up at boisterous merrymaking. She usually has gray hair pulled back into a tight bun. She probably has reading glasses on; they have a chain. She wears a cardigan. Think of Angela from The Office as a librarian. This librarian probably only reads “the classics.” She’s not fond of the children’s area (it’s too loud). She looks like the librarian at the beginning of Ghostbusters, the ghostly one. She shushes.

Shut your piehole.

This is the librarian that library school students simultaneously fear and hate. Yes, she exists. (Notice that I keep saying “she.” There aren’t really any dude librarian stereotypes, unless you count Giles from Buffy, and that’s a pretty awesome stereotype.) The Old Maid librarian lives to force people to follow her library rules. You will have that book back on time. You won’t talk in the library. You can’t read that. Ugh. Libraries are (or should be) places where anyone can get the information they seek. Librarians should be helpful, friendly human search engines who know where stuff is, how to access that stuff, and how to interpret that stuff. A good librarian shouldn’t blink an eye if someone asks for The Anarchist’s Cookbook and Make Way for Ducklings in the same breath. Good for you, you are reading.

This stereotype exists because librarians used to be almost exclusively unmarried women.

I'm a krakpot!

And who do we have to thank for this?Melvil Dewey, of the Dewey Decimal System. If you don’t know anything about Dewey, you should learn, because he was a crackpot. First of all, he was born Melville Dewey, but took off the extra letters in his first name because they weren’t efficient. He also invented his own way of spelling, so “Dewey” became “Dui,” “coffee” became “cofi,” etc. Crack. Pot. I had to read some of his letters in a class last year; these were letters written in his simplified spelling system, and I had to read the entire thing aloud to have any idea what he was talking about.

However, I do have to thank crazy ol’ Melvil for something: he started a library school at Columbia College in 1883 and convinced the trustees to admit women. Before you start thinking he was a great, forward-thinking man, wait a sec. Dewey was so keen on women as librarians because they are smaller and more efficient in their movements. Yep. From then on, librarianship became a respectable profession for young women, and most of the dude librarians went elsewhere.

So thanks, Melvil, for letting me into the profession, even if you did it with ulterior motives.

Moving on.

The Sexy Librarian

I am not tooting my own horn, okay? But apparently I fit more into this category than the Old Maid, much to my surprise. Here’s my idea of a fun Friday night: knitting a shawl while drinking tea and talking to my cats while my boyfriend does algebra in the chair next to me. Maybe I’ll bake some bread. If I’m sexy, I have nothing to do with it.

Anyway, the sexy librarian archetype makes me really mad. At least the Old Maid has some history behind it. The only thing behind the sexy librarian is a fleeting thought that a thirteen-year-old boy had one day as he was leaving the library: “I wonder what she looks like with her hair down.” Then he imagined it.

Her hair is usually done up in some sort of clip. This gives some semblance of professionalism, while offering easy removal and tousling. She might wear a cardigan, but over a lacy camisole. Pencil skirt, high heels, cat-eye glasses. Just follow the suggestions in this article. Or use this picture for guidance:

I have a master's degree.

Not going to lie: I kind of wish I looked like that. But not. Because that’s the fantasy of quite a few people, and it’s creepy. It’s creepy to tell someone you are going to library school and have them respond, “Ooh, librarians are sexy,” or “You’re going to be one of those sexy librarians!”

If I am a sexy librarian (gross), it’s not important. You don’t put “People think I’m sexy” on your resume, although if you try, send me a picture.

People like the sexy librarian because she represents authority acting in a “naughty” fashion. She has the ability to tell you to be quiet, give you a fine for late books, and then command you to use a bookmark. She’s like a book-themed dominatrix.

I don’t want to be a book-themed dominatrix. I want to be a good (or great) librarian. I want to help people find the information they need. I want to uphold intellectual freedom. None of these things involve ripping open my cardigan or leaning over to expose my stocking seams.

How can we fix the public’s idea of librarians? By being good librarians. Don’t give into the stereotypes! When people call you a cat lady or tell you to take your hair out of its sensible ponytail, smack them in the face. Or, you know, tell them to stop. Whichever.