Disappointment

This past Friday I attended my 20 year high school reunion. I was looking forward to it for many reasons, one of which being I thought I'd be collecting a lot of material for this blog. How wrong I was! Apparently I'm doing a fairly decent job at dismantling librarian stereotypes because I received nothing but positive comments when I responded to the "So, what do you do for a living?" comment. I didn't even get a "you have to have a master's degree to be a librarian comment?"! I did get a few comments related to the librarian fantasy that most men have. I guess that stereotype won't die anytime soon.

crisis of Identity.

I am.
Is there more that is needed or necessary?
So anxious are we to categorize--yea gods, another typcasting for librarians?

I am a speed-demon; Dessert-lover.
Mutiple degree-carrying (but no black-belt);
JUDGMENTAL (you should see my Myers-Briggs results! --uh, but you won't)
some would argue fearless...maybe>sly smile<

But we love the alphabet....here's mine: B.A, M.P.I.A, J.D., M.L.I.S. (by order of date, not importance)

Yeah, baby. I know the Blues.
Plastic spoon on a porcelain plate.

Kill Marian (the librarian)

All professions have stereotypes, some of them warranted, most of them not. Computer experts are “geeks”, engineers are “nerds”, accountants are stingy and boring, and lawyers are well… lawyers. I am a librarian. I have a masters of science degree in library science. I have a bachelor’s degree in business administration from one of the top business schools in the country. I work in a hospital. I can script html and css, know enough about RSS feeds to be dangerous. I'm comfortable around a computer, I have a cell phone and a PDA. I do NOT say shhhhhh, I do NOT wear my hair in a bun and I dress well.

The librarian stereotype I never understood was the librarian fantasy. You know, the fantasy that most heterosexual males have about deflowering the repressed librarian enabling her to let her hair down so to speak. This is one of those double-edged stereotypes. If forced at gun point to chose, I'd rather be an object of the fantasy than thought of as timid and quiet. In my ideal world though, librarians will be judged as individuals not as a stereotype. And if that means I have to change minds one patron at a time, then so be it!

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, shatter to a billion pieces

Well the deed is now done. After attending a conference that included discussions about Web Blogs, a colleague & I have decided to ASCEND into madness and blog on our Mission: Renegade Librarians: Dismantling the librarian stereotype one patron at a time.

Alias: Mahnolo Blogniks.
It's not just Sex in the City anymore....come dig our stacks as we fortify, edify and defy the traditional norms and persuasions of librarian life.

and we find we are not alone...fellowship is being born and woven via the Web as I type.
First and foremost into the fray and with many links: http://iamalibrarian.com/

Keep reading and rockin'