Want to Date a Librarian?

For those of you wondering what the do's and don't of picking up a librarian are:

Ever hear of the Librarian Fetish?

The tightly buttoned-up attire, the perma-scowl, the hair in the bun. And the cateyes. There's just something about those specs.

Nobody can be so repressed all the time, can they? Hence the genesis of the fetish: anybody that repressed must be equally wild behind the scenes, or so the fantasy goes.

Well then, for all you people out there who suffer the Librarian Fetish and dream of what happens when the bun comes down ...

... this is the post for you.

How To Pick Up A Librarian

Don't try to pick them up in the library. Big no-no. Most are so focussed on the heavy workload of checkins/checkouts, reorganizing books in return carts, and reading Hollywood gossip online, that they more than likely won't recognize what it is you are trying to do.

Do get yourself over to an off-site librarian hangout. Skip the local bars, you won't find any librarians there. The surplus of exposed cleavage which has made the club scene famous tends to intimidate the buttoned-up librarian types. Instead, head to a Librarian Bar ... otherwise known as a bookstore with a Starbucks inside.

Don't try the usual pickup lines. If you've ever been in a library, you will know that librarians generally do not care about their outward appearance and make minimal effort to look pretty. Ergo, any lines formulated around the concept of their physical appearance will go relatively unnoticed.

Do compliment their tastes, be it the books they have in hand, or the equisite detail on the rims of their cateye spectacles. But be warned: librarians are behind the times and still see themselves as the gatekeepers of the world's information access, Internet be damned. By extension, they love knowledgable people. If you don't know your books, your MARC, or your Hollywood gossip, better luck next time, pal.

Don't be "all that". Librarians don't care how much money you make, largely because we don't make enough to really care about it ourselves. That and a large percentage of librarians live inside the Great Bubble of Altruism, believing in what they do above all else. In their minds, your six-figure Executive VP CEO-track position is nothing compared to their for-the-betterment-of-society responsibilities.

Do speak highly of as many non-profit organizations as you can, especially those centred around literacy and children's education. If you drop the props at the right time, and in the right amount, you will see that bun begin to slip.

Don't mention how much you love the convenience of the Internet, or the thought of a paperless (and therefore bookless) society. In fact, if your job is based around making information more accessible to the average person (rendering librarians redundant in the process), you may as well head home now and start looking for a new fetish.

Do mention your strong hatred of Everything Google, even if this is a flat-out lie. Hey, we all lie when we're trying to pick up anyway, so what's the difference? For some odd reason, librarians get really excited whenever something bad is said about Google. It's the librarian's equivalent to Spanish Fly. Seriously.

Don't mention the overdues you have at your library, or the time you were kicked out for screaming at staff over the $2 per day DVD fines. This should go without saying.

Do speak in code, wherever possible. In other words, learn a little LC or Dewey, same as you would learn a little French if you were going to Quebec with the intention of picking up. If you can manage to successfully work a little 821.008 in there, you're golden, baby.

A final tip:
If you look like Johnny Depp, even just a little bit, you won't have to do a thing; the librarians will come to you. This is a truism across the board. Don't ask me why - it just is.

So if you find yourself feeling that Bunhead itch, hit up your nearest bookstore/coffeeshop mashup, stake out the Reference, Mystery, and Romance aisles, and get ready to rip that juke joint in two.

Use these tips properly, and you will see for yourself the freaky-deeky hiding beneath the bun.

Source

I'm Late in Learning About This - Perhaps You Are As Well

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- This isn't the typical whispering you might expect to hear at a library.

Vienna's City Hall has launched a "sex hotline" to raise money for the capital's main public library, officials said Tuesday.

It's unusual, but it's not particularly raunchy: Callers pay 39 euro cents (53 U.S. cents) a minute to listen to an actress read breathless passages from erotica dating to the Victorian era.

City Hall set up the hotline earlier this month to help the library raise cash for planned remodeling and expansion, Austrian media reported.

Anne Bennent, a famous Austrian stage and film star, reads passages from the Vienna library's collection of 1,200 works of erotic fiction from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, the library said.

Officials said the hotline would be operational through May 31.

Source

Holy Librarian Batman!

Sartorial Appreciation

Even the Sartorialist has included some bookish type looks.

The caption for this one reads how this look would not be complete or the same without the moleskin


Below are some of the looks that came up when I searched "Librarian"

Let's Play Dress Up - Librarian Dress Up!

Not all librarians are bun wearing shusshers. Some wear buns and shush you whilst wearing a catwoman-esque costume.

Brought to you by Librarian planet. Click here to play.

My Other Car is a BookMobile

The following is a compilation that Sterling Coleman made when he was still at LSU's School of Library and Information Science.

---

Bumper Stickers For Librarians:

"Saint Melvil"

"Spread the Word--Be a Librarian"?

"LIBRARIANS ROCK!"

"Honk if You Love Librarians!"

"I Like Librarians and Coffee Too."

"Librarians are Novel Lovers"

"Librarians know where it's at!"

"Do the Dewey!"

"Back off! Or I'll cross-reference the heck outta you!"

"Honk if you love DDC" (or "LC")!"

"Shh! High-level reference work in progress."

"Librarians Know the Answers... Do you Know the Questions?"

"Explore strange new worlds... visit the library."

"We know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING!"

"Serving your information needs (while also making the big $$)"

"Less shushing--more lushing !"

"BOOK IT WITH A LIBRARIAN !"

"May the source be with you !"

"Librarians have high shelf esteem !"

"Librarians always know...or know where to go!"

"Go to a library and see the world...through books!"

"Open your mind...read a book!"

"If knowledge is power, become a librarian, and enjoy the ultimate power trip!"

Most recently finished books:
What Would Dewey Do?
Secret Societies

Are librarians and educators a disruptive influence?

Looks like there's a counter-revolt of sorts going on in the world of education, as librarians and educators - tired of being marginalized by technology (i.e. Google) - are fighting back. In Ohio, for example, librarians and educators are banding together to come up with a comprehensive strategy of disruptive innovation. The Disruptive Library Technology Jester has even posted an open letter to disruptive innovation guru Clayton Christensen in the hopes of sparking debate. The letter is noteworthy for another reason - it includes a generous helping of Internet jargon like "truly disruptive innovations" and "loosely coupled organizations." The Disruptive Library Technology Jester is a young blog (established in December 2005), but it looks like there's a lot of energy here. The tagline for the blog is "We’re Disrupted, We’re Libraries, and We’re Not Going to Take It Anymore..."

Then, over at The Shifted Librarian, there's extensive commentary about an extreme makeover for libraries. There are a lot of interesting ideas here, including the notion from Omar Wasow ("Library 2.0") that "technology hollows out real estate." As an example, consider what ATMs did to bank branches. Does anybody actually go inside a bank anymore, unless they have to? The same thing, apparently, has happened to libraries. With Google available 24/7, does anybody actually go inside libraries anymore - unless they have to? The answer is: yes. But only if libraries focus on what has made them so important for hundreds of years: they are "temples of thought" and "public parks for the brain" that transform as much as educate.

Thanks to http://www.businessinnovationinsider.com for this one

Nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu Batgirl

"In the public psyche, a librarian is a woman of indeterminate age, who wears spectacles; a person with either a timorous disposition or an austere disposition, wearing a long sleeved blouse buttoned to the neck; someone who loves silence, likes books, and suffers people. Librarians don't laugh. They are covered with a thin film of dust. They have pale skins, which, when touched (as if one ever could) might flake and prove to be reptilian scales."
~ Alison Hall, "Behind the Bun, or Batgirl was a Librarian "

Tatty's Devine

http://www.tattydevine.com/boutique/product_info.php?cPath=84&products_id=30 Glasses Necklace £22.00

A tiny pair of glasses on a chain, so you look like you want to be a librarian. Just a little bit. Materials Acrylic and metal alloy. Size Glasses - 6cm x 1.5cm Chain - 45cm

A Few Job Titles Used by Information Professionals

Archivist - Associate Director for Information and Technology - Bibliographic Database Manager - Bibliographic Instruction Coordinator - Business Information Coordinator - Business Information Specialist - Cataloger - Category Architect - Collection Services Coordinator - Consultant - Content Manager - Coordinator for Assessment and Continuous Improvement - Coordinator for Bibliographic Control - Coordinator, Information Services - Coordinator of Reference and Information - Curator of Manuscripts - Cybrarian -Data Services Specialist - Dean of libraries - Digital Archivist - Director of Educational Information - Director of Electronic Learning - Fine Arts Bibliographer - Head of Cataloging/Documents - Humanities Bibliographer - Information Architect - Knowledge Integrator - Knowledge Manager - Knowledge Resource Specialist - Librarian - Manager of Information Services - Reader's Advisor - Reference Archivist - University Archivist