Two links came my way from a local library ListServ yesterday (see, sometimes ListServs are useful!):
NYT: A Hipper Crowd of Shushers
BBC: Librarians “Suffer Most Stress”
It’s so funny. I hear both of these feelings expressed by librarians on a daily basis. It’s either, “OMG, we’re so cool and nobody seems to appreciate that” or “Most people just don’t see the pressure we’re under.” Or sometimes, I hear a combination of them both.
In the end, I have a hard time really taking either position too seriously. For one, if you find yourself in a position of explaining to people why you’re so cool, then you’re not. And are we just trading one stereotype for another, as Meredith Farkas suggests?
For the other, come on. As vital as we like to think libraries are, in the end, it’s not a life or death situation you find yourself in. It’s a library, not an operating room. So relax.
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July 10th, 2007 at 10:00 am
If we suffer the most stress, I should have been a doctor. More money and less stress. What was I thinking.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
We might as well “just” be trading stereotypes, and for a few reasons. First, we live in a world of soundbytes and stereotypes; digging deeper is just so….old school. Second, I think it is a better stereotype. Third, the old one is decidedly musty and moldy, like all those quaint…um…books…that we are generally associated with.
To totally zen the issue - it is both and neither. We are under incredible pressures to keep up and “perform,” and to keep up we feel the need to add a veneer of “cool.”
As Abe the L said, you can’t cool all of the people all of the time.