The Boring Librarian.

So my cage was rattled recently. Long story short – when one student learnt that a work colleague and I were friends, the pupil apparently asked my friend:

“The librarians’ assistant…but isn’t she a bit boring?”

Okay bear with me. This is not going to be a blog post about how fascinating I am, because I am most definitely not the world’s most exciting person. My question is:

What makes a person boring? Because clearly working in a library does.

 

I’ve never met this pupil. Which leads me to the conclusion they’re basing their assumption on the only thing they know about me – that I work in a library.

Why is that? I thought to myself? I’ll tell you why:

Stereotypes

*vom*

I’m assuming when the term ‘Librarian’ is thrown around, they either picture this:

Photo credit:kdkbooklove

 

Or this:

 



Basically, I’ve got to be aged 60+, perpetually angry for unknown reasons and have a finger permanently stuck to my pursed, wrinkly, hairy lips to SHH you aggressively. OR I can be no older than 25, wear ‘geek’ glasses to make obvious the infinite extent of my knowledge and have a finger held daintily to my plumped, lipsticked mouth to SHH you and then probably giggle afterwards.

Oh and all I had to do for those images was search for ‘librarian’ in google images. Apparently librarians are all females too, because I swear I could probably count on one hand the amount of males that the search produced.

Anyway.

The annoying thing about a stereotype is that it does what it says on the tin. Everyone is lumped into one or two defining categories. It’s bad – but not so bad – if say your stereotype is an excellent one. Oh you’re a doctor?  How clever you must be! Oh you’re a fashion designer? How creative you must be!

Oh you’re a librarian?

How…um… erm…

Librarians just got lumbered with an unappealing stereotype. But does that make me as an individual 'The Boring Librarian'?

So, first things first: Do I conform to the stereotype? So here are some things that came up when I googled ‘Stereotypical Librarian’:

Wears hair in a bun.

I do not do this. And if I do it’s probably because I didn’t wash it that day and I’m trying to hide the unwashed-ness.

Wears glasses.

Only when I’m looking at a computer, because the shiny, magical light that they emit is just too much for my naked eyeballs apparently. ‘Spectacle shaped force-field’ makes it sound edgier. And just to note - my glasses neither make me look like an OAP, or super sexy.

Smells like coffee and cats.

I don’t like coffee, not even in chocolates. I probably smell like cats.

Wears cardigans.

Yup. Love me a knitted garment.

Reads all day.

Na, I have a job. And just because it’s one where I’m surrounded by books, doesn’t mean I can sit around reading them all day. As much as I’d like that, no-one would pay me. *sadface*

 

Anyway the one thing that struck me most about most of the stereotypes is that THEY ARE ALL VISUAL! Basically bun + glasses + coffee/cats + cardigans = Librarian. And not in a good way.

Why?? What is it about cardigans, and the odour of cats that makes one a boring Librarian.
Because this is the thing about boring: it is stereotyped itself.
Boring stereotypes include those of cardigans and glasses. And somehow they’ve wormed their way to nestle alongside Librarian to produce not a very exciting connotation.

So to some people I probably am boring. But to others I’m really fun. I like movies, yes – reading, getting tiddly and dancing tiddlier, Chinese food, laughing loudly (yes even in the library!), but most of all I like being with people who like me – in other words, socialising. That’s the one stereotype I’d like to break permanently. You can judge me for my cats and glasses if you like. But librarians are humans and if you come and talk to us we might be the most interesting people you’ve ever met, even only if to offer excellent advice on which colour cardigan would go nicely with your cat.

The main point of all this rambling is that no-one is truly boring because boring means different things to different people. To pre-judge a librarian as 'boring' before talking to them is almost as bad as assuming a blonde is, by definition, significantly lacking in intellect and will do sillier things than her brunette and red-haired counterparts in a bar environment. Or that teachers don't have lives beyond the classroom. Or that police-men are all terrifying and speaking to them will get you send straight to jail without passing go. Or collecting two hundred pounds.

Basically, don't judge a book by it's cover. Even if it does smell like coffee.

Over and out.