Red poppies

Red poppies, originally uploaded by You dress like a librarian.

Red cardigan: Merona
White red flower button up: Heritage 1981
Gray skirt: Old Navy
Belt: F21
Tights: Target
Boots: Famous Footwear


There we go- much cheerier!!!  I absolutely love this floral button up shirt- it works so well with jeans and skirts alike.  It was perfect for a day of more homework (government docs this time! eek!), our weekly meeting, class, and more homework.  Now I am relaxing at home with some red wine and episodes of the BBC Robin Hood (which is so cheesy I really only kept watching for the Armitage) before my at home reference chat shift.

And I can't stop looking at my sleeve:

On a nerdier note, I read this amazing chapter from a book by Marilyn Johnson* for my intro class about BA librarians changing the field.  It got me thinking about the inherited responsibility of changing perceptions- do librarians need to be more active in changing the librarian stereotype?  Johnson mentions that "about a third of the library graduate programs in the United States have now ditched the word library." (9)  I think that creating this hipper image of a "librarian" isn't necessarily a bad thing, but that shouldn't be a primary concern.  Shouldn't we be focused more on creating a more welcoming image, stereotypical or not?


I may be a bit frumpy and unhip but I know I want to do my best to make patrons feel welcome.

Also, fun fact, did you know that maybe 10-20% of the population surrounding a public library actually uses the resources?  Some argue that we should spend our efforts getting in the unserved population.  My professor brought up an interesting counterargument today- if we serve the 10% we are, in essence, serving the rest of the population because, since the 10% are educated with the libraries resources, others go to them for help.  Interesting.




*Johnson, Marilyn. "The Frontier", Chapter 1. In This Book Is Overdue Harper Collins, 2010. pp. 1-12.

Two for one

Jenna Maroney Inspiration, originally uploaded by You dress like a librarian.

White Blouse: F21
Gray pinstripe skirt: The Limited
Red Belt: ??
Black tights: Target
Black heels: Candies

Mustard Cardigan: Merona
Red  blouse: Old Navy
Jeans: Old Navy
Belt: Forever 21
Shoes: Xhilaration


It's soooo past my bedtime but I had to stay up to finish reading about government documents (I think the key point is not that we have access but that we know how/ have the ability to use this information).  Since I was up (and still in my outfit from today) I decided to catch up on my outfit cataloging and snap both yesterday's and today's outfits since I felt good about them.  Since I focused on the Liz Lemon side of my wardrobe last week I decided to try a bit of the Jenna Maroney side.  I don't think I am up for the JM side of my wardrobe- secretary skirts always make me feel awkwardly sexy.  Like I feel that people will think I am trying to be sexy because I am wearing a snug skirt and I feel self conscious.  It might stem from a past classroom experience where I wore this exact skirt and one of my students actually told me I looked hot (ah community college).  So I went back to pants for the rest of my time there.

I know the "sexy librarian" is a stereotype, just like the strict frumpy librarian, but it feels so inappropriate to be even the least bit sexy.  I guess when your job includes helping students access some of the great scholars and thinkers, attractiveness feels superfluous.

I hope I can find a balance between cute clothes and conservative frumpy librarian wear.  I think that clothing can be a sort of text: it can be symbolic for who we are, how we feel in that given moment.

Too much thought for so late at night!

P.S. In trying to find a picture of JM to illustrate the skirt and blouse combo I actually found one of her awesome boyfriend in said outfit. Even better:

A Spectacle

I believe Dorothy Parker once said that men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.  Which is a shame because I could probably be considered legally blind without my trusty black frames or my contacts.

It's also a shame because librarians wear glasses- and not just any glasses, thick geeky glasses, stereotypically.  In real life, I can only think of two people I currently work with at my library who wear glasses.

The outside world, however, has a much different opinion.  When typing in "librarian" into Etsy, the most frequent object in the search result was a necklace with librarian glasses, such as this beauty:

Don't get me wrong, my own real glasses look suspiciously like this and I am currently debating whether I actually want to buy this pretty necklace.

However, I am curious as to how glasses got linked to librarianship.  Perhaps librarians do tend to wear glasses because they read small print more frequently and the public noticed this trend of librarians wearing glasses at work?

Since my favorite thing to do is research, I decided to get some background information on glasses.  The World Book Encyclopedia entry on glasses informed me that the first people to wear glasses were Europeans in the 1200's.  Apparently, Marco Polo reported that he saw people wearing glasses in China in 1275.  Here's the real kicker: "the demand for glasses used for reading increased after printed books started to become available in the late 1400's."   So it's easy to see how glasses could be associated with reading and librarianship.

There is also an interesting article entitled "The Last Librarian" by Norman D. Stephens printed in the October 2001 issue of American Libraries that touches on the history of this image.  In 1876, Melvil Dewey identified a librarian as a "mouser" working with "dusty books."  Even more interesting is what Edmund Pearson had to say about librarians in 1907: "as for the sex which in numbers predominates the profession we resolutely decline to be drawn into a discussion of that phase of the subject, other than to note their curious fondness for a pince-nes that is fastened to the hair by a small golden chain?"  Stephens smartly points out the this brief reference is the first identifiable notice of the connection of glasses to librarianship and that it "was soon to emerge full-blown."

It looks like the glasses on a chain image might be just that- full-blown.  While I know just as many librarians today who wear glasses as librarians who do not wear glasses I have to wonder if this stereotype will really die down.  Some librarians need to wear glasses to see so patrons will always see librarians with glasses.

I myself will keep wearing my (probably ironic) black thick frame glasses because, well, I need to see.

But I may also get myself this cute necklace just so people know for sure I am librarian when I am outside my workplace. ;)