in defense of the crazy cat lady

lately, when someone asks me how many cats i have, i've taken to holding up 4 fingers, like saying the number out loud is some sort of admission of guilt. and if i'm lucky, instead of outright derision, i'll be met with a look of pity and an indulgent smirk.

it doesn't help that i'm a single 35 year old female librarian. i'm pretty thoroughly a stereotype. but the cat thing really isn't my fault. i grew up in a little apartment with my parents and brother, so cats were really the biggest pet you could have, and we had cats the entire time i lived there. people are often fond of the kind of pet they grew up with. it's perfectly normal.

but 4? ok. maybe that's a bit self-indulgent. i got the 2nd one to keep the first company while i was at work. but they didn't really get along, so when a neighbor found a stray and asked if i was interested in taking him in, i didn't hesitate. and i said 3. never more than 3. that would just be crazy! and then this happened on instagram:

shut up, clearly that cat had to come home with me. i obviously had no choice but to take him in!

whenever someone makes fun of me or looks at me funny or calls me a crazy cat lady, i get a bit tongue-tied. i want to defend myself, but i know i shouldn't have to. i know it shouldn't matter what anyone thinks of me. but i'm a 35 year old single lady, and often i feel in a vulnerable position. what if i am crazy? what if i'm weird and un-date-able? women only have value while they're fuckable, and lord knows i'm past my prime in terms of looks, so clearly my decision to have 4 cats is a statement to the world that i've decided to give up and embrace spinsterhood (which i *do* joke about. it's not the worst fate.) but my decision to have 4 cats has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that they utterly and truly bring me nothing but pure joy.

ok, maybe that's the teensiest, tiniest bit hyperbolic. cleaning puke off my freshly-washed comforter or wiping poop off a writhing, yowling cat's foot will never bring me joy. but those moments are far, far fewer than the moments of pure joy. i can't explain to you how i feel when a happy, purring cat looks up from my lap with sleepy eyes and gives me that contented half-meow.

and whenever i hear or see things that make me sad, people treating each other awfully, people treating animals awfully, i look at my cats and think, "i can't make everything better in the world, but i can make everything awesome for THEM. i can do just that little bit of good and treat these 4 little creatures with all the love and kindness that i wish i was willing and able to give the rest of the world."

and that fills me with pure joy.

i can only hope that you can find something that gives you that feeling on a regular basis. spouse, kid, pet, plants, volunteering, hobbies, work. whatever. i won't ever mock you for finding some harmless thing that makes you truly happy.

i wish that for you, with all my heart.

so maybe cut me some slack with the 4 cats, k?


*(see more of my cats on instagram)

Rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated -or- Librarian shushes self

Just back from my lovely three day weekend, and I have to see this in my feeds? Really people? Here I am, sitting at my desk, just trying to do my job, and the internet is already on my back. Well, maybe not my back per se, but our backs, we humble librarians (or information scientists, or information professionals, or... whatever.) Outside of lawyers, whose salaries I consider balm for the irritation their mockery might cause them, are there any professions so abused as librarians? Ok, that's whiny, and probably not true, but still, I am very, very, very tired of justifying the existence of my profession. We still exist, so, society, there's your proof. And as long as my job is here for me, in the "real world" or the digital one (you have to read the article to get that one) I'm done justifying it. Seriously. Because we can't win. People say books are obsolete, so we learn all about new technology, and try make ourselves useful in that way. Then they say we should focus on books. But libraries are getting rid of books, oh no! Then we rally against librarian stereotypes, and there's backlash for that too (check out the comments if you want to know how people really see us, it will warm the cockles of your "plump, white [and] humorless" heart.)

So you know what? I give up. I'm just trying to do my job here people. I look for ways I can be useful to my community, and then try to go in that direction. I have tattoos, not to buck a stereotype, but because I want them. In fact, I got one in college, before I even thought of becoming a librarian, so there! I'm not so sure about this whole 'any press is good press' idea anymore, and I'm wondering if we should all just shut the frak up. Seriously. Stop giving interviews, stop writing fluff articles for the general press. Because no matter what we say, they're gonna pick on us. We can't win this one with words. You know how we can win? By just continuing to be useful. By assessing our communities and being what they need us to be, not what the press wants us to be. I know there are times when we need the press, like to rally support for libraries in need, but otherwise let's just lay low and be helpful. After all, we're not the only industry struggling with obsolescence, right? Maybe they're just trying to create a diversion...

(Oh, and as the assertion in the original article that all the content in paid databases will be available for free in a few years, I snickered at that. Better not tell Elsevier!)

as a form of protest, i refuse to come up with a witty title for this post

ok, i feel like i should maybe weigh in on this whole Rutgers dropping 'library' from SCILS situation. i posted a comment on my friend mike's blog, and i guess if i'm gonna speak my mind there, i might as well post it here as well. since i am lazy and don't really feel like spending much time or effort stressing over the whole thing, i'm just going to copy and paste my comment. (and what an easy way to drop a post in, since i haven't written in awhile. heh.)

this whole debacle annoys me for two reasons:

1) isn't this whole name change thing taking up time and money (meetings, new letterhead, signage, etc) that could be better spent on just improving the school in general, including the library curriculum? i mean, really, all this effort just to remove the word "library" from your name? …and

2) how did they think that going to all that trouble to remove library from the name was not going to insult all of us libeerians? it's like they're distancing themselves from one of their largest constituencies (largest if you're talking about the grad school.) no matter what their reasoning is, that's going to be hurtful, and going to alienate us.

what i really wish is that instead of trying to distance ourselves from the word "librarian", we would redefine it as the tech-savvy, tech-centered, information-aggregating career it should and could be. we don't need to turn ourselves into "information professionals", we need to bring the field of librarianship into the future (and the now…) i know that's a bit off-topic, but i feel like we don't need to scrap the title, it's not completely a lost cause, we can still redeem ourselves! (maybe all we need is a good PR campaign?)

Turns out we've been hip all along...

I just loved this article in the Washington Times, reviewing Heidi Ardizzone's new book "An Illuminated Life", about librarian Belle de Costa Greene, curator of J.P. Morgan's massive personal (now public) library. Given all the hype lately (does it count as "hype" if it's just within the library community?...) about librarian stereotypes and images, this article does a great job of actually talking about the professional side of this intriguing woman's life. The book is not getting great reviews in general, but I definitely want to learn more about this woman, who proved a long time ago that librarians can actually have (gasp) lives.

I think she may be new my idol... :)

Libraries, Librarians and the Press

A lot of people complained about the pieces in the NY Times and NY Sun about a group of "hip librarians" in Brooklyn. The general consensus among the dissenters was a desire for more substantive articles on modern libraries and librarians.

I generally didn't have a feeling one way or the other about the stories. As I've pointed out to friends in the past, although I do get irked by the librarian stereotype and the general ignorance of people in general as to what the heck it is we actually do (why do people assume the job is the same as it was in the 1950s? They don't seem to make that assumption with other fields, they logically assume those other fields have evolved and changed over the years...) But in all honesty, as a young single gal, I have in fact used the "sexy librarian" stereotype to my advantage (just saying you are a librarian makes for a great pick-up line...) So you see I'm leery of biting the hand that feeds, so to speak.

Anyway, in response to the call for better library-related stories, I just wanted to point out a good article on CNET.com. It doesn't talk about anything that's news to the library world, but it does serve as a great little reminder to the general public that libraries have grown and changed over the years, and that we are attempting to compete in the digital domain.

I think sometimes we librarians spend so much time around our resources that we forget how little the outside world knows about them. Sometimes it's enough to simply point out what's available at your library, even if it's nothing new or "exciting"...

(Oh yeah, and for two more good links on the topic: Cultural Images of Librarians by John Hubbard and Hipster Status, Determining Your from A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette--too funny!)

You Don't Scare Me, Google!!!

So, I was reading this excellent post, Cult of the Pundit, on the excellent blog, Bokardo, and I got to thinking about something that annoys me greatly, namely, people asking me if I'm scared I will lose my job to Google, implying (or outright stating, often with a malicious sneer) that internet search engines, or even the internet itself, has rendered my profession obsolete. I mean, as a librarian (if you are a librarian) I'm sure you get that one a lot (along with the ever-so-witty "do you know the Dewey Decimal System?")

Aaaaaanyway, that post made me think about the web, and how it allows pretty much everybody who has access to it (along with proper equipment and bandwidth) to try their hand at pretty much anything (ok, I'm over-simplifying, I know, there probably aren't a lot of easily accessible tools and programs for molecular biology... But you get the point.) But for many mainstream professions, it's true... Anyone with a blog can be a reporter... And anyone with iMovie can be a producer. And I seem to remember from grad school that you can download older versions of ProTools for free, so why not try your hand at music?

Does this mean that professional reporters, producers and musicians are now obsolete? Should we trash those professions altogether? I doubt anyone is suggesting that, so why is it that they are suggesting that librarians are no longer necessary just because anyone can perform an internet search? Doing something as a hobby or on a small scale versus doing it as a profession are two very different things, marked by notably different skill levels. No one is saying that Google can't help you find information, we are just saying that librarians are better at it. 90% of the time Google will find you the information you want, and that's fine, but there are times when you need to consult an expert.

Now please don't get me wrong, I am not against Google, or blogging, or personal podcasting or whatever, mainly because I <3 web 2.0 in all its glory, and am not paranoid about it stealing my thunder (or my job...) I think it's great that so many people can have a voice where once things were much more homogenized. And I also think it's a great method for discovering talent. Really good bloggers don't stay anonymous for long, they become well-known and well-read, and are often considered professional "reporters" in their fields. Just because you start small on the internet does not mean you are forever an amateur... I just don't see why web 2.0 must hail the death of the librarian. Vive la librarian!!!

On the Professional Advantages of Being a Slacker and a Librarian

One quick clarification on that title, note that I did not say "slacker librarian", but slacker AND librarian. I liked the sound of the first one better, but I think when you stay late at work just to finish reading all your library 2.0 feeds, and are kept up late at night envisioning all the ways you can optimize web 2.0 concepts in library contexts, you nullify your eligibility for the slacker librarian title. Aaaaaaaanyway...

This past weekend I met up with some college friends in Vegas (you can check out my pics here, if you feel so inclined...), and they expressed their continuing disbelief that I am actually a librarian. My obsessions with organization and technology (which no one actually associates with librarianship anyway, much to my constant chagrin) not withstanding, I think I actually stepped foot in my undergraduate library four, maybe five times tops in my four years there.

Now, at first this dirty little secret brought me much shame (along with the fact that I never actually took a reference or cataloguing class in grad school, shhhh! Don't tell!!! There were just so many fun tech classes I wanted to take more...) But on further thought, I think my college library neglect actually makes me a better academic librarian. Now THAT is going out on a limb, right?

But seriously, how many librarians do you know insist on sticking their head in the sand about the reality of how libraries are actually perceived? I think one of the great things about the library 2.0 movement is that we are truly aiming to reinvent the traditional library, and to once again make it a thriving, relevant presence in the lives of our users.

I know how undergraduates think, because I was a very, very typical one, and not all that long ago. So instead of fighting the same old battle of pushing the traditional vision of the library on them, I can imagine what would have actually gotten me to notice and use the library, and take it from there.