I wish I could tell you how often librarians - who have masters degrees in the profession - are actually asked by patrons if they're volunteers. - ThreadSky

emilylhauser.bsky.social • 4 days ago

I wish I could tell you how often librarians - who have masters degrees in the profession - are actually asked by patrons if they're volunteers.

Reposted from Tony Corsentino

librarianship is a historically feminized profession. therefore, however much love it may garner, it has very little prestige, and is thus vulnerable to this kind of eliminationist sentiment. 📚

Comments

emilylhauser.bsky.social•4 days ago

(It occurs to me that I don't know if the two male librarians I worked with were ever asked this.)

thedaybooks.bsky.social•4 days ago

One tiny ray of sexist sunlight: I used to work at a desk with two male librarians (2 of us had MLS+ and one was my boss; I was the lowest ranked) but when people came to the desk, they wanted to talk to me, “the librarian.” It really irked my boss 😊

emilylhauser.bsky.social•4 days ago

haha there are occasional perks!

notshknnotstird.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yeah, guy librarian here and I’ve been asked it, but I bet not as many times as the majority of librarians (i.e. women).

elizabelta.bsky.social•4 days ago

I spent a lot of my childhood in our local Carnegie Library. It was a beautiful building full of wonderful books and lovely staff

emilylhauser.bsky.social•4 days ago

My mom was a children's librarian - she would have been especially happy to hear that 😊

elizabelta.bsky.social•4 days ago

I'm sure your mom made special memories for kids like me too.

emilylhauser.bsky.social•4 days ago

oh boy did she - the little ones would run up on the street to hug her, and the eventually-grown ones would come back to visit :)

elizabelta.bsky.social•4 days ago

How wonderful to have those memories of your obviously lovely mom x

elizabelta.bsky.social•4 days ago

I still believe books are an essential part of childhood. The first thing I bought when I became pregnant was the complete works of Beatrix Potter :)

rds773.bsky.social•4 days ago

My mom was a cataloguer and my godmother was a children’s librarian and so I figure it’s no surprise that my kid is a self-described “book monster”

denqur.bsky.social•4 days ago

I wanted to be a librarian, but military service preempted my goal and made me a cryptolinguist.

backgroundbob.bsky.social•4 days ago

Ironically in the UK that's actually more likely than not to be a 'yes' now, since swingeing cuts mean a large proportion of libraries are now volunteer-run at least part of their opening hours. Really tragic to see the gutting of a system that was so influential for so many (me included!).

martyolliff.bsky.social•4 days ago

Given rates of pay, I'm sure many have answered "yes," at least to themselves.

joqatana.bsky.social•4 days ago

My father was a librarian.
I wanted to be a librarian.
Nice quiet job in a nice quiet library where I had memorized the Dewey Decimal system appx age 9.
Good thing that didn’t happen.

bellabld.bsky.social•4 days ago

Not to mention that the librarian role requires advanced degrees. Many other library roles are volunteer because society doesn’t value the role.

farmersarah.bsky.social•4 days ago

This followed me to the soup kitchen, where it's assumed we are all volunteering and also God gets all the credit for the work

khandozo.bsky.social•4 days ago

My mom is a retired librarian who has encouraged me to apply for library jobs with my PhD and I generally get rejected out of the gate for not having the right education, but people do still think that it's probably an easy volunteer job.

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