LISNews: Librarian News

If you need to ask the question, then the answer is "No."

Here are two of the latest articles branding the profession as "cool."

A Hipper Crowd of Shushers
For New-Look Librarians, Head to Brooklyn

But Librarians are not cool. That doesn't mean that there aren't cool librarians. I went to library school with a few people I would call cool. But does that make them cool (that I could label them as cool)? After all, who am I that I could call someone cool and have it mean what most people define as cool?

As an fyi:

• I got a tattoo because a Richard Hell song told me to. Wow, I must be cool.
• I skipped a Jane's Addiction concert because the crowd looked too trendy. Too cool for Jane's Addiction, gosh, my coolness is off the charts!

If those things don't make me cool, then I don't know what else to tell you.

But I've been places where, when answering what I do, someone will look around as if they're thinking, "oh, librarians hang out here; let's go someplace else." So sometimes, when asked, I won't say librarian; I'll answer "scientist." People aren't sure what to make of a scientist, but at least a scientist could be cool. Hell, maybe that's why the library has disappeared from the degree and most schools only offer "information science."

But ultimately, being a librarian isn't cool. I don't know how long it will be before it is, if ever.

So for now, I tell people I'm a scientist. An evil scientist.