LISNews: Hawkish On Libraries Since 1999

From Bitch Magazine:
It's no secret that most librarians are women (according to 2002 US Statistical Abstract figures, 82% of librarians in the US are women). But not everyone knows the story behind female librarianship in the states. Today we'll take a look at Melvil Dewey, who is accredited with having made library science such a popular career for women.

Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal System (as well as co-founder of the American Library Journal and the American Library Association), is often praised for having created a field of jobs for women in the US. In 1883, Dewey was hired as the head librarian at Columbia College (which later turned into Columbia University), and he soon convinced the trustees to let him open a library school. At the time, Columbia College only allowed women into a special women's college, so Dewey's plans to invite women to join the library school were controversial. His first class was comprised of 20 people, 17 of whom were women. While many have focused on Dewey's success in educating and opening up jobs for women, attention is rarely paid to why he felt women would make great librarians. Spoiler alert: he held some pretty sexist beliefs.

In The Feminization of Libraranship, Tawny Sverdlin asks whether Dewey's opening up the library school for women was actually the achievement that it seems:

The opportunity for women to enter library school at Columbia College...proved to be a double-edged sword in terms of women's opportunity for advancement. Melvil Dewey championed women as librarians and library school educators but placed caps on their achievement in terms of gender straight away. According to Dewey's blatant double standard, women had to demonstrate truly remarkable ability or be relegated to perpetual underling status. -- Read More

By humorist & librarian Roz Warren.

Some people handle books so tenderly that even after they’ve read one cover to cover, it looks untouched. They turn each page carefully, and always use bookmarks. They refrain from cracking the spine. They never eat as they read, so the pages aren’t dotted with red sauce or spotted with chocolate. And they wouldn’t dream of leaving a book lying around where their Yorkie-poo (or toddler) might nibble the corners.

I am not like that.

When I read a book, I move right in and make myself at home. I dog-ear pages, underline, highlight and make marginal notes. I’ll use the blank pages to make shopping lists or jot down phone numbers. At the ballpark, I’ve been known to use that space to list the opening line-ups of both teams. By the time I’m through reading a book, you can definitely tell that I’ve been there.

According to a posting by family members on Peter's facebook page, Peter died calmly in his sleep at St. Paul's Hospital, Palliative Care Unit in Saskatoon on December 30.

He was an important figure in information and library science, beloved by many.

Here are some biographical bits:

Peter Scott was born February 14, 1947, in Walthamstow UK and moved to Canada in 1976. He was the Internet Projects Manager in the University of Saskatchewan Library in Saskatoon. Along with another Saskatoon librarian, Darlene Fichter he served as the editor and content developer for many online directories.

He was the creator of HYTELNET (1991), the first electronic browser for Internet resources, developed from 1990. In his 1991 video, Peter demonstrates a later version of HyTelnet, while an archive lists the resources available through the service. Peter wrote a blog, Peter Scott's Library Blog for Credo Reference. Other web creations are: Twitter Compendium, RSS Compendium, Weblogs Compendium, allrecordlabels.com, Blogging The Blues, Peter Scott's Library Blog, Libdex - (Sold in 2005) and Publishers' Catalogues . This reporter (birdie) first met Peter (via internet) when I asked him to add my company to the listing thirteen years ago. In the interim, we remained good virtual friends.

He was also also a blues singer and harmonica player, and had the distinction of winning a Juno Award for having his song "TV Preacher" on the album "Saturday Night Blues" which won "Best Roots and Traditional Music Album" in 1992.

Five dead-end jobs, and how to escape them

Why Avoid It: Nolin says that this is a dying occupation simply because information now is so readily devoured using technology. Plus, she says that federal funding for new libraries is basically non-existent, and job growth is expected to follow suit.

Why Nutritionist A Better Choice: "With our aging and waist-expanding population, the number of people who visit a nutritionist to help address health issues is exploding," says Nolin.

Via KGS