ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ A p ril 1 9 99 /2 77 Image is everything So go get one already by Angelynn King I d o n ’t w ant to sound like Andy Rooney or anything, but I for one am sick and tired of hearing librarians complain about their im age problem. One attendee at a recent li­ brary conference was embarrassed because the librarians, he said, w ere so easily identi­ fiable. “You could spot them from miles away. Every time I saw som eone with a bun and sensible shoes, I’d ask if she was a librar­ ian—and of course she’d say yes!” Well, pardon my French, b u t DUH. First of all, it doesn’t take a rocket scien­ tist to figure out that if there is a library convention in town, an yone w andering a r o u n d in th e m iddle of the day within five blocks of the convention cen­ ter is probably a li­ brarian. Second, w hat kind of statistical sam­ pling m ethod is that anyway? Was he ap­ proaching people w ho looked like Nobel- prize w inning Victoria’s Secret m odels or kickboxing rap singers and asking if they were librarians? He might have been surprised. This begs the question: Who exactly has the image problem? When a black, female CEO is mistaken for a secretary, does she lock herself in her office and w hine about her “image problem ”? Probably not. I image ­ she recognized that it’s som ebody else w ho has the problem; w hat she has is the fallout of the problem. Fortunately, she is address­ ing the problem simply by being w ho she is; anything more is extra credit. My father w as a librarian. He was a hard- drinking, hard-traveling socialist and social com m entator w ho w as more likely to be found discoursing on Thorstein Veblen in the b r e e z e w a y th a n c r o u c h in g o v e r a d e s k in a g r e e n eyeshade, penciling tiny numbers on cata­ log cards. Grow ing up, my image of a li­ brarian was a sort of cross b etw e en Will R ogers a n d E rn est Hemingway. It never would have occurred to me to assume that a librarian had to be bespectacled, female, or heavily hairpinned. (My father would have given his left arm for enough hair to marshall into a bun, but that’s another story.) The same disgruntled conventioneer men­ tioned above went on to say that he hates to admit he was a librarian because he feels so hemmed in by other people’s stereotypes. But clearly he isn’t doing anything to address those stereotypes. If anything, having internalized them himself, he’s making them worse. (continued on page 318) A bout th e author Angelynn King is reference a n d access services librarian a t the University o f Redlands, e-mail: liaking@jasper.uor.edu THE W AY I SEE IT mailto:liaking@jasper.uor.edu 318 / C&RL News ■ A p r i l 1999 S cience an d T echn ology Allison V. Level, associate professor, South­ w est Missouri State University, M eyer Library 901 South National, Springfield, MO 65807; allisonlevel@ m ail.sm su.edu Slavic an d East E urope Bradley Schaffner, Russian/Soviet Studies b ib ­ lio g rap h er, W atson Library, U niversity o f Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-2800; bschaffn@ ukans.edu U niversity Libraries Lori A. Goetsch, director o f Libraries for Public S e r v ic e s , U n iv e rs ity o f M a ry la n d , 3 1 1 5 ( “Image is everything” continued from page 2 7 7 ) Tired o f the im age problem? B e part o f the im age solution. In your next triathlon, w ear a T-shirt that says, “C onan the Librar­ ian.” W hen you accep t your Oscar, thank the d ean o f your library school. And w hen som e­ o n e rem arks that you d o n ’t look like a librar­ ian, take a page from Gloria Steinem and ( “learning to lead” continued from page 293) Recent articles in C&RL News on ACRL Presi­ dent Maureen Sullivan’s them e o f “Leadership and Learning” challenge all o f us to b e both leaders and learners and have offered insights into ways to do so within our libraries today. Another challenge is to stop thinking about learning as som ething that happens only in a classroom. B y participating in various groups and teams doing real w ork in real time, w e can both learn and lead. ( “ULS activities at Midwinter” continued from page 316) to validate users’ passwords. T he user sta­ tions are passw ord-protected at night, w hich effectively limits a ccess to UT students, staff, and faculty. Som e universities have adopted op en policies toward W eb access, w hile oth­ ers have initiated strict sign-up policies. T he final topic under discussion .dealt with electron ic referen ce services. Most libraries n ow offer som e type o f e-m ail referen ce ser­ McKeldin Library, College Park, MD 20742- 7011; lgoetsch@ deans.um d.edu W om en’s Studies D aren Callahan, associate professor, Library Affairs, Southern Illinois University, Delyte W. M o rris L ib r a ry , 1 8 0 3 W. F r e e m a n , Carbonctale, IL 6 2 901-2105; d callaha@ lib.siu. edu W estern E u ro p ean Specialists Thom as Izbicki, collection developm ent c o ­ ordinator, Eisenhow er Library, Jo h n s Hopkins University, 340 0 N. Charles, Baltim ore, MD 21218; Izbicki@ jhu.edu ■ say, “Yes, I do. This is w hat a librarian looks lik e .” M aybe o n c e p e o p le realize that librar­ ians, like th ose in m ost o th er professions, co m e in every sh ap e, size, sex , sexual pref­ ere n c e , tonsure, d ecib el level, and body-fat com p osition , w e ’ll feel free to just relax and b e ourselves. It just so h ap p en s that I do w e a r m y h a ir in a b u n . I t ’s g r e a t fo r kick b oxin g . ■ Notes 1. Warren B en nis and Burt Nanus. Lead­ ers: Strategies fo r Taking Charge (N ew York: HarperCollins, 1997): 176. 2. Ibid., 17. 3. P eter B. Vaill. Learning as a Way o f Be­ ing: Strategies f o r Survival in a World o f Per­ manent White Water (San Francisco: Jo ssey - B ass, 1996). 4. B e n n is a n d N an u s, Leaders Strate­ gies‚ 1 7 8 - 9 . ■ v ice although not all have established pro­ cedures for monitoring these services or track­ ing statistics. T h e n ex t discussion at the An­ nual C on feren ce will focu s on GIS and data services, planning for s cien c e libraries, and 24-hour library access. T h e Discussion Group w elcom es all librarians w h o are interested in these topics to attend its m eeting in New Orleans.— Anne Garrison, reference librarian at Georgia Tech Library, e-mail: anne. garrison@library.gatech.edu ■ mailto:allisonlevel@mail.smsu.edu mailto:lgoetsch@deans.umd.edu mailto:dcallaha@lib.siu mailto:Izbicki@jhu.edu mailto:garrison@library.gatech.edu