Let's Rewrite the Book on Librarians

Over the years pop culture has created several stereotypes of librarians, creating an image of bespectacled spinsters. How do these stereotypes compare to modern librarians? In this podcast, Molly and Cristen take a closer look at librarian stereotypes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never Told You?
From house Stop Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. So over the holidays, Molly,

(00:22):
I oh well. On Christmas Eve, to be specific, I
was carrying out a long lived tradition in my life.
On Christmas Eve, I watched It's a Wonderful Life, Frank
Capra's classic Share. Plenty of people out there have seen it,
and just for a quick recap in case you have

(00:42):
not seen It's a Wonderful Life, and you really should
see It's a Wonderful Life if you haven't. They're George Bailey,
the main character played by Jimmy Stewart, has this nightmare
essentially in which he sees his wife Mary and what
would have happened to her life if you had never
around and never had lasted the moon and swept her

(01:03):
off her feet and he runs into her leaving the
library because horror of horror, she's become a spinster librarian,
never getting married, and she has a dowdy outfit on
and she's wearing glasses and she just looks so sad,
her beauty is withered up, whereas in uh if he
had come around even after giving birth to four children,

(01:25):
she looks crazy, looks look a day over eighteen. Uh
So I was laying there eating, eating cookies and chocolate
and whatever other things I was stuffing my face with
all all Christmas holiday. I thought I had a mom's
stuff moment. Molly it on holiday, I said, I actually
turned to my mom. This is true. I turned my

(01:45):
mom as a mom. Why are librarians always spencers? Where
on earth that come from? And I feel like, really
mind have talked about that moment in the movie in
our Spinster podcast because it is so iconic of uh
the the unmarried woman. The worst that can happen to
this The worst thing that you can do for yourself
is not get married and end up working in a

(02:06):
library and were glasses. Yeah, it's it's I think, one
of the most pitiful moments in the in the movie
for any woman. And so we took Christen's mom stuff
moment from the holidays and we're bringing it to you now.
The answer to the question you asked your mom, what
is the deal with all these librarian stereotypes. Yeah, because
you brought up a good point once. I Once I

(02:27):
told you about my It's a wonderful life question. You said, Well,
on the other side of it, Yeah, there's a spinster stereotype.
But then there's also the hot librarian. You behind to
go far to find pictures of hot libraries. All she's
got to do is take off her bun, take off
those glasses and whoa who knew beautiful and unbridled. She
knows where all the sex books are catalog So we

(02:49):
wanted to kind of unpack all these stereotypes, figure out
where they came from, and ultimately show that there's not
obviously much truth to any of them. Although the one
thing that we can say is that is that all
librarians do wear buns. True, because it's a very fashionable
hairstyw You've said during a podcast that buns that's what

(03:09):
helps you get through an episode. Yeah, I do like
the bun, but it's all right. Um. Now, the one
thing we could say is that we do have this
idea of most librarians as female, and according to the
two thousand to u S Statistical Abstract Figures of librarians
in the United States are women. So we do have
this um idea that a librarian is typically a woman. Yes,

(03:32):
and we have Melville Dewey to thank for the feminization
of librarianship, which also happens to be the title of
an article that we read by Tonni spared Lytton and
Melville Dewey if that rings the bell since we're talking
about libraries, is the man who created the Dewey decimal system.
But he also championed women as librarians, and he got

(03:58):
Columbia College, which later became Columbia University, and he petitioned
for the Library School at Columbia College, which would later
become Columbia University, to start admitting women in eighteen eighties seven,
because he thought gals would be great in this program.
Although unfortunately he is not the feminist champion that we

(04:20):
might hope, because the reason he championed women is he
thought they'd be very good at dull, repetitive work. Yes,
and even though he saw, as you know, something that
even women could do, he was very uh terse with
women who did not meet his very exacting standards of quality.
If you did not immediately excel in his library scholarship program,

(04:41):
you were out um, and he has the reputation a
bit of a sketie guy, frequently being accused of sexual
harassment and uh an other assorted lovely things. But we
still have to give him credit for getting the women
into the program because at that time, eighteen eighties, there
were not a lot of occupational opportunities for women, so

(05:02):
pretty quickly women carved out librarianship as an employment sector
that they really thrived in. But it's also still a
very low paying job. And at the time as well,
male library administrators were totally fine with employing women because
they would accept lower wages than they would have to

(05:24):
pay other men. Right, And the men throughout the centuries
have still maintained those managerial positions that are higher paid,
whereas the women tend to be the lower paid in
the profession. Despite it being a low paying profession. There's
still a pretty wide gender gap between the male libraries
and the female libraries. But Molly, what about these stereotypes
of librarians as either spencers or unbridled sex goddesses just

(05:48):
waiting to be let loose. Well, you know, let's go
back to the Middle Ages, Kristen. We probably didn't think
we'd got back that far. But according to an article
by Will Manley, and it is not the last time
we're going to mention old Will Manly in this podcast,
the theory of the sexless library and probably gained additional
credibility during the Middle Ages, when celibate monk librarians safeguarded

(06:09):
the intellectual treasures of the ancient world so early on. Uh.
And also he mentions in that article that becoming a
librarian was something that you kind of were born into.
It was since it was an exalted position that had
to do with knowledge. Not anyone in those days could
be a librarian, so it was very much this higher
position and you had to be, you know, a monk

(06:31):
to do it. So it was it was sexless from
the start. But the idea of the sexless female, we
don't get to that until yes. Will Manly tracked down
the June issue of American Libraries and he stumbled upon
an article titled search for an Assistant or Mortician by

(06:52):
Clara E. Breed, who was a city librarian for San Diego.
And Breed was a little bit of set about this
magazine article that she had seen a few months earlier,
in which the author Carl E. Zeisler speculated about whether
libraries had become morgues of culture, and then he also

(07:12):
went on to claim that when that librarians were just
self effacing introverts and the sevent eight percent of them
were quote spensters who throw up their hands and retire
behind their catalog cards when confronted with dwindling budgets in
public indifference. Now, the thing is Breed's main complaint, this
whole image crisis, and the idea of them being too

(07:34):
introverted in the face of dwindling budgets in public indifference
is something that librarians are facing today as well. But
it all starts back in nine, just a year before
the music Man would come out immortalizing the phrase Mary
and the Librarian, right, And Mary and the Librarian is
this character who the main female character in the movie,

(07:56):
who refuses to find a man, very shy retiring and uh,
and you know, she's a spenser by choice. I think
she describes herself at what and she is sort of
the quintessential librarian in terms of the bun and whatnot.
So we've got nineteen forty six, It's a Wonderful Life,
nineteen forty nine Zeisler writing his uh Spinster Thing nineteen
fifty The Music Man. This is a very key time

(08:17):
in cementing that um librarian wearing glasses, living alone, wearing
daddy clothes. You know, they're buttoned up to the very top.
They install extra buttons, no skin can be shown. Uh,
this is where we get really the buttoned up Spencer
library image. And this image is repeated constantly on film,
and it goes back even before It's a Wonderful Life

(08:38):
to the nineteen thirty two Barbera Standwick movie Forbidden where
when it depicts the Spinster library. And this is coming
from a study that Molly and I found and they
are actually this is one of many studies actually that
so many studies about movies in libraries. Yeah, the reviews
the image of librarians in movies because typically it's uh,
you know, we think of the of the woman in

(09:00):
a horn rimmed glasses to shushing the characters and breakfast
at Tiffany's, or you have more of the the young
librarian who's just kind of waiting for a man to
come sweeper up her feet and throw away her glasses. Right,
and so that Barbara Standward movie before, according to the study,
was the first sound film to depict a librarian. And

(09:21):
when she arrives to go to work, all the boys
call old Lady four eyes, Old Lady four eyes. He
called me that when I walk into work to Barbara's Stanley.
I mean, if Barber Standwich can't get any respect, then
you're you're got a long road to home. Christen Conger,
I'm not even a librarian. But this study is uh
did come out in two thousand nine, and so the

(09:42):
study and like some of the other ones, can take
it up to more of the modern era movies like
The Mummy with Rachel Weiss being a librarian, party Girl
the story of a party girl who becomes a librarian,
and it looks at more modern librarians in film and
finds that maybe the stereotype is slightly changing, that you know,
they're less likely to wear buns, they're less likely to

(10:03):
wear glasses. Movies will actually dare show a male librarian
and they do fall in love. So it's it's starting
to come around. But but you know, the authors were
that we still have these know at all librarians who
are unapproachable, or we have these spinster librarians who can
barely stand to deal with people and just want to
be left alone with the book. So it's a slow transition.

(10:26):
Although even from older studies covering movies and librarians, they
do conclude that a lot of the times, at least
when the librarian plays a larger role in a film,
she's usually and yes, it is usually a female, but
she is usually younger and more on the end of
the spectrum of the of the hot girl behind the glasses.

(10:47):
So so the ideas are slowly changing, and I think
that will probably please the people who are actually working
in the library industry today because there are tons of
trend pieces now about how librarians and information scientists and
whatever you call your particular position after getting this masters
and library science, how they desperately want to be seen

(11:07):
as cool and relevant and approachable. And you know, I
think that's really good job security, because in these days
of the Internet, we need to realize that we still
need librarians who are like walking search engines. Yes, and
since especially with public libraries that are funded by tax dollars,
and with you know, so many state and local governments

(11:29):
running large deficits, library budgets are getting axed left and right.
And if we, you know, only think of librarians as
these dodgy women who are just keeping the noise levels down,
then they seem like useless items on a line, items
on a budget. Exactly. Now we've talked about the spencer librarian.

(11:50):
Shall we shall we talk about the sexy librarian? And
by which I mean, should we talk about Will Manly again?
Because oh, Will Manly used to work at the will
Some Library Bulletin and in nine two he was He
sent out a survey that he got five thousand responses
to about the sex habits and other sexual abuse of librarians.

(12:11):
And this was so controversial to the library bulletin that
they fired him and they did not allow the results
to be published until he did so on his blog
more than a decade later. Yeah. So the nine Librarians
and Sex survey found that librarians pretty much they break

(12:31):
any stereotype of being boring old spensers, nay, unsuspecting public.
They have a spicy side. Specifically, they seemed to enjoy
reading the joy of sex of people. And this is
FROMO but still it's it's it's fun to go over
and of respondents had read The Joy of Sex only

(12:55):
four percent we're still virgins at the time of the survey,
and believed that Playboy should be in libraries. And I
think that's interesting because one of the articles you're read
talked about how we have this idea of librarians is
so sexless and spinster like, But these are the ones
who are deciding what's going to be in libraries. So

(13:16):
they are one of the professions that is most confronted
with what's appropriate for libraries in terms of censoring sexual content,
deciding what's too violent, and by and large they're not
as conservative as we think. Is manly statistics proven. So
it's it's showing us that even though we think of
these libraries as spinsters, in fact, they do have liberal,
accepting viewpoints on some of these issues, and UH can

(13:40):
really cultivate libraries of of why, you know, interests. And
while librarians are not only battling this fifties six year
old image crisis that started, you know, with the June
nine article that we were talking about, and also now
with these dwindling budgets and the question whether or not

(14:01):
their libraries or even gonna be around for them to
come to they also have to deal with, oh, sexual harassment,
because this survey also found that seventy of female librarians
felt that they had been sexually harassed by a patron.
So you know, it's tough out there for a librarian.
Although you know, I don't want to minimalize that that statistics,
I kind of tell you two of the weirdest statistics,

(14:23):
and that in that study, yes of the response believe
the library should have condom dispensers in their bathroom, which
makes sense because a lot of librarians have had sex
in their very own libraries. Percent had had had sex
in the library. Son. You know, like I said, I
don't want to put those side by side with a
sexual harassment thing, because no one should have to be
sexually harassed at their job. But uh, like we said,

(14:44):
there's you know, it's a fine line between this oversexualized
librarian that you can feel free to harass, which you can't,
and the one that's the spinster who whose life was
ruined because Jimmy Stewart was never born right because there
was no man to for her to take her bun
down for. So uh, it's it really is kind of
a weird image crisis. And like we said, there are

(15:04):
a lot of new articles that are trying to put
forward the idea that librarians are hip approachable, that you'll
find male librarians, yeah, hidden throughout different forms of libraries.
And uh, I know we've got lots of listeners out
there who have been librarians or who are going to
library school. And Molly, I gotta say, since you and
I do not have the power to appropriate tax sellers

(15:26):
more tax sellers to our libraries, which you and I
do find indispensable in our research for this very podcast,
the least that we can do for all the librarians
out there listening, and I hope there are some librarians
out there listening is bust through this stereotype and figure
out why and where it started, rewrite the book on it.
And I feel good about a Molly, you feel like

(15:46):
you exhausted the car catalog of I think that we
trying to get some I think we checked out a
lot of interesting sources of false information about library and
we're only returning the ones with good information and the
rest can just get overduefined. Okay, alright, so we should

(16:09):
stop all of these awful library puns and open this
up to our listeners. If you have anything to say
about libraries, librarians, or if you are a librarian want
to share your experience with us, please do emails at
mom stuff at how stuffworks dot com and mom Let's
read a couple of emails. Okay, I won here from Jenny,

(16:31):
and it's about the child Free podcast. Jenny writes, from
a young age, I felt very strongly that I wanted
to be a mother. I got married, on my college degree,
and advanced in my career. However, I never felt completely
fulfilled until I became a mother. I truly believe that
I was born to be a mom. That being said,
I think it is near minded for people to think
that what brings them the most happiness is what would
bring someone else happiness. We're all different. We have different likes, talents, desires,

(16:55):
and capabilities. I don't think everyone is equipped to be
a parent, just like I don't think I have the
abilit to make important business decisions, perform brain surgery, or
maintain a clever podcast. I do not think less of
someone who does the wrong kids, and I hope that
they don't think less of me because I do. I'm
happy that our society is becoming more accepting of the
choice to not have children. If someone's life is happy

(17:15):
and complete without kids, and there should be no pressure
to have them. So there you go, an endorsement of
the child free lifestyle from someone who has children. Well,
I've got another child free response here as well, and
this is from John, who is child and relationship free
by choice. It is my feeling that I have very
specific likes and dislikes, and that it would be unfair

(17:36):
of me to force other people to live as I do.
I like my life, but I know that not everyone would. Also.
From a young age, I've believed there are too many
people in the world, and that it's extremely unfair and
selfish to add to the population problem. Pollution, food shortages,
global warming, and I host some other problems would be
alleviated if there were fewer people. I'm a teacher and

(17:57):
I love children. However, my love for children brings me
to the believe that there are too many of them,
that too many of them are subjected to unfortunate lives,
which would be improved if there were fewer people. So
there you go, John, And if you have thoughts you'd
like to send our way, Our emails mom Stuff at
how stuff works dot com. You can also shoot us
a line on Facebook over to Facebook page, and you

(18:20):
can follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast. And lastly,
you can read what mine I are writing during the
week over to our blog stuff and I'm Never Told
You at how stuff works dot com for moralness and
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(18:41):
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