Stuff Librarians Like

Librarians got mad English skillz, and they ain't afraid to represent yo! There are precious few things librarians enjoy more than correcting spelling and/or grammar mistakes I make on the internet. Librarians will defend their language like a mama bear defending her babies from a hunter. I can't wait until the first email or comment comes into SLL to point out another careless spelling and/or grammar error! If I'm lucky it'll be on this very post. If you're thinking of dropping us a line, please do! After all we have all the time in the world, and we owe you a flawlessly composed and carefully edited piece of literary greatness every time we write a post or send an email. There's nothing I enjoy more than spending hours checking and rechecking what is mostly pointless drivel so as to avoid offending the delicate literary sensibilities of someone with 3 masters degrees (1 MLS, 1 Medieval Studies, 1 English) who is working part time for $12/hour. Luckily I have hours and hours of free time to devote to writing. Clearly any mistakes I make are indicative of a) sloppiness b) my lack education (I only have 1 masters degree!) c) my stupidity or d) my clear desire to make myself look stupid.

Note: For some reason non-librarians go through life under the false assumption that all librarians a) know what every word means and b) know how to spell it. How often have you heard "Hey, you're a librarian, what does sacerdotophrenia mean?" or "How do I spell xanthochroism?"

In librarianship a sense of humour* is something we admire from afar, something to be studied, and maybe even discussed on a mailing list or blog. Sure, we all know someone with a sense of humor, but let's face it, a sense of humor is as hard to find in our profession as someone who admits they never read all the Harry Potter books. We like people with a sense of humor, in the same way we like people who have jobs that pay more than $50,000 a year, and people who don't need to explain why they need a masters degree for their job. We surround ourselves with these people, we watch them on TV, and a lucky few have even married them.

Librarians instead prefer to express concern, offense, and even outrage at a large range of issues we have no control over. Not the least of which are things that "are not funny." I don't need to list them all here, just take a look at what the ALA council has been up to.

If this blog will prove nothing else, it will be that there are an endless number of topics that "we shouldn't be making fun of." If I had a dime for every time someone told me "that's not funny" I'd have more than $15,000 (which is more than the starting salary of most public library positions). So join us as we explore the issues that make US laugh. If you laugh along, that's great. If you don't, we just don't care.

*Is it humor or humour?