I have to mention this NY Times article – I “blogged” about it on my work’s blog briefly. But here I will mention my ambivalent feelings about the article. It makes me feel at turns vindicated and awkward.
The article is called “A Hipper Crowd of Shushers.” Now, I think it’s cool that an article is written about younger librarians (young is kind of relative because you have to have received your masters – and the time frame in this piece seems to be mid-20s to late 30s) – a demographic I fit into – and that it’s one of the more emailed articles at NYTimes.com. But, are we just becoming cool? Does going to bars make us cool? (Don’t get me wrong, I like bars fine, particularly with bands.) And why don’t I feel as cool as this article outlines? I’m young, have immersed myself in technology, my husband is in a band – I even have a nose-ring! I guess it’s that state of mind thing…
Altogether it’s cool that librarians are getting recognition. It underscores the fact that trained people are not obsolete in this technological, library or web 2.0 world – and the more the world at large sees that, the better. (And librarians need to look at the world of information in the larger sense – and I think they are working toward that.) But I would argue that librarians have been cool for some time.
