After all these months, I am still constantly asked  about the Smart Poodle Libraian Contest. We anounced the winners in mid December last year.  In March alone, we’ve had over 6,000 hits on the essay page of our website!

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clipart from http://www.kcmlin.org

Her’s an article I wrote about my experience with librarians and the contest . . .

As a writer and bibliomaniac, I have always known that libraries are among the greatest and often most underutilized resources available to humans. But I’m embarrassed to admit that I never gave much thought to the people who run these galleries of great treasure – that is until last June. While attending Book Expo America, I sat in on two excellent seminars administered by panels of librarians from all over the country. As I expected, the librarians were articulate and informative. But to my surprise, they were also downright funny! Librarians with a sense of humor? You bet. It’s hard to imagine laughing out loud to presentations about acquiring, processing, cataloging and shelving books, but I can tell you, I was not the only one chuckling in that room.

It was there at the conference that it occurred to me – for the first time in my life – that if I routinely misunderstood, as well as under-appreciated librarians, so have many others.

Following this epiphany, through my publishing company, I created an essay-writing contest for librarians. With an essay theme of “What I Wish Everyone Knew About Librarians,” librarians were invited to tell us unenlightened non-librarians what they’d like us to know about their work and to dispel to the world the myths of the “stuffy, unapproachable librarian.”

The contest drew 45 extraordinary entries from a diverse group of librarians including public, private, corporate, law, musical, theological, medical, university, college, middle school, and even a prison librarian. The essays were more entertaining, educational and original than ever expected.

Here’s what the judges learned from the What I Wish Everyone Knew About Librarians contest entries:

Librarians are excellent writers, with a unique ability to make words flow off the page and into our souls.

“Surrounded by thousands of books, we can’t help but pick up a few words, here and there, as well as an image, a sensation, an emotion: the soulful eyes upon the cover of a glossy magazine, the rustle of newspapers, dried jam along the edges of a board book, the muffled cry of a child against his mother’s skirt, a warm shaft of afternoon light falling across the news tables, or the silhouette of a head bowing before a book like a monk before a psalter.”
– Lisbeth Boutang, Children’s Librarian, Cloquet Public Library, MN (Grand Prize Winner)

Librarians have a witty sense of humor.

“To some of those that tell me how they desire my easy job, and my big fat paycheck (yeah right!), I often reply, ‘Why after about three days of working here, you’d be running down main street screaming incoherently, with someone in a white coat trying to put a straight jacket on ya!’”
– Mark Tidwell, Director, Jellico Public Library, TN

No librarian does just one job – they all must multi task in a major way and be flexible at work.

“I wish people knew how many hats we wear, how often we change them and how we sometimes stack them in ridiculous ways to accommodate varied job duties.  Choice of hat varies greatly from one librarian to the next.”
– Brenda Talley, Adult Services Supervisor, North Richland Hills Public Library, TX (Second Place Winner)

Librarians want to be approached and asked questions.

“Contrary to popular opinion, librarians want to be interrupted at the reference desk. I know that we sit there, looking serious and busy, and you pause before you approach us. You think, ‘Oh, she’s going to laugh at my question’ or ‘But she doesn’t have time to help me.’ Take it from me—that is not true.”
– Brandy Sanders, Librarian, at California State Prison – Corcoran

Librarians seek information for patrons, and in the process become scholars themselves.

“One might think that librarians know a lot, but what I love most about being a librarian is that we figure out how to locate information about things we often don’t know ourselves, based on our understanding of the library user’s question, and our understanding of the network or universe of available information sources.”
– Andrea Rubin, Assistant Librarian, Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass,
San Francisco, CA (Honorable Mention)

Librarians are seasoned at dealing with extreme budget and program cuts and do so with and innovation and acceptance.

“We’ll create a museum ready display with some old yarn, five binder clips, used postcards, and some origami paper we found on clearance. We know the value of a dollar and can stretch money like a mother of six growing up in the Depression.”
– Sue Kowalski, Pine Grove Middle School Librarian, East Syracuse, NY  (3rd Place Winner)

Librarians are required to have advanced degrees.

“Librarians are smart. An M.L.S. degree, Master of Library Science, is a year-long study of libraries and their care and feeding. Many librarians have additional degrees. In our law library, three of us are lawyers as well as librarians.”
– Anne McFarland, Reference and Research Librarian, Cleveland Law Library Association, OH

Librarians love their jobs, and most would not want to do anything else for a living.

“On my first day … a woman walked in with a small bundle in her arms. I was certain she had a young baby … There was no baby in that bundle! There was a hedgehog! This young woman wanted me to find out the breeding habits of hedgehogs. At that moment I knew I was going to love my job.”
– Anne McClung, Branch Librarian, Goshen Public Library, VA

Librarians are unfairly and inaccurately stereotyped.

“Interestingly there seems to be a simultaneous perception that we are all women, and failures at femininity; unmarried or divorced, fat or scrawny women with gray hair in buns, horn-rimmed glasses, dressed in clothing from the local thrift shop, with no other social life than that which can be scraped up at the Library. And we’re either tittering romantics, or distant, censorious and severe. Hah!”
– Helen Waite, Library Assistant, Lewes Public Library, DE

Librarians have challenging jobs.

“I want people to know … that this is a tough job. You really have to be prepared to deal with all types of people—rude, noisy, smelly, obnoxious, friendly, shy, demanding, and just plain creepy. You have to be prepared for anything to happen in the library.”
– Elizabeth Dellavedova, Collection Development Librarian, NVCC-Annandale, VA

Librarians love to read but, contrary to popular belief, they do not have time to read on the job.

“’It must be nice to read books all day.’ Why yes, that would be nice. Me? In the last 3 years in the children’s department I have cleaned up pee, poop, and vomit off the floor. I find lost moms. I help children with homework that was due yesterday. I break up fights, I fix computers, I clean nasty dangly things off the books and try not to gag in the process.”
– Missy Littel, Children’s Reference Librarian, Tuscarawas County Public Library, New Philadelphia, OH (Honorable Mention)

Strange, memorable events take place in libraries every day.

“Then there’s the story of the day my staff warned me not to reprimand the ‘voodoo’ lady for causing a disturbance in the restroom. They said she’d put a curse on me. But I asked her to leave anyway. I broke my toe that night… But that’s another story….”
– Helen Whittaker, Library Manager, Kingsport Public Library, TN

I hope that this essay contest educates others as much as it did me. Sure, we’ve got a long way to go to dispel the myths of a “typical” librarian. But I, for one, will never go back to my old ways of thinking. There’s nothing “typical” about librarians. And that is a very good thing.

The winning entries from the What I Wish Everyone Knew About Librarians contest can be read here.

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