Last week, while I was busy keeping Austin weird, Flavorwire had two posts about "10 of the Coolest Librarians." They'd only planned one post, but then commenters (who, sure, are probably mostly librarians) were all like "Hey, this librarian is pretty awesome too! Spotlight her!" And Flavorwire obliged by creating "Readers' Choice: 10 More of the Coolest Librarians Alive."
I'd only ever heard of JP (we were ALA Emerging Leaders together), Nancy Pearl (I do not live under a rock) and those Desk Set gals (NYTimes article, perhaps?), but everyone else sounds pretty cool. And I know about Urban Libraries Unite and the have seen the Lady Gaga library video, so that shows that at minimum, some basic internet research went into compiling the list.
As per usual, they were mostly public librarians who serve adults. They get all the glory, while we school library and children's types who shape young minds and are the first exposure to libraries get nuttin'. Ain't that the truth? But I'm not here to whine and complain. Seriously. Any time any librarian gets props for being an advocate in his/her community and gets a little spotlight it helps to show people all the different types of awesome a librarian is and can be! So let's celebrate! Wahoo!
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Hmmm...do I get vicarious 'cool' points for personally knowing two of the 'Coolest Librarians'? :p I was sad to see a definite lack of school librarians featured. There are a lot of famous ones too, with SLJ blogs and everything.
ReplyDeleteWow, I think you definitely get cool points for knowing them personally. I was an EL with JP, but I can't say I actually "know" him. I'll admit that I was surprised that there was nary a Betsy Bird or other SLJ person on the list.
ReplyDeleteAll I can think is perhaps they were trying to highlight librarians who fly under the radar and don't get the big notice that people like Betsy Bird and Travis Jonker receive.
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