During my shift on the reference desk today I was approached by an undergraduate student that I often see toiling about in the library. She is a very knowledgeable student (tri-lingual) and doesn't quite know what to do after she graduates. Naturally, I suggested that a bright young hipster like herself go to library school. Her response? "I don't know that much about Dewey."
Inside I died. Please keep in mind that I did not look down on her for this answer, but realized that the outside perception of what librarians do is so very very confusing to non-librarians. I also know that anyone in a library program reads about a dozen (of the thousand plus) articles about "public perceptions" of librarians. I just needed to vent about my experience.
Also, I'm curious what my fellow students would have said in response? I was speechless in that I didn't know where to start.
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3 comments:
You should have said they covered that in Intro to Library Science from the Public's Perception class. :-)
Also, I'm curious what my fellow students would have said in response?
Dewey is an artifact of librarianship, just as are MARC and XML and all other organizational/metadata schema. There would be no need for library schools if everyone understood the use of all of these tools.
There are serious misconceptions about librarians' functions ("Such an easy job, checking books in and out all day long." ha), but so many people are taught from a young age that they need to memorize the Dewey Decimal System that it has become one of the few technical library concepts to cross over into common knowledge. Patrons generally know what it does, but not how it works (or why it's a useful tool).
To me, her response seems more like a polite way to end the conversation than a serious reply to your question, but you're right in noting the stereotype.
Um, don't you think that would have been a good time to whip out your I heart Dewey Decimal System tattoo and further alienate her??
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