In defense of the New Look

To the meanie bloggers who are getting press for criticizing the librarians in the new look librarian articles and the commenters cheering them on:

I think this makes you look like a meanie. The young librarians I know are fighting hipster stereotypes by doing things like finishing two degrees (instead of being a perpetual student), picking a career path (instead of floating between food service and retail jobs with their BA degree),and being engaged in the conversations about intellectual property and technology and the common good (ah Jessamyn, we all love Jessamyn) etc.

I can't believe how un-professional librarian bloggers criticizing the librarians profiled in these articles are. The critical librarian bloggers (and while I should be posting citations and quotes and all, I don't want to give any more credit to their meanness) are oddly, acting like a bunch of effin scenesters. They don't like the way the writer describes "their scene". They accuse the people in the article of being "poseurs" for being in a major media outlet. Of course, anyone interviewed in the media can't be as true to the librarian ethic as they are. Are you defending librarianship or your idea of what is and isn't punk?

Maybe I need to finish the criticism of AUTOCAT that I was re-writing into a parody of as a criticism of the Indiepop List. I'm sure it would be just as easy to take a letter to MRR about how new punk isn't real punk, and revamp it into a rant about what is and what isn't librariness.

Instead of bands and labels its all about citations and publications. Instead of local scenes it's library systems. And most of all, instead of being professional and supportive of different people's endeavors, it's about making fun of people you don't know because you are so insecure in your self that you can't be nice to people who are enough you like you that you might be competing for jobs or status someday, somewhere.

In a way, I find it to be a hilarious one-sided scene war. Or maybe it is just more interesting to the major library blogs to post the criticisms of the article because it's hard to defend strangers or say "oh, I'm kinda like these librarians". Or maybe because I've met some of these women and before the article was even published listened to their concerns about how they would be represented and if they said too much about their workplace.



And it's making me hesitant to post the cute picture I took at ALA of me "riding the wave" to ALA in San Diego because we were all kinda matchy and cute. Grrrrr. I would be crying now if I had gotten the librarian rock show and social hour together at ALA like I wanted to before I got caught up in Popfest planning.

Besides, geesh, Stephen Pastel, the library issue of Tim Alborn's Incite! fanzine, and all the librarians on the poplist...hipster librarians? Do your research librarians, that stereotype is so early 90s!