There is a joke among librarians that goes something along the lines of, “I’m a librarian because I love books.” Cue response: HAHAHAHAHAAAAHA!
It’s not very funny unless you went to library school (aka, “library and information studies” school) wherein you learn, quickly, that being a librarian has almost nothing to do with working directly with books. Sometimes it does, of course, but in this day and age it is possible to be a librarian without ever touching a hard-copy codex. A small part of that is due to changing technologies, of course, but a greater part of that is due to the nature of the job: librarianship was never actually about books in any format, it was about providing access to information.
For a long, long time “information” was almost exclusively found in books, though, so it is an easy mistake to make. For more in depth and intelligent discussion of this, I suggest Lanke’s The Atlas of New Librarianship. For now, let’s talk about me:
I went to library school because I love books.
I know, that’s pretty funny.
The thing is, I really DO love books. Printed books, digital books, art books, notebooks…you name it, I love it. I have a sentimental affinity for the codex format, but I dearly love the many, many ebooks I have on my reader (my preccciouuuuusssss). I read a lot of books and novellas online using my browser. It’s all good.
I only bring this up because I’m looking for a job that has something to do with books. That’s just downright hysterical, really, and I wonder at my own madness. There is bibliography, if I want to go the academic route, and special collections, and museums. I wonder if I should not have just gone and become a conservator instead?
I love books. Not going to apologize for that. Just not quite sure what I’m going to do about it, either. *sigh*
