Stereotypes

            I watched “The Age of Adaline” this weekend and it was a pretty good movie overall except for one short piece of dialogue. In the movie Adaline is going home with Ellis to meet his parents at their 40^th wedding anniversary and before they arrive his parents are discussing her.

Harrison Ford (father) “So what’s the story with this girl? She works there?

Mom – “I’ve told you everything Ellis told me.”

HF – “A beautiful girl… (big pause here)…working in a public library?”

What the heck? Are the writers implying that only ugly girls work at public libraries? Are they implying that there is something wrong with working at a public library?

            Mom – “Maybe she likes books and silence.”

HF – “Or maybe she Googled him and found out about his generous contribution and then worked her way into getting her hooks in him.”

            Now this is where the writers again went wrong. As every librarian knows, Google is not the best source for research. She works at the San Francisco Public Library in the archives. She is used to scholarly research and has much better databases to use if she really wanted to find out the dirt on her boyfriend. She already knew that he had made his fortune in economic forecasting and he is the board of director president for a philanthropic organization. With a few clicks she would have this information in a flash from a reputable source.

            What is it about librarians that make them an easy target? People hear that you are a librarian and the comments begin. “It must be nice to just sit and read all day” or “Oh, they still have librarians?” Librarians, for the most part, are stereotyped as introverted, unattractive, timid, or as a know-it-all without social skills. The reality is that librarians are just like everyone. Some are firecrackers that ignite the thirst for knowledge and some quietly lead the way. What librarian stereotypes have you heard? How can we change society’s image of us and do we want to?