A Cry for Baby Librarians

Baby Librarians, Your help is needed...heed the cry and join in the cause!!!!

Attention all new librarians & information professionals!

I (Amanda Roberts, ALA NMRT Footnotes Assistant Editor) am writing an article for the upcoming ALA NMRT Footnotes that will incorporate some of the responses to my article "Combating Ageism: Lessons Learned by 'Baby' Librarians" published in both Footnotes and LISCareer.com: http://liscareer.com/roberts_ageism.htm.

A common thread in these responses is that people are concerned about compromising their identity (i.e., dressing a certain way) to fit a mold. This is seen by many as contributing to our dreaded librarian stereotype.

If you agree with that statement, I am interested in hearing from you. Are there specific things that you do to combat our librarian stereotype? This, of course, may not be limited to dress... Please email me your responses by March 15 ( palmanda1 @ yahoo.com ). Please include your name/position and/or library and whether I may publish your response.

And a question for all: Is changing the librarian stereotype important to you? Is there anything librarians/information professionals or ALA or other librarian/IS associations need to be doing to change our image in the public's eye? Please email me your responses by March 15. Please include your name/position and/or library and whether I may publish your response.

Thank you to all for taking the time to think about these things. I look forward to reading & reporting your responses in the conference issue of ALA NMRT Footnotes!