Volume 24, Number 2 (2005)

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Browsing Volume 24, Number 2 (2005) by Author "Schmidt, Steven J."

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    Foreward
    (H.W. Wilson Company, 2005) Schmidt, Steven J.
    They [librarians] are subversive. You think they’re just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They’re like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn’t mess with them...” —Michael Moore Originally, the word stereotype was used to describe a method for making a copy of a page of type so that exact duplicates could be made. It wasn’t until 1922 that Walter Lippman first used the word to describe groups of people. Less than a decade later, social scientists had begun to look at the accuracy of stereotypes. Many of these early studies found that overall; stereotypes were “simplistic, inaccurate, [and] not based upon personal contact with a group.”
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    Reel Vs. Real Librarians
    (H.W. Wilson Company, 2005) Schmidt, Steven J.
    Librarian. a person who is skilled in library work.” — The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language “Let’s try a game of word association. What profession do you think of when you read or hear “ambulance chaser,” “take two,” “slide rule,” “pork barrel,” “open wide,” “shhh”? You probably think immediately of lawyer, doctor, engineer, politician, dentist, and librarian. You are reacting to common stereotypes, even though these professional people perform important tasks. My line happens to be science/technical information specialist and library administrator, but you’d call me a librarian. – Wayne Wiegand “...the days of the librarian as a mouser in musty books must pass...” Melvil Dewey. In 1986, the popular television game show, Family Feud, posed a question to a group of 100 people and then asked the contestants to identify the four most frequently given answers. The question was: “What are the typical characteristics of a librarian?” Survey said, librarians are: 1. quiet 2. mean or stern 3. usually single or unmarried 4. Wear glasses. At the time, this program irritated a number of librarians, but whether their irritation was based on the question, the answer or the fact that the contestant guessed all four “correct” answers is still to be determined.