Volume 24, Number 2 (2005)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/1805/1202

Browse

Browsing Volume 24, Number 2 (2005) by Subject "Librarians in motion pictures"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Bad to the Bone, Librarians in Motion Pictures: Is it an Accurate Portrayal?
    (H.W. Wilson Company, 2005) Threatt, Monique L.
    In 1992, author Mary Jane Scherdin used the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument to survey personality traits of 1,600 librarians. The study resulted in an overwhelming number of librarians displaying personalities consistent with being Introverted / Sensing / Thinking / Judging (I/S/T/J) followed by Introverted / Intuitive / Thinking / Judging (I/I/T/J). She conducted this survey in response to a 1984 survey done by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type which had concluded that librarians were Introverted / Sensing / Feeling / Judging.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Buns of Steel: From Librarian to Woman in Storm Center, Desk Set, Party Girl
    (H.W. Wilson Company, 2005) Wahrman, Noa
    “Melville Dewey”, declares chief-librarian Judy Lindendorf, Mary’s godmother in Party Girl, “hired women as librarians because he believed the job didn’t require any intelligence. That means it’s underpaid and undervalued!” In Party Girl, a film from 1995, Judy reflects on what was a common assessment of the librarian’s profession for women throughout the 20th century. What are the common traits of this condescending image? What are its social roots? and has the librarian’s offensive image changed or improved over the years or has it remained the same? This article begins to explore the visual images and stereotypes appearing in films produced in the second half of the twentieth century. Of the four-hundred-odd films featuring librarians, I will focus here on three in which the female librarian is the main character, two from the 1950s and one from the mid 1990s: Storm Center (Daniel Taradash, 1956), Desk Set (Walter Lang, 1958) and Party Girl (Daisy von Scherler Mayer, 1995).