Talk:Librarians in popular culture

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This article was nominated for deletion on 13 Oct 2007. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

This article was nominated for deletion on 16 April 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

This article was nominated for deletion on 25 October 2006. The result of the discussion was Keep, nomination withdrawn.

Contents 1 Librarians With Blogs 2 Current discussion 3 References 4 By Topic, Not By Medium 5 removals

[edit] Librarians With Blogs

Since this is about librarians in popular culture, and since the blogosphere is now in the popular culture, should this article include a list of prominent librarian blogs? If so, I suggest they be listed alphabetically without reference to the political stances of the various librarians. And by prominent I mean blogs getting viewed regularly, not rarely visited blogs. And to judge this I use the Netcraft Antiphishing Toolbar. How about it? --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling 14:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The anti-phishing toolbar isn't a measure of popularity that is commonly accepted. We have Google Page Rank, Technorati rank, A9 rank and a bunch of other tools at our disposal. I think the popular culture term here commonly means "movies, tv and mainstream media" so I think a set of blog listsings on this page would be problematic but perhaps a good list on its own page? I don't feel super strongly about this, but the anti-phishing toolbar isn't a goodmetric for popularity or ranking, that much I do know. Jessamyn (talk) 14:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Skip it then. Thanks. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling 14:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I have to admit, I'm a little bit upset that my valid (though a few seconds late) edit was deleted as vandalism. I don't believe that the following is vandalism:

On the May 24, 2007 episode of the same show, Colbert interviewed Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. During the interview, he showed on the screen the statement "Librarians are hiding something" and asked Wales how he would stop or prevent vandalism to Wikipedia based on that statement.

I think that the fact that Colbert was interviewing Wales when he called for the vandalism is entirely relevant to the article and should be added. SQFreak 04:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current discussion

...is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Librarians in popular culture (3rd nomination). Her Pegship (tis herself) 16:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

The following articles may have useful information that could be cited in this article:

• Grant Burns, "Librarians in Fiction: a critical bibliography" (Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 1998)
• Stephen Walker and V. Lonnie Lawson "The librarian stereotype and the movies" MC Journal v. 1, no. 1 (1993):17
• Katherine M. Heylman "Librarians in Juvenile Fiction" School Library Journal (May 1975) 25:28
• Doug Highsmith, "The long strange trip of Barbara Gordon: images of librarians in comic books" The Reference Librarian 78 (2002): 61-83
• Elaine Yontz, "Librarians in children's literature, 1909-2000" The Reference Librarian 78 (2002) 85-96 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zeborah (talk • contribs) 08:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

And also:

• Brown-Seyed, Christopher and Charles Barnard Sands. “Librarians in Fiction: A Discussion.” Education Libraries 21 (1997).
• Cowden, Dami D., Sue Viders, and Caro Lafever. The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes and Heroines: 16 Master Archetypes. Hollywood, CA: Lone Eagle Publishing Company, 2000.
• Filstrup, Jane Merril. “The Shattered Calm: Libraries in Detective Fiction parts I and II.” Wilson Library Bulletin 53 (1978): 320-327 cont. in 53 (1979): 392-398.
• Frylinck, John and Janice Oliver. Looks in Books: Images of Librarians in Literature, 1945-1990. Perth: Curtin University of Technology Library, 1990.
• Grimes, Deborah J. “Marian the Librarian, the Truth Behind the Image.” Discovering Librarians: Profiles of a Profession. Ed. Mary Jane Scherdin. Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries, ALA, 1994.
• Hall, Alison. “Batgirl was a Librarian.” Canadian Library Journal 49 (1992): 345-347.
• Moynahan, Julian. “Librarians: Novels and Novelists.” American Libraries (1974): 550-553.
• Noble, John. “From Tom Pinch to Highliber Zavora: the Librarian in Fiction.” Orana November 2001: 23-28.
• Olen, ST. “The Image of Librarians in Modern Fiction.” Mousaion 5 (1987): 48-57.
• Pankin, Mary Faith Pusey. “Librarians in Mystery Stories.” West Virginia Libraries 31 (1978): 11-18.
• Radford, Marie L. and Gary P. “Power, Knowledge, and Fear: Feminism, Foucault, and the Stereotype of the Female Librarian.” Library Quarterly 67 (1997): 250-266.
• Sapp, Gregg. “The Librarian as a Main Character: A Professional Sampler.” Wilson Library Bulletin 61 (1987): 28-33.
• Schuman, Patricia Glass. “The Image of Librarians: Substance of Shadow?” Journal of Academic Librarianship 16 (1990): 86.
• Valenza, Joyce. “Just a Librarian? Who Do They Think We Are?” Book Report 15 (1996): 15-17.

--Zeborah 07:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

(Striking out references I've consulted/used. --Zeborah 08:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC))

[edit] By Topic, Not By Medium

As long as this article is arranged by movies, television, literature, video games, etc., deletionists will challenge that it is just a list, since the tendency is to add "I saw a librarian here" without saying anything about the character or public perception. I suggest rearranging the article by topic, listing and commenting on each old stereotype in turn (shushing, glasses, etc.), and then the various modern perceptions (helpful, trendy, high-tech), commenting on its effect on librarians and library users. The article should be based on ideas in the cited references; selected examples from the list of librarians can be used to illustrate a point, but not as original research. GUllman 17:09, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I see your point. OTOH, the references I've found do primarily look at it according to genre - see above: by fiction, movies, comic books. Given this, it feels a lot more natural (and, to be honest, it's a heck of a lot easier) to arrange the article the same way. I've got a long weekend so I'm about to spend a couple hours doing more research in view of adding more prose to the thing. I haven't been bold enough yet to delete all the list stuff, but if/when there's sufficient prose to stand alone I will. If there's nothing formatted in lists, that should reduce the temptation to add extra random examples. --Zeborah 06:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] removals

some of the recent removals seem to be influenced by personal opinion. If the person is significant in the plot of a notable work, its worth including. If it's the iconic representation of an attitude, ditto. "Marion the Librarian" is a good example of what should not have been removed. I'll be adding a few of them back. DGG (talk) 06:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I made the removals, and they were influenced by the poor formatting of the article and lack of justification for many entries. A huge number of the video game entries were just "{Character name} from {video game}". Some were even "Unnamed librarian from {video game}". These are NOT significant characters in notable works, they're unnecessary filler. This article does not need to be an exhaustive list of every librarian ever mentioned in any media. The DaVinci Code entry under novels doesn't even mention a librarian, it just says the characters visit a library! I may have been overzealous when it came to Marian, but I was actually cutting the second reference to The Music Man in that section of the article. Even the notable librarians listed here are badly explained and often badly written. The entry for Philadelphia makes it sound like a kindly librarian offered a sick man a private room for his own comfort. I had corrected this and several other problems with the article in the revision that you reverted. I guess I'll just have to revert it back again now. If anyone feels that a truly significant librarian character has been cut they are welcome to add it back in, but please don't just put the character name and title of the work. CKarnstein (talk) 20:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

CK, it wasnt I who did the reverting--I just commented here. I talk first, not just revert, when it seems its not wholly unreasonable. I prefer that to BRD. DGG (talk) 05:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry DGG, I saw the anonymous revert and assumed it must be you not logged in. My mistake. CKarnstein (talk) 15:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd actually be fine with all the lists being deleted, and only keeping things that have been cited in a source outside the original context. (I won't do it myself until I can add in more things that have been cited.) But your edits - among some things that are reasonable - actually remove things that have been cited; that is, you're removing some of the only lists that are actually defensible under strict notability guidelines - and in the process seriously misrepresenting Ann Seidl's work. ("female movie librarians are usually unmarried, prim and introverted" does not mean the same as "Movie librarians are usually prim single women" even if 'introverted' is left out. Moreover, and worse, you make it sound as if her documentary was only about the positive portrayals, when it was primarily about the negative ones.) You've also removed the quote from "Librarian: Quest for the Spear" which bears directly on stereotypes of librarians and is the only thing making that entry mildly more encyclopaedic than the rest of the list. So while a lot of your other edits make very good sense, a lot damage the article, and given the sheer number of those it's not very fair to put the onus on us of trying to sort out which is which. --I'll try anyway, after lunch; if you've got any problems with any of my edits can you please discuss it here on the talk page before reverting? --Zeborah (talk) 00:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't put any onus on you. We are all freely choosing to work on this article, and I am sure we all want to make it better even if we don't always agree on what "better" is. As for me, I certainly did not intend to misrepresent Ann Seidl, and I must disagree with your interpretation of my revisions. My changes to that section were merely my attempt to revise some very bad writing. Are there well-rounded characters inside the body of Shirley Jones? Is it a stereotype that librarians often say "Do you want me to draw you a map?" Well, that's what the section says. And I must admit, I cannot see what is at all noteworthy or defensible about entries like "One of L. R. Wright's crime series features a librarian as partner of the lead detective." There's no source, there's no justification, there's not even enough information to tell a curious reader which books this unnamed librarian appears in. It does more damage to the readability and helpfulness of the article to leave list-padding entries like this in than it does to leave a few potentially useful entries out. CKarnstein (talk) 04:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

My comment re you putting the onus on us was because, even though you admitted that you "may have been overzealous when it came to Marian" you simply reverted everything, including that piece of overzealousness. That something is badly written (in fact badly edited: the article was up for deletion at the time and I was pulling things already present into stuff I was writing new in a hurry; not that this is the point) is not a reason to remove it entirely. L.R.Wright would be another case of me editing in a hurry, leaving out details because I was focused on making it clear why it's easily as important as anything else in the list. --Even if no more notable than anything else in the list. One day when I have plenty of time I'd like to get enough stuff written for each of the sections on the page, with examples referred to in sources specifically about librarians in popular culture, that we could get rid the unsourced lists entirely. But I want to write the good stuff before removing the cruft: partly because this is how my mind works; partly because parts of the cruft may get mentioned in sources and then we'll have all the wikilinks and dates and details already there, saving work; partly because some people get annoyed if you delete stuff without replacing it with anything better, and even if I don't agree with them I can see their point. --Zeborah (talk) 05:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

No, I did not. If you look at the history, you'll see my edit summary was "reverted back to my last revision, but with Marion [sic] the Librarian added back in". I put back exactly the same text about Marian as had been there previously, I just moved her down to the chronological list of librarian characters. As for the entries I removed, most did NOT have dates or details, and some did not even have wikilinks. Others did contain details, but the details themselves indicated that the librarian characters were not truly notable (e.g. The Avengers entry). That was why I removed them in the first place. Replacing these entries with better entries would have made the lists if anything longer, but this wouldn't be much improvement as they were excessive already. Anything that's ever been in the article is still saved in the history, so keeping unimportant entries around just in case they someday become noteworthy is silly. But if you'd rather have a crufty article then be my guest. It's dawning on me that a more efficient use of my time would be simply voting to delete excessively crufty articles rather than trying to improve them. I don't care enough to keep pushing this rock up the hill just to see it roll down again. CKarnstein (talk) 15:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

as this is one of the more rationally discussed articles of its sort, it would be a shame for anyone to give up on it. suggestion--apart from removing, there may be some notable ones not yet identified. DGG (talk) 03:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)::The 'Avengers' entry has the advantage that it describes a specific instance of a librarian stereotype. No, I would not rather have a crufty article; I even said I'd rather not have a crufty article; what's more I said I'd rather delete all the lists in their entirety but that first I want the rest of the article to stand on its own. Yes, everything's always saved in history, but it can be a heck of a nuisance to have to hunt for it "back in April last year I think maybe" and then have to copy and paste; far easier to be able to shuffle it around on the same page. As for the stuff you removed without dates or details, you'll notice that I'm not complaining about the vast majority of that; I'm simply asking that you take care not to remove things that have been sourced (or even to move them out of the place where they were sourced into an unsourced list). --Zeborah (talk) 06:09, 30 November 2007 (UTC)