A clean look at a dusty old profession

If you are like me you have always viewed librarians as older ladies with their hair in buns, thick glasses, and too many cats.  I thought this until I became one my self!  Yes, I still see this stereotype fleshed out in many libraries, but I am hoping to break this mold and creat a new, cooler stereotype. 

I kind of fell into being a librarian, or as most in the profession prefer "library media specialist."  While working as the in school suspension teacher, or as people in that profession prefer "prison warden," my colleague and friend who was the working in the library had to resign due to medical reasons. I was sad to see my friend leave, but was also excited to find this get out of jail free card.  I was given a 4 hour crash course in library media science and then thrown into the job 1/3 of the way through the school year.

I have learned a lot in the past couple of years in my new role.  I depend a lot on my local colleagues and the Internet to help me do my job.  One thing I have learned is that the library or the preferred name in the biz "library media center" is way more about technology than you might think. For one thing, we are charged with the task of teaching "cyber citizenship."  Also, the introduction of ebooks is changing the game. I find this attractive because now, we can get our books back automatically and not have to bug kids about it or charge them for lost books. 

I guess this is more like mindless rambling rather than a thoughtful blog post.  I just felt inspired to start a more professioanl blog after going to EdCamp this past week and meeting some really cool teachers and media specialists. I will admit that there may have been some older ladies with buns who treat their cats as children and who still wear their glasses on chains, but, overall most of the people I met were way cooler than me, and that takes a lot...<insert obligatory emoticon> :-)