I came across an article today: “The Anti-stereotype Stereotype” which looks at the image of librarians in the media with a twist. In a bid for libraries to seem cool, hip, and exciting, institutions often go out of their way to shine a spotlight on the more unusual subgenres of librarians: tattooed librarians, punk rock librarians, lipstick librarians etc. The old librarian stereotype is dead, long live the new stereotype.
In hindsight I would have liked to address this issue at Hollywood Librarian, and hopefully with Hollywood Librarian II planned for Spring 2010 we can discuss the dangers of the new stereotype. But first of all do we even agree there is a new stereotype?