kiss the ground

So there has always been the librarian avengers (which if you have never seen/found/checked out you really, REALLY should-from an excellent school too!) In case you don't know--here's a little background on The Librarian Avenger. In 1997 (coincidently the year i graduated from library school) a not-yet library-grad student named Erica Olsen from Flint, Michigan penned this wonderful essay:

Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian

Ok, sure. We've all got our little preconceived notions about who librarians are and what they do. Many people think of librarians as diminutive civil servants, scuttling about "Ssh-ing" people and stamping things. Well, think again buster.

Librarians have degrees. They go to graduate school for Information Science and become masters of data systems and human/computer interaction. Librarians can catalog anything from an onion to a dog's ear. They could catalog you.

Librarians wield unfathomable power. With a flip of the wrist they can hide your dissertation behind piles of old Field and Stream magazines. They can find data for your term paper you never knew existed. They may even point you toward new and appropriate subject headings.

People become librarians because they know too much. Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. They cannot be confined to disciplines. Librarians are all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule. And they will kick they crap out of anyone who says otherwise.

©Erica Olsen

doesn't that just make you beam inside? and it's a great answer when people want to know just WHAT it is that librarians DO.

now there are the Library Goddesses - (Garrulous Goddesses Generate Genuine Gems) a divine group of librarians sharing books and library ideas with you (a group which yours truly has just recently joined).

My goddess is Damara (a strange kind of permutation of my given name--which i am oddly attached to--as we are wont to be), a Celtic fertility/sea goddess worshiped in Britain and associated with the month of May (my birth month) and the Gaelic holiday of Beltaine (for you non-pagans.--Beltaine is usually celebrated at the midpoint between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice) Some also consider her a goddess of insight and knowledge--i'd like to consider myself that too.

Librarians, if you want to join check this out.