Shhh. Librarians get a bad rap. Perhaps most humorously in Parks and Recreation where librarians are called “book jockeys” and “the worst group of people ever assembled in history.” This started as a joke on the show because the parks department and local library compete for funding.
But actress Amy Poehler admitted that a dislike of libraries is common in local governments. “The library represents that branch of government that’s like the smart kids—the teacher’s favorite...Everybody loves them, and nobody can say anything. People who work in the library think they are so much better than everyone else.”
*The Hollywood Librarian* is a 2009 documentary that examines how librarians are portrayed in film. Director Ann Seidl and her crew watched over 100 appearances of librarians in movies over the years. They found that librarians are overwhelmingly portrayed as spinsters and overly-academic. Perhaps the best example of this is in the classic It’s a Wonderful Life where Mary Bailey’s fate without George is to become an old maid working at the local library.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 125,000 librarians are working around the country as of 2018. About one-third of these librarians are employed by secondary schools. Another 30% work for public libraries, and 18% serve at the university level. Their average pay is $59,000 per year. Just like with teachers, that doesn’t seem like enough.
Librarians are real-life superheroes who can change lives—no matter what Parks and Rec says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i49d8e3qako
“I ran across a book recently which suggested the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contains… a culture that doesn’t value librarians doesn’t value ideas, and without ideas, well, where are we?” —Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Volume 9: The Kindly Ones