To be shocked the librarian was so poorly read?

[bendmeoverbackwards]

In the library recently reserving some books for dd. Librarian had not heard of A Handmaid’s Tale and did not know that As you Like It was written by Shakespeare.

These are not exactly obscure books!

AIBU?

I was vaguely aware of 'The Handmaid's Tale', but wasn't interested in reading it, and don't watch much TV and didn't see it. If someone asked me about it, I'd be pretty blank.

As a teenager I read 10-12 books a week (I was a bit of a recluse), and in older age try to get through two a week. I own about 3,000. I've never read any Margaret Attwood, nor have I read (or seen) AYLI. Authors and styles go in and out of fashion. If I was a librarian, I would not be at all surprised not to know of every book visitors may ask about. And my friends reckon I'm 'very well read', whatever that means.

I think to not know the Shakespeare is a bit of a gap. The Handmaid's Tale has become famous because of the TV series and it may not have been everybody's cup of tea. Somoe folks may not even watch the TV at all, but they should have heard of Shakespeare. We must remember however that snce the Tory Government started cutting Local Authority budgets back in 2010, as a response to the global financial crisis of 2008, libraries have struggled, and many of them are staffed ONLY by volunteers.The cuts are continuing, as you know. We get what we vote for.

I worked in a bookshop and am a lifelong, prolific reader. About 10% of my job involved book recommendations....
Librarians are experts at resourcing material, they are not required to 'know' books classic or otherwise.

@karalou2

The fact that people accuse you of being 'snobby' in a very nasty way, just because you know about books/authors, partly answers the question here. These days, it seems more important to think it's clever to belittle people, rather than have a basic general education. I'm totally saddened that people come out of school with absolutely no idea of the 'classics'. I'm no snob, just someone grateful for a good education and a family who taught kindness by example.

The irony.

@IntermittentParps

If Shakespeare is so canon people will have no problems listing the histories without googling.

The OP didn't expect the person to be able to 'list' any Shakespeare, just to know that he is the author of As you Like It.

Exactly. Why are people still coming out with these tests to try and catch out the thread ‘snobs’? Can someone explain the link between thinking one fact is widely known, and being expected to know detailed information about that subject? To take the Beatles example someone gave above, I’d be surprised to hear someone hadn’t heard of them, but also (admittedly, less) surprised if they could reel off every release they’d ever had!

Out of interest, I wrote down as many Shakespeare plays as I could think of. It was fewer than the number of plays that I would instantly have recognised as his, and that was a shorter list than the number of the plays I’d heard of but was shakier on. The number of plays I studied at school is the smallest by some way. This is normal, surely? Not a binary knowing everything or knowing nothing.

Obviously I won’t be divulging the number so as to avoid either being accused of snobbery or posters crowing that I couldn’t get them all - and in date order!

And, no, I don’t know the first thing about As You Like It. Again, not sure what this has to be with having an awareness of its existence!

The OP didn't expect the person to be able to 'list' any Shakespeare, just to know that he is the author of As you Like It.

Again, the irony.

I miss the professional librarians. Such a shame with all the cuts etc. It’s likely she’s a volunteer or an assistant.

Before she left our library our fab librarian told me about Fantastic Fiction. It’s a website and has lots of information on authors and their books. It’s useful for working out the orders of trilogies and sets of books.

I can't use libraries as most of the books I read have been pulped by libraries to make room for newer books.

In my experience, the qualified librarians I worked with mainly had English Literature degrees (myself included) and many had literary post-grad qualifications alongside their library management qualifications. This is probably why most people have gained the impression that librarians are well read etc. But I only worked in university libraries, so don't know if this is the same experience in public libraries?

OP having a superior thread over someone who works in a library is probably not coming across the way you thought it might.

I'd like to know what makes As You Like It an essential to know but Titus Andronicus, Henry VIII (or whatever play you feel is unimportant) are ok to not know or remember.
I mean what are the rules?
Do we have to know all the novels considered classic or only the ones you know?

It might also depend on the age of the person you ask for information and it may well have a link to the genres in which they have interest.
I'll wager that fewer persons who identify as hetero male will have read The Handmaid's Tale than those who identify as cis.

But by the same token, if you don't know it, it's not important knowledge, and anyone who thinks it is, is a snob, unkind etc etc, right?

I actually do know it. But I wouldn't automatically assume someone who doesn't to be unread.
They might know more Victor Hugo, Bram Stoker's for example.

Maybe she lives under a rock. Anyone with a TV or smart device knows about the Handmaids tale.

I don’t watch it myself but I have heard about it.

Although I wouldn’t know the English titles to Shakespeare’s books, but that’s because I find all his works more or less boring. Shakespeare is actually better in pretty much any other language than English, which is ironic.

They might indeed, though to my mind Hugo, whom I've never read, though I know some of what he wrote, and Stoker are a tad more obscure than AYLI.

I think some Shakespeare plays are less well known than others, but As You Like It is well known. I've never seen it or read, but everyone's heard of it, surely?
Same with THMT. Hasn't everyone at least seen protesters in red capes even if they haven't seen the TV series or read the book?
Here we go again with the claims that everyone's heard of...aka "I know this so think everyone must know it/should know it".

I just can't fathom an English teacher not having heard of Chekhov. 'not having heard of' being the operative phrase
Then you show a very limited understanding of the range of disciplines that English teachers come from.

I can absolutely see how a linguistics graduate with no interest in Russian dramatists wouldn't know a dramatist that isn't on the curriculum.

As ever, we come back to "I don't understand how people don't know the things I know".

NeverDropYourMoonCup
I loved the Struggle for Identity unit on one of the old specs and did many of the texts you mentioned, but marking the essays became depressing after a while. I found myself splitting my A Level marking with Year 7 creative writing to lift my mood.

But that's just your opinion, which is kind of the point.
Personally I think Dracula is more famous than tht.

@SunnydaleClassProtector99

I'd like to know what makes As You Like It an essential to know but Titus Andronicus, Henry VIII (or whatever play you feel is unimportant) are ok to not know or remember. I mean what are the rules? Do we have to know all the novels considered classic or only the ones you know?

What makes it essential is that some people have heard of it and it makes them feel terribly, terribly clever that others haven't.

Despite most of them probably never having actually read it or seen a production of it.

Years ago (mid-fifties+) the BBC did classic plays on Sunday evenings. I remember seeing Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters.

@SunnydaleClassProtector99 - obviously there aren’t rigid rules, but there’s a rough scale of how much each play has penetrated the public conscience, isn’t there? Or do you think people are equally likely to have heard of Romeo and Juliet and Timon of Athens? I’d imagine most people have heard of the first but not the second, but there won’t be very many who’ve heard of Timon and not R&J. One is out there in the wider culture, and the other is not. Most plays will sit at different points between those.

This applies to pretty much every category of knowledge, and is the whole premise of Pointless!

@SunnydaleClassProtector99

I'd like to know what makes As You Like It an essential to know but Titus Andronicus, Henry VIII (or whatever play you feel is unimportant) are ok to not know or remember. I mean what are the rules? Do we have to know all the novels considered classic or only the ones you know?

@SunnydaleClassProtector99 I’ve asked this multiple times but funnily enough no one answers...

Why do librarians have to have read Shakespeare or Margaret Attwood? Is it in the job description? I thought "librarianing" involved "shushing", glaring and pushing trolleys of books about.

I'm guessing there's quite a lot of people that hadn't heard of The Handmaid's Tale before it was on TV! As for As You Like It, it's hardly one of most common (Hamlet, R&J, MacBeth etc) that are on the school syllabus or have endless film versions. Even if she had heard of them it doesn't make her well read.

eddiemairswife
I quite enjoyed The Cherry Orchard and felt quite pleased with myself when I worked out that Chekov's early plays in order were the answer to a recent question on Round Britain Quiz on the radio. They don't tend to come up very much in the media.
Of course, the fact I don't expect all my colleagues to know this information makes me anti-general knowledge and I must hate people who read.

And you dont have to have read all the famous books and plays in the world to know who wrote them surely?