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 forget stuff I actually know all the time. I’m hoping it’s menopause but sometimes I’m sure it’s early dementia.
One of the pub quiz questions was on Romeo and Juliet and I had literally only just taught it. Could I remember the bloody answer? No. (I could identify a Lincoln biscuit though, which redeemed me).

Can you name every policy at your place of work Or name every single book you’ve ever read? Give the librarian a break

Boris Johnson did Classics, which he tries to let people know quite often. Cameron read PPE.

Can you name every policy at your place of work

No, but I know where to look them up. I don't expect library assistants or librarians to know everything. I do expect them to have a good idea of where to start finding out the information being asked for.

And I’m sure the library assistant was perfectly able to look it up.

the winter I've always done that. Some people have difficulty recalling known facts under pressure. That should be fine.

Boris Johnson's knowledge of classics didn't help him navigate the pandemic well. I wonder if Angela Merkel knows Atwood...

University Challenge usually shows the STEM oriented teams (thinking Imperial in particular) are actually more polymath than the very humanities oriented ones.

I suspect being a librarian is really about a form of publication information system(s) rather than book knowledge per se.

@IrmaFayLear

I think we are in two camps here. Those who think libraries contain books and that the staff employed should have, as well as the required skills for performing the practicalities of the job, an interest and a good knowledge of literature. Not an in-depth knowledge of every book ever written, but definitely a broad expertise.

In the other camp are those who think a “library” is purely an information/social hub and that people who work there are functionaries who no more need an interest in reading than they do in knitting for the Knit and Natter group.

Maybe the second group are quite right and librarians are something out of the dark ages. BUT I don’t know why so many posters of this persuasion are so dismissive of general knowledge and wide learning. It seems so depressing to cast people as snobs or sneer at anything remotely seen as a bit “ooh, hark at her”. Perhaps councils should axe library books altogether if reading is such a poncey niche pursuit.

I read like crazy. I was in my local library yesterday. When I get paid, I'm probably going to buy either a Wheel of Time book or a Chalet School book. Margaret Atwood is one of my favourite writers. I could probably name most of Shakespeare's plays. I also disagree with the OP. Libraries have changed a lot due to funding cuts. Mine has fortunately stayed open but others in North Manchester have been closed. As other have said, wages are crap. Libraries aren't purely information/social hubs, people do go there to read, but being an information/social hub is a big part of what libraries are now.

Incidentally, my local library does have classics - I got Mill on the Floss, The Age of Innocence and Emma from them, amongst other things - and it also has a lot of recent stuff. Also Urdu/Polish/Gujarati sections, since we have a fairly big Asian/Polish population here.

And NOBODY is saying that reading is 'poncey'.

@JennieLee

It's telling that there's a widespread assumption that it's 'Great British' culture that counts.

Yesterday involved searching for a missing reservation of some Urdu fiction. It's useful knowledge if you're working in many city community libraries, to be comfortable with transliterated titles/names that are orignally in other scripts, and to be able to communicate with people for whom English is a second language. (This can take rather more time.) In the city where I work, it would be shocking not to know about major religious festivals - eg Ramadan - and to know how these will impact on library users lives.

So perhaps everyone who is so shocked at other people's lack of knowledge would like to try shelving some Gujerati books correctly?

Yeah, god forbid that in Great Britain, we should be interested in our own literary heritage, which is extensive, and expect our cultural institutions to be aware of and to stock it. That would be so ‘racist’.

To echo what was said on pg 1, there are few to no professional librarians left in the public domain now. Blair consulted some twit of a bookseller about libraries who was absolutely aghast at the idea that people should expect to be paid for their work.

www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/trending/bizarre/argentinian-news-anchor-confuses-shakespeares-while-reporting-uk-patients-death-7335222/lite/

Someone get that reporter a cup of Earl Grey, stat!

Yeah, god forbid that in Great Britain, we should be interested in our own literary heritage, which is extensive, and expect our cultural institutions to be aware of and to stock it. That would be so ‘racist’.

The point I was trying to make is that good library assistants serve communities. Communities are multi-cultural. So yes, we have study guides on Shakespeare that will help GCSE students. But we'll also stock digests of Urdu fiction, books on how to do Mehendi, Polish novels. Because weirdly enough culture is not something with a Union Jack stamped all over it.

And some of those who think they are 'cultured' on this thread, are simply showing their narrowness, their profound ignorance about a) libraries and b) the diversity of people who access them.

There is also some interesting cultural appropriation going on by MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes

Is Margaret Atwood a Great British novelist? Does she live in the UK? Is 'The Handmaid's Tale' set in the UK? Does it comment on UK cultural life?

The answer to all these questions in 'No'.

But apparently UK librarians 'should' know about her.

On the other hand, despite the UK's long and complex history in India and what is now, Pakistan - its involvement with the Indian educational system - the involvement of Indian servicemen in the Armed Forces, the role of people from the Asian subcontinent in many UK industries, professions and services, - and the intermariages that have taken place - there is no need for a UK librarian to know anything about novels written in South Asian community languages.

It appears that some novelists can be adopted as 'Great British' and part of UK culture - other novelists are dismissed as irrelevant.

Why is Margaret Atwood valued but not, say, Saadat Hasan Manto?

Answers on a postcard please.

Or Midnight's Children.

I have never heard of Saadat. Has he/she won any prizes? It depends too on what they are writing about. MA writes about big themes that are not exclusive to a particular culture so appeal to a wider audience.

My reply to your first comment was simply going to be that your example of wider knowledge needed than literature was incredibly badly chosen therefore. Libraries, as pp’s upthread pointed out, are the best and last guarantee of knowledge being available to the British lower classes, and required staff with information knowledge beyond English literature. Libraries used to be a respected and well-paid job at one time precisely because of the vast array of information and non-fiction knowledge needed.

Your second shows another more political agenda at work. Now that libraries have become staffed only by those who can afford to work in high-demand, knowledge-wise, but dead end jobs with no prospects - or who have no other choice - they seem to be more interested in supporting every other culture except the one they were invented for.

In reply to your specific question I don’t like Atwood particularly and find some of her works quite derivative. There are a lot of issues with the publishing industry now, as it focuses, as other industries do, on one or two ‘celebrity’ artists only. Libraries used to support diversity of writing and publishing before they were taken over by the resurgent middle classes and the professional working class layers were kicked out. There are many intersectional prejudices at play and it’s interesting that you chose to push the issue of what are still minority language cultures in the U.K. as a whole being better represented. What’re the finances and percentages involved here now?

Because weirdly enough culture is not something with a Union Jack stamped all over it.

Which statement does nothing except paste a trendy slogan over the many cracks in the walls of Britain’s socioeconomic real-world impoverishment. British cultures are primarily British, and many of them are asset-poor, and it is startling that that seems to be a revolutionary statement to make now.

Define British?

Britain, Britain, Britain. We've had running water for over ten years, we have a tunnel connecting us to Peru, and we invented the cat.

I can see you have a firm grasp of the geography of Britain- well done. And British culture would be...?

For the uninitiated, the tame topic of libraries is in fact a cold class war on the question of access to and distribution of resources, specifically knowledge and culture based. Thanks for bringing that to the fore MN.