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?

@KeyboardWorriers

Most councils got rid of all their fabulous trained librarians and have replaced them with unskilled staff and / or volunteers.

Massive shame.

Most councils can't afford to run libraries, never mind employ qualified staff. Unfortunately libraries are not a statutory service. Books or vulnerable children and adults. That's the choice most of them have to make.

I agree it's tragic. But then half of the graduates that I now see can't write and never read. I literally get job applications from graduates written in text speak. They appear to think it is English. I would love for libraries to be what they once were. As a child growing up in the 60's they were my window to the world, and heavily used. But they are not that any longer, they are often poorly used and an expensive luxury compared to the other demands on councils.

My local town library was staffed by a fantastic group of librarians. (I remember once going in with a fairly obscure question & I ended up with them ALL clustered round discussing the topic knowledgeably & with enthusiasm). Sadly, the local council saw them as mere book-stampers.

There are thousands of books published every year. No one can read everything. Do you have to read a book to know about it?
Shakespeare for example wrote a lot of plays. I could probably name 10or so. I doubt I'm that unusual. But are you a librarian?
Handmaid's tale... I'm pretty sure more people have watched the TV adaption than read it. And it wouldn't appeal to everyone.
Does something have to 'appeal' to someone for them to know about it?

OP, I'd guess this person was a volunteer. I know professional librarians who've been sidelined in the interests of councils saving money. It's a scandal. It's a highly skilled and valuable profession.

Not one of the permanent staff in the small branch public library where I worked, was a fully qualified librarian. On a day to day basis it wasn’t necessary. Anything like ordering or classifying non-fiction was done centrally.

All but one of us were keen readers and book lovers, though, and that majority would almost certainly have been familiar with the two you quote.

’I asked a librarian/assistant in our local library if he could point me in the direction of the Famous Five’

The 1980s, when it was still considered acceptable for children to view every foreigner with suspicion?

@BoxHedge

Why not just try looking under B? 😂

Well he was working around the area and said hi, I was just making conversation really.

Plus the kids books are split into different age groups and the shelves are in X shapes all over the place so it really wasn’t that obvious to me where the B would be!

Ah, ok. Sorry, I was being snarky.

Not all the librarians have been made redundant, the job is just very different today. A librarian is a type of information manager, information today is largely digital. We don't need people with masters degrees to catalogue and make available books, due to previously created classification schemes and a lot of automation this can be done by paraprofessionals and volunteers easily- who may or may not be well read, it isn't required to physically do the job though I could see the potential benefits.

Librarians themselves, those who still exist as there have been swathing cuts, usually now have different titles, often sit in digital teams, with knowledge in metadata, intellectual property rights, as well as some more traditional programme management for outreach, digital skill development and other community projects. Even stock management is radically different these days as most have larger budgets for electronic material and subscriptions than they do books. You will rarely see them on the library floor.

@Lweji

A PE teacher I was chatting to the other day genuinely wasn’t sure who the current Prime Minister was

I suspect even the PM wouldn't be sure, if you asked him.

Brilliant

@TinaYouFatLard

It’s THE Handmaid’s Tale.

I love it when this happens 🤭

I feel your pain. Our local library staff (not volunteers) have demonstrated again and again their stupidity. I try not to speak to them when I go in

Recommending books used to be part of the job, even if you were an assistant on low pay, but all the lovely parts of the job have been cut away, along with most of the staff, story times for children, after school clubs, reading groups etc, are all done by volunteers, if at all. the remaining staff are drones, doing admin, putting away returned books, as fast as possible etc, so it doesn't attract the kind of staff that love books. I loved my job as an unqualified (in librarianship) library manager, but the job, as I retired was not what it had been, and i was relieved to go, having been put on unpaid night time callouts, for breakins etc. as they had cut security staff to a minimum as well as library staff.

@Lweji

A PE teacher I was chatting to the other day genuinely wasn’t sure who the current Prime Minister was

I suspect even the PM wouldn't be sure, if you asked him.

"I.....I....well, um, look....... ....you see, it's been some time since I....and of course, my people will have asked me NOT to answer questions around this topic, but I....er....sense the British public might have concerns around this issue.... so probably, until Wednesday....but I'd check that with the Cabinet Office perhaps ....oh, is this live.."

God, memberofthewedding, that's such a shame. Progress isn't always positive.

Our local library has been downsized and moved and the old building has been sold to become a mosque.
The new library is a third of the size of the old one and staffed by one non qualified customer service assistant.

It seems if things don't make money , under this government then they are not valued.
I consider myself a reader but I don't read all genres so may not know all authors and titles. I really should read outside of my favourites.

I volunteered in a library. I had to complete a lengthy application form and have several interviews before. I had hoped that I would be able to learn new skills and enrich my experiences. What I actually did was to put books on shelves in the correct place. That had been one of the tests during the interview. Doing that for hours is boring. So is the reaching up and bending down. I wasn’t allowed near a computer or the librarian’s desk to actually interact with the public.

I read frequently. There are probably 1000 books on my Kindle, but they are books that are my taste and not one of the top ten is one I’ve read. I don’t expect people to know of, or enjoy, the books I read, but I know who the authors are, so I can find them myself.

I was also a teacher for many years and English was my subject. So I can name several Shakespeare plays, some Dickens, John Steinbeck, Thomas Hardy, but not all. I did them for A level. I haven’t read them since.

You sound smug OP

The handmaid's tale is a terrifically famous book. It won the 1986 Booker Prize and various other prizes.

I wouldn't expect a librarian to have heard of every bloody book ever but would expect them to have heard of the most well known/highly regarded literature, of which this clearly is an example.

I would expect someone working in a library to know both of those

Going off on a tangent here but it reminds me of a conversation I had at work a few years ago.

Some of the guys I worked with (all in professional IT roles but age wise I was late 30's they ranged from mid to late 20's) had never heard of Nineteen Eighty Four. Not that they hadn't read it, they had never heard of the book. One of them confessed to not having heard of George Orwell

All educated to degree level.

I could have cried.

I think whoever works in any public facing role, whether a shop or library, etc., should have at least a rudimentary knowledge of their products, or be willing to get onto the computer/files to find out for you. I'd hope that they'd have the interest to learn on the job and make as much effort as possible to be helpful to their customers.

NB I wouldnt expect the librarian to have read it but simply to have heard of it.

[quote bendmeoverbackwards]@Gliblet interesting thank you. I now wish I’d trained as a librarian years ago, I would have loved the cataloging and organising side.[/quote]
You'd be out of a job now.

My daughter wanted to train as a librarian or museum curator. Thanks goodness she changed her mind at the last minute. Just a few years later loads were made redundant and vacancies dried up.

Crunchymum I'm weeping a silent tear just reading that.

I was chatting to friends about The Pursuit of Love and none had even realised it was an adaptation of a book, much less read it.

@Squiggy

I once went for an interview as a library assistant as a teenager and when asked why I was interested in working there I mentioned I loved reading.

The woman seemed surprised I considered that an asset for the position as after all I couldn’t read whilst working.

That's a classic mistake when going for a library job. There's a lot more to working in a library than just a love of books.

@Flamingosarentreal

Our local library has been downsized and moved and the old building has been sold to become a mosque. The new library is a third of the size of the old one and staffed by one non qualified customer service assistant.

It seems if things don't make money , under this government then they are not valued.
I consider myself a reader but I don't read all genres so may not know all authors and titles. I really should read outside of my favourites.

Our library was closed by our Labour county council under a Labour government, so it really isn't all about politics.

We lost ours because so few people used it. That's the real problem. I work just a few doors from where the library used to be. It used to be busy - whenever I went in, there'd be a few people browsing. In it's latter years, it was usually pretty empty. When it came up for closure, they published the average number of users and it was pitiful - on some days the number of customers was in single figures. How can you justify 2 staff, a building, etc for so few customers?

I know someone who was the local library manager - by her own admission she wasn't a reader.