What is a Librarian?

Sometimes I am asked what is a librarian? According to The Occupational Handbook, "Librarians help people find information and conduct research for personal and professional use. Their job duties may change based on the type of library they work in, such as public, academic, and medical libraries."

I like to define a librarian as someone who has been moved by one book, or one moment of inspiration and seeks to share that book/authorship/inspiration with others. Not that we have only been impacted by one book! Instead, the oneness is the person in front of us, of whom we conjure up a book/author/or inspired work that will move another.

Sometimes in the adult classes I teach at libraries, students will say things such as, "How do you know so much about this topic?" I tell them, "I don't; I just happen to be one page ahead--at this moment in time."

Librarians are elicitors, we live to draw out other's interests, other's quests inspire us, we love to look for solutions and imagine the individual before us, celebrating in his or her new skill. When we see people, we see their desire to interact with beauty, truth and knowledge. We are in love with other people's growth, whether a colleague, a patron or book challenger. Librarians, hopefully, embody the title of the recently popular business guru book, The Growth Mindset Coach.

I knew I needed to become a librarian when I was an undergraduate. I was always helping friends, roommates, even professors with their original research, design projects, thesis, final projects--instead of my own. It was thrilling to help others birth their ideas into a theory or, as was the case of one of my roommates, help to create 20 original costume designs for 4 Greek Tragedy plays using only black cloth-lace. (UC Berkeley Costume Design 101). I remember distinctly feeling how blessed I was to be able to veer--in the middle of the night--into abstract costume design at the beloved Moffit Library, UC Berkeley's legendary library that stays open 24 hours a day.

I'll never forget going to a large warehouse that sold fabric and sewing materials and boas beyond your wildest imagination, in downtown San Francisco--then--going home to North Berkeley, to our shabby co-op apartment and working all night to create an original portfolio based on our thrilling research. Only four hours earlier, I had absolutely no knowledge of costume design, material engagement, the interplay of character and cloth, the perception of costumes on audience members' theatrical experience, in 20th Century "Re-interpretative theater."

My friend called me from her class where she revealed our research now manifest in a dozen outrageous costumes. She had warned me, her professor always berated and humiliated every single student, no matter their brilliance. So, if she was going to fail and be humiliated anyways, she might as well go out on top.

Her Persephone emerged, entangled in erudite black lace--see-through and unrepentant, she seemed to stand-in for what traditional Greek costumed citizens should have worn, instead their exaggerated masks made of stiffen leather, wood or cork. Her Persephone defied expectations. It was so antithetical to normal expectations of what Ancient Greek costumes were/are--that it worked. 20 years later, Tim Gunn would make famous the tension between what an artist desires to do and can achieve, "Make it Work" has become a cultural expression du jour.

My friend's professor lifted his tortoise-frame eyeglasses on the top of his flaxen and windswept hair, squinted his green-blue eyes into Paul's baby blues, jutted-out his chiseled chin, while feigning to lean on a rickety, sundrenched navy-blue "director's chair" emblazoned with the word "Hello?" in canary-yellow cursive letters across it. Since there were no iPhones in existence, my roommate, the art major, would draw hilarious cartoons of life at school. Her Professor's words bellowing out of a conversation bubble above his character's head, "Why can't the rest of you idiots produce anything this brilliant?!"

These were the days when professors were still allowed to bellow. Perhaps, this duality, the sanctity of a library, coupled with an encounter with an explosively genius-professor, is what made our university experience? Today, professors are friendly and supportive; libraries are "wired-living-room-common-spaces."

I knew the reason why there was no bellowing that morning. We had availed ourselves of Moffit. At Berkeley, we called the libraries by their benefactor's names. Just hours before we were buried under 20 pound art books, covered in glue-dust from unstuck book plates, full page illustrations that hadn't seen evening moonshine for decades. Frantic to find the alchemy of inspiration that might stir an empathetic response from Mr. Perfect, we had a hunch that--somewhere--a place existed where we might acquire enough mojo to meet the inevitable bows and arrows of the coming morning. The thrill of assisting others in outmaneuvering the panic of last-minute projects is another reason I knew I had to become a librarian!

Like a scene from The Love Story, we zig-zaged the stacks of Moffit Library, unearthing, turning, churning and making a pretty mess of 746.92, also 791.5 (puppetry and toy theater); 791.6 (Pageantry); 733 Greek sculpture; 753; 792...no Library café nor overstuffed couches to tempt us away from the impending catwalk's mortification. Our yearning to master draping coupled with a sublime internalization of images wrought from Moffit's glorious mine, was slowly securing our salvation.

Libraries were not always under constant video surveillance, back when. Instead, it was an anthropological possibility that when one entered a library, one could be plunged into discovery, the pure rush of freedom, the potential for a private illumination. Here in the intimate public/private space of a library, one's mind would mate with the heart of a found-book and its author. These encounters--uniquely found in libraries--introduced one to a priceless confidant capable of co-holding one's dreams.

That's why, for me, I still believe libraries should have unexpected nooks, hidden corners, shelves teeming with oversized books and individuals who believe in conversation, creativity, private reflection and meandering within a mysteriously, inviting space.

Recognizing the brilliance of this mystery and meandering is the fortunate person called a librarian.