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My confession: Why I became a 'Guybrarian'

Why I became a "Guybrarian"

Date published: 9/27/2009

WHEN I TELL people what I do for a living, a now expected look crosses their faces, somewhere between a suppressed chuckle and a barely contained rolling-around-clutching-their- bellies guffaw.

"Librarian, huh?" they'll say, "Hmm, interesting." They'll attempt to sound polite and conversational, even intrigued. But I know what they're thinking. My manhood is suspect. "He probably macrames, too," the smirking expressions suggest. "Or bakes muffins on the weekends? Sniffles with some BFFs over chick flicks and Ben & Jerry's?"

In the public imagination, male librarians--guybrarians--rank somewhere in the neighborhood of male hairdressers, nurses, and ballet dancers (except those stereotype-busting Russians) on the Dubious Masculinity Scale. Somehow the idea of a grown man fretting over the Dewey Decimal System or priggishly reminding kids to "keep it down--this is the library" is disquieting, even appalling. (Which is why I do neither.)

My childhood provides no Kane-like clues (no effeminate Rosebuds crackling on any childhood-altering fires) as to how I ended up in such a gravely suspicious profession. I played sports--baseball, basketball, football. Had an electric guitar and wanted to be rock star like every other teenage boy. Heck, as a young man I even got into a few fights. (Yes, smarty-pants, the real fist-wielding variety. In bars, no less. The kind you "settle outside.")

In other words, I hit all the normal guy milestones in the appropriate order. How then to explain this whole librarian thing?

For starters, I've always enjoyed reading. Long ago, in those hazy, pre-Internet days, this was perfectly acceptable behavior for boys. Remember Boy's Life? Mad? National Lampoon? All magazines targeting boys. As I got older, I'd binge on the sports biographies (really hagiographies) rife in those less-critical times, before the warts-and-all bios became the standard. "The Babe Ruth Story." "The Mickey Mantle Story." "The Gale Sayers Story." (Sports biographies weren't noted for their creative titles.)

I read books about Jim Thorpe, Jackie Robinson, Joe Namath, Wilt Chamberlain, devouring one after another. I viewed reading sports biographies as a kind of job preparation, you see, since I knew--just knew--I was destined to be a legend of the gridiron, diamond, or court myself (maybe all three?). Ah, boyhood.

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Date published: 9/27/2009

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