Marian the Librarian, I am not.

The image of Marian the Librarian (portrayed below) conjures up many enduring and many more irritating stereotypes those of us in today's Library Field like to disagree with.

Shirley Jones in the 1962 a film version of the popular 1957 Broadway Musical "The Music Man"

Shirley Jones, as Marian Paroo, is beautiful and almost intimidating in her knowledge but just isn't the kind of librarian I want to be seen as. OK, so I will concede that Marian roamed her medical stacks back in 1912 and its now 2012, so obviously times have changed but listen, times have changed.

Granted, I'm in library school so I've a few courses yet to go before earning my full-fledged librarian status, but I'm a person just like any of you. OK. Maybe I'm a little obsessive in my organization and classification tendencies and I have to admit, I have a thirst for knowledge (but who doesn't?).

I'm a mom of 3 beautiful kids. I can sit on the beach here where I live in San Diego and squish my toes in the sand and watch people for hours. I almost never burn a cookie. I love to laugh and find the strangest things humorous. I'm pretty talented and can maneuver a mini-van full of after school kids with one hand on the wheel and on wrapped around a giant burrito (typical fare you'd find in my neck of the woods). I collect chap-stick and probably have one in the pocket of every pair of jeans, purse and backpack I own. I'm a voracious reader. I kill at Scrabble and Scattergories and yeah, maybe I've been guilty a time or twelve at smelling books but otherwise I'm just like everyone else I know!

Despite our own individual tendencies (I'm speaking for all librarians here), I believe we are all in this field because we like to help people.

"It's funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed." -- Comedian and author Paula Poundstone, national spokesperson for Friends of Libraries U.S.A. (FOLUSA)

In the Peer Mentorship program, the Professor I assisted posted this really funny video about Librarians, dubbed: "The Librarian Song". Credit: Joe Uveges-When Freedom Calls concert on November 2, 2007 in Colorado Springs. It's so good I have to re-post it here:

 I've been learning so much here in the program and just feel so fortunate to have had this opportunity. I've always ranked Librarians up there with some of my real-life super heroes and just being here, learning how to navigate virtual libraries in my jeans and bare feet or attacking research with my iTunes on and a burrito in hand I can't think of a more relaxed, yet empowering field to place my time and passions in.

I'm really looking forward to just embracing the wonderful world of Library and Information Sciences and I'm thanking my lucky stars to have landed myself here--now.