Last week, I shared the news and background story about being included in a book about librarians, This is What a Librarian Looks Like, by Kyle Cassidy. This week, I have follow-up news and photos!
Being featured in The Guardian:
News first: On May 29th, London newspaper The Guardian published a photo essay, “Tattoos and baseball caps: This is What a Librarian Looks Like — in pictures” of librarian fashion, highlighting a selection of photos from Kyle Cassidy’s book. And I was included in the photo essay!
Again, my reaction was: WHUT?!
I loved that my cheeky card catalog tee was featured in order to illustrate how librarians are “in on the joke” about our own stereotypes. And that’s what this Reel Librarians site is all about, too! 😉
It was also very sweet how many people shared the news about me being featured in The Guardian‘s photo essay, including family, friends, and even co-workers!
Never forget, then and now:
I received my complimentary copy of the book the same day that my library received their own copy of the book they ordered. And I still have the same library card catalog tee (and denim jacket) that I wore in the portrait that Cassidy took three years ago… and thus, an idea was born. A library colleague took photos of me in our library, with my current (shorter) hairstyle, with the book and my portrait. Fun!
And here I am shelving my library’s copy of the book on our bookshelves:
How do you classify librarians?
Here’s a closeup of the call number for the book: Z682 C37 2017
Let’s break down that call number, shall we?
First things first: This is a call number using the Library of Congress classification system.
- Z 682, first line of the call number, which breaks down this way:
- Z — Bibliography, Library Science, Information Resources (General)
- Z 682 — Library personnel
- C 37, which denotes Cassidy, the author/creator — this is called a “Cutter number“
- 2017, which denotes the year of publication
And finally, one last funny thing that happened this past week. After a colleague shared the news on campus about me being featured in The Guardian and the This is What a Librarian Looks Like book, a fellow (non-librarian) instructor emailed me, wondering if the card catalog on the t-shirt was the Library of Congress or the Dewey Decimal system… and I loved that this instructor asked which which classification system the card catalog drawer was for! 😃
Here was my response:
Since the label reads “a-d” (i.e. letters), then it would most likely be the Library of Congress system, which combines letters and numbers together (with the letters coming first, organized by alphabetical order, and then by numbers. So A 100 would come before A 102, which would come before AF 100, and so on). Library of Congress includes both fiction and non-fiction, which is why it’s used for larger collections, like in college and university libraries.
The Dewey Decimal system is numbers only, 000’s through 900’s, and covers mostly non-fiction. That’s why most public libraries, which use the Dewey Decimal system, usually have separate classification systems for collections like fiction, usually alphabetized by authors’ last names, etc. So this card catalog drawer could also be for a special collection like fiction, representing authors’ last names, A-D.
It was super fun to geek out a bit — by request! — about library classification systems! 😃
Back to reel librarians next week… but I hope you enjoyed this additional sojourn into real librarians — and librarian style!
Have you read or gotten a copy of This is What a Librarian Looks Like? Please leave a comment and share.
Sources used:
- Bramley, Ellie Violet. “Tattoos and Baseball Caps: This is What a Librarian Looks Like – in Pictures.” The Guardian, 29 May 2017.
- Cassidy, Kyle. This is What a Librarian Looks Like: A Celebration of Libraries, Communities, and Access to Information. Black Dog & Leventhal, 2017.
- “Cutter Expansive Classification” via Wikipedia is licensed under a CC BY SA 3.0 license.
- “Library of Congress Classification Outline.” Library of Congress, n.d.
