Librarians and reading

[Betty Hamilton <bhamilt@tenet.edu>]

Karen DeFrank wrote:
> It seems to me that many librarians enjoy words as much as they enjoy >books.

Hello Group,

Karen's statement above gave me the incentive to write. I was at TLA
last week and with 7000 in attendance, you can imagine that everywhere
we went, there were librarians. That was wonderful. However, my husband
and I were on the tour of the San Antonio Riverwalk via boat that was
full of visitors from all careers -- not just librarians. Of course, the
tour guide had to mention librarians and asked how many were onboard.
About 6 or 8 of us raised our hands.

I don't know what comment triggered the response, but I heard one
librarian say, rather loudly, "Oh, I love my job, but I don't like to
read!" People surrounding her looked at each other and one or two next
to me looked at me to get my reaction. I didn't reveal my feelings
there, but CAN a person be a good librarian and not like reading? I have
turned that over and over in my mind. How do you sell something you
don't enjoy?

I *have* been told that college book stores like to hire students who
are not avid readers because they want them working and not reading.
That young lady's comment has bothered me ever since, and the
expressions on the faces of some of the passengers made me a little
ashamed that she would admit such in a loud voice.

Betty
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Betty Dawn Hamilton*bhamilt@tenet.edu*bhamilt@llano.net
Librarian*Tenet Master Trainer*News Group Moderator
LM_NET Internet Volunteer*Freelance Writer/Editor
TEXAS LIBRARY JOURNAL Contributing Editor
Brownfield High School*Brownfield, Texas
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/bhamilt

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