Librarians aren’t usually in the habit of name calling (unless you catch us before we’ve had our coffee or when the catalog is down), so it’s with a bit of trepidation that I’m writing this. But then I thought, what the hey–even librarians should be able to take a moment and vent our frustrations!

We’ve become pretty comfortable getting up on our soapboxes to protest in the face of budget cuts and layoffs, but sometimes it’s hard to actually express some annoyance about common viewpoints towards libraries. After all, we truly are here to help people. It’s our passion. Nobody chooses to become a librarian for the money (because there’s never very much of that to go around). We choose this profession not just because it’s our calling but because we believe in the power of access to information to transform people’s lives.

Yet too often, no matter how many times we may repeat that mantra to ourselves, it seems that the same tired misinformation is what gets regurgitated in the media and even occasionally by our friends and families: Libraries are outdated. Nobody reads books anymore. You can find anything you need to know online. As any librarian will tell you, we’ve heard it all before… 

See the full article at How Not To Be A Dick To A Librarian | xoJane.