{"id":124,"date":"2011-01-06T21:59:07","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T03:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melodydworak.com\/?p=124"},"modified":"2011-01-06T22:07:37","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T04:07:37","slug":"lovecrafts-librarian-preventing-the-worlds-annihilation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/?p=124","title":{"rendered":"Lovecraft&#39;s Librarian: Preventing the World&#39;s Annihilation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fall, an LIS foundations course of mine delved deeply into the discussion of librarian stereotypes. The books and articles we read gave us several prototypical examples. In chronological order (according to character described, not era written about in) here are the biggies that stood out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cA Room of One\u2019s Own\u201d by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1929, portrayed the librarian as an intimidating male authority figure protecting knowledge from the lesser classes and genders.<\/li>\n<li><em>The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown<\/em> by Louise S. Robbins, published in 2001, profiled a real-life late-1940s librarian who was a stubborn but progressively minded middle-aged woman&#8211;barely a mother and never a wife&#8211;performing one of the few jobs allowed for females of that era. The cover of the book is a picture of her wearing glasses, hair pulled back (potentially in a librarian bun?). <!--more--><\/li>\n<li>\u201cHow My Hometown Library Failed Me\u201d by Anne Nelson, originally published February 1, 1978, didn\u2019t so much discuss the librarians directly, but from her descriptions of the library\u2019s collection, the reader gets the picture the librarians there were nosey and over-protective censors, like over-bearing mothers with too much time on their hands.<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libraryjournal.com\/lj\/communitypeople\/884547-275\/lj_movers_amp_shakers_2010.html.csp\" target=\"_blank\">2010 <em>Library Journal<\/em> Movers &amp; Shakers<\/a> seemed to be an attempt at re-branding the image of the librarian, from a grumpy old shushing lady to one of an energetic, hip, potentially tattooed professional who could be of any race or gender. This is not just \u201cpink collar\u201d work for whites! We wear our hair all sorts of ways!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<p>I have all these cultural images of the \u201clibrarian\u201d in my head as I get into the thick of reading H. P. Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cThe Dunwich Horror.\u201d To my delight, the hero-protagonist of that story soon proved to be the head librarian at Miskatonic University in Arkham. He could be compared to the male academician of Woolf\u2019s story&#8211;the two stories are both discussing the same era and were conceived and published then. But while the Woolf character was described as an unpermissive gatekeeper (<a href=\"http:\/\/christinaslibraryrant.blogspot.com\/2005\/10\/various-uses-of-term-gatekeeper.html\" target=\"_blank\">not the positive kind<\/a>), Lovecraft\u2019s librarian, Dr. Henry Armitage, saved not only the townspeople of Dunwich but potentially the entire world. How\u2019s <em>that<\/em> for a librarian\u2019s work? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Being an MLIS student really brought joy to reading this tale. I can get a bit bogged down with all the negative associations with the term \u201clibrarian\u201d and think the re-branding efforts can seem really forced sometimes. (See\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/americanlibrariesmagazine.org\/features\/01032011\/info-pro-adopting-tools-world-business-consulting\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cInfo Pro: Adopting the Tools from the World of Business Consulting,\u201d<\/a> from the January 2011 issue of American Libraries. \u00a0If I were to turn in an article like that to my first journalism writing class, I would have gotten an F for using too \u00a0much jargon. Red-inked edits would be everywhere.)<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_127\" style=\"width: 220px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/melodydworak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/HenryArmitage.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-127\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-127 \" title=\"Lovecraft's Librarian\" src=\"http:\/\/melodydworak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/HenryArmitage-210x300.jpg\" alt=\"Sculpture of Dr. Henry Armitage, as imagined by Ben Stirling\" width=\"210\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/HenryArmitage-210x300.jpg 210w, https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/HenryArmitage.jpg 456w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-127\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henry Armitage, A.M. Miskatonic, Ph.D., Princeton, Litt.D. Johns Hopkins. Sculpture imagined and executed by Ben Stirling, from attemptedartistry.blogspot.com.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Our Lovecraftian librarian here is full of knowledge, courage, and curiosity. <em>That<\/em> is something positive that I could really identify with. Armitage is an obsessive reader (of a diary written by an otherworldly creature), and although he\u2019s an authority, he uses his librarian power to prevent this barely-human Wilbur Wheatley from checking out the ancient tome that would allow him to raise up inconceivably monstrous ancient ones.<\/p>\n<p>Armitage can decipher codes, too, and throughout his scenes he is continually stricken with feelings of grave responsibility. He is weakened by several days of not eating while obsessively reading the maddening text, but hey, he is 73 years old, after all.<\/p>\n<p>This story gives me new hope for that term. From now on when I think of &#8220;librarians,&#8221; I will not settle for images of the tattooed and pierced. Rather, I will look at librarians as if each of them had the courage to investigate and prevent the &#8220;hellish advance in the black dominion of [an] ancient and once passive nightmare.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t have to let down the bun for that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I will now look at librarians as if each of them had the courage to investigate and prevent the &#8220;hellish advance in the black dominion of [an] ancient and once passive nightmare.&#8221; <\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/?p=124\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12,38,112],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-libraries","tag-books","tag-librarianship","tag-libraries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melodydworak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}