I was interested to read the Miss Manners column where someone complains about a rude librarian. I usally enjoy Miss Manners but was a little bummed to see her playing out old tired stereotypes, but I did enjoy the comments (yes, one of which is mine) telling her that librarianship is more complicated than she thinks. [click “Read More” to get at the comments]
8 thoughts on “miss manners misses”
Comments are closed.
Link to article since the “Read Article” link in the newspaper comments appears to use the referer, so it’s broken if you follow the link from here: Miss Manners: Nosy librarian prods for personal info.
Oh thanks, I updated the link in the post.
But actually, my reading is that Ms. Manners says that librarianship requires technological sophistication – she’s suggesting the response from the annoyed patron as a way to get back at her.
Stereotypes aside, it’s weird to me that Ms. Manners is telling someone to be rude.
I may be picking nits but want to point out that library patrons refer to anyone who works in a library as a “librarian” and it may well be that the offending person was a volunteer or a clerk — classes of library help that rarely get ethics training.
Robin, that is exactly what I was thinking. I would venture to guess that very few librarians actually work the circulation desk. Now, if it was a small library….
I think Ms. Manners is showing her age.