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Location: Work.
Preoccupied With: Books. Everywhere.
Listening: "Norwegian Wood" ~The Beatles.

I want to be a librarian.

This might not seem like much of a confession to the majority of people who come across this site, but trust me. In my family, admitting a desire to go into a career even vaguely associated with academia is an invitation to excommunication. When, at my college graduation ceremonies, I told my parents that I wanted to go to graduate school for my MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science), they were enraged. My father ended the discussion by telling me that he didn't send me to an expensive private university to become a good-for-nothing, common librarian and that I needed to get my priorities straight or I would be paying him back for every cent of my education. My mother agreed and asserted that I would never become anything worthwhile if I became a librarian. I was stunned.

The four years following this incident have seen me take positions as an admissions counselor and later admissions coordinator at a university dental school, an administrative assistant at a major petroleum company that was later indicted for knowingly polluting the Gulf of Mexico, the assistant to the head of accounting in the baseball division of a sports agency and, now,
a coordinator of hardware distribution programs for a prominent satellite corporation.

Through it all, I've never stopped wanting to be a librarian. I've run from this desire in every way imaginable, convinced for the longest time that my parents were right and that I was simply selling myself short by wanting to work with rare books and special collections. They wanted a lawyer or businesswoman for a daughter; therefore, I spent most of last year dutifully studying for the LSAT and researching JD/MBA programs. When I finally realized, after my third conversation with a profoundly miserable young lawyer, that I would never enjoy a life in the law, I was adament. While I performed well in all of my other positions and had more than a passing interest in law and business, I had a deep suspicion that these outlets weren't panning out because I was simply meant to be a librarian. I had spent four years running from my parents' scorn of what I considered to be a fascinating career and it was time to grow up and take ownership of my future.

So yes. I want to work in archives and special collections in a museum or university library, eventually branching out to consult for
auction houses and teach courses on book and
library history. I plan to earn my Master's
degrees in Book History and English Literature
as well as in Library and Information Sciences.
I want to collect old card catalogues before they become extinct. I want to spend my days cataloguing. I want to deliver papers on topics such as "Small Press Printing on the Left Bank 1929-1940". I want to eventually own my own hand letterpress and bind my own books. I want to frolic naked through the Library of Congress and be tied up with microfiche copies of newspaper articles from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I want to be a librarian.