ABSTRACT
It is no secret that a notable body of professional library literature is devoted to stereotypes and images of librarians. Personality tests, studies, and surveys go to great lengths to examine or repudiate the image of librarians in popular culture. By and large the image most often associated with and most often scrutinized by librarians is that of the female librarian. This is reasonable enough considering the majority of librarians are, in fact, women: in 1998, 79% of public librarians were women, while 69% of academic librarians were women.1 Stereotypical images of male librarians also have their place in popular culture, but with much less frequency and, perhaps, with less vehemence. Nonetheless, the stereotypes exist and have done so for much longer than their female counterparts. Librarians in colonial America were primarily academic librarians and exclusively male, and remained as such until the last half of the nineteenth century. During this time period stereotypes of the “typical” academic male librarian found fodder to grow. When librarianship as a profession began to undergo the changes that characterize it as it is today, the image of male librarians naturally experienced change as well. Despite the many positive changes that have occurred, current stereotypes and images of male librarians still retain elements of the past.
