They sure are scary

As some of my enterprising readers may know, I have a pathological fear of librarians. What's odd about that is I spend lots of time in libraries to feed my book habit.

I've found that it takes quite a bit of need for me to screw up my courage to timidly ask a librarian for help finding something. It doesn't matter where - my university main library, the engineering library, music library... or various public libraries around the area. I just feel that somehow, they don't want me to waste their time.

I know, I know. Most librarians like challenges, and a good chunk are even eager to help. The librarians that I know personally (I got to know them before I learned of their occupation, and now I can't escape) really don't mind people like me asking the sorts of questions I'm likely to ask ("I've looked for the 1996 copies of Bioelectromagnetics, but you only seem to have from 1997 and on. Where can I find the previous year?"). Perhaps I feel this way because most librarians are somewhat introverted. It makes them hard to read when you ask them a question.

The more likely reason, though, stems from my young childhood. I had a library card as soon as I could write my name legibly, and very frequently came by my neighborhood's local library. I would rummage through the children's section for a while, totter up the desk with a large stack of books, and try to check them out.

There was an evil woman who often ran the check-out, though. I do not use the term lightly; she really was evil. Most of the people at the library were kids, and she seemed personally affronted that we might take some of her books away from the library. So much for encouraging reading. To a five year old, one picks up this mood rather quickly, and become fearful of taking books out.

Of course, I needed books far too much to stop going to libraries. As my tastes matured, I started going to farther branches where there were more extensive collections; eventually I stopped going to the neighborhood one entirely.

Perhaps that is why I'm afraid of librarians. Or perhaps they really don't like me, and I'm not imagining things. ;)