“Hi, I’m looking for a book with adventure, but no graphic violence.”
“I’m interested in a thriller that doesn’t have any rape scenes.”
“I want a gay main character but I don’t want it to be a coming-out story. And no anti-gay violence.”
“Oh, no, murder’s fine, but no animal cruelty.”
All separate reader’s advisory questions that I’ve answered, and successfully. I don’t know why any of these people asked for those specific parameters, and I didn’t ask, because it’s not my fucking business. And it’s no one else’s business, either–up to and including the government.
Librarians don’t make you reveal your trauma in order to justify what you read or write. You may be confusing us with, uh… *checks notes* …fandom.
We are literally trained not to ask. Any halfway decent reference professor nails it into you. Even if it would help you answer a question, you never ask a patron why they need something.
Do you have a database listing all those factors? Sounds daunting to remember if not.
I mean, yes we do have some (see if your library has access to Novelist which is a great database to find your next read), but I’ve also been doing this job for over a decade. It’s not like I memorized a list on my first day. I started with a general gist based on what I’d read and then expanded each time I got a question that I had to go hunting around for an answer. Also, my some of my colleagues have been in libraries even longer and I listened and learned from them both formally and from listening to how they answered patrons.
There’s also whole genres that try to dedicate themselves to being ‘cozy’ reads.When someone comes in for a recommendation for a mystery, I ask them how much gore they want (note, I’m not asking why that is or if this is even a general feeling for them, just what they’re in the mood for a that moment) and if they want little to no blood, then there’s an entire genre of cozy mysteries waiting for them. Ditto with romance with little to no sex.
I also make it a point (and in my state am required to keep my certification) to go to continuing ed classes to learn more. At least once a year or so I go to something reader’s advisory focused.
Being a librarian is a career like any other. Some people are bad at it, some people are amazing, most want to do their best. We train and if we can’t remember, find tools that help us.
* The first-ever mechanically printed book was in German. Johannes Gutenberg was a German blacksmith, goldsmith, printer, and publisher who introduced the concept of printing. His invention of mechanical movable type printing started the Printing Revolution and is widely regarded as the most important event of the modern period. It played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses. Gutenberg was the first European to use movable type printing around the year 1439.
* German is the 3rd-most commonly taught language worldwide.
* Statistically, only 2% of Germans do not own a cell phone.
* Germany was the first country to adopt Daylight Saving Time in 1916.
* Gummy bears (Gummibärchen) were invented by a German. Hans Riegel Senior, a confectioner from Bonn, started the HARIBO company in 1920. In 1922, he invented the Tanzbär, a small fruit-flavored gum candy treat, which was basically a larger form of its successor, the Goldbär. Even during 1929’s hyperinflation that wreaked havoc on the country, Haribo’s gummy bear treats remained affordably-priced for a mere 1 Pfennig in pairs at kiosks. Their successor would later become Haribo’s world-famous Gold-Bears in 1967.
Cat, a lifeform specialized in detecting small prey animals and catching them:*sees a mouse, chases it, catches, eats it* Human: “Wow evolution has made such a great hunter, look at it! Amazing!”
Cat:*sees a laser pointer dot, frantically tries to catch it but cannot, as it is just light* Human: “lol too optimised for wanting to catch things am I right”
***
ACT II
Human, a lifeform specialized in using and making tools and seeing if tools are good for different tasks:*sees a knife* “Aha! Someone made this sharp tool to cut things. I see, it’s really good for that!”
Human:*looks at his own body* “Who made this?? What were they thinking? There’s some bigger hidden meaning behind this right? What am I made for… What is the purpose of my mortal life? Am I good? Am I bad? Is there a God? I keep looking for my destiny but alas, I can’t figure it out….”
“On Friday, Victoria’s secret was out: the international retailer doesn’t support trans or plus-size people. VS’s chief marketing officer and executive vice president of public relations Ed Razek admitted to Vogue that they intentionally don’t have trans or plus-size models on the runway at their event.
“Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should,” Razek remarked during the interview. “Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy.” It may be the fantasy of far-right conservatives that trans people don’t exist, especially after the Trump memo. However, in a country where nearly 3% of teens are trans or gender nonconforming and the average woman is size 16/18, the fantasy is just that — unreal, unnecessary, and exclusionary.
Following a long silence on the clearly anti-trans and anti–plus-size statements, Razek clumsily walked back on the comments: “To be clear, we absolutely would cast a transgender model for the show. We’ve had transgender models come to castings… and like many others, they didn’t make it…But it was never about gender. I admire and respect their journey to embrace who they really are.”
In response to their continued refusal to cast trans or plus-size models, here are eight lingerie and undergarment brands you can support that actually embrace our communities.
“The 70-year-old Razek, who is part of the casting team that chooses the models for each show, gave some bizarrely out-of-touch answers in the interview, lambasting critics as being “haters” who want too much diversity in the show and describing trans models as “transexuals.” He comes off as a complete joke and absolute asshole and is clearly the reason the company is stuck in 2005.”
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