How they see us
After a long day of flying, I got to Philly about an hour late (thanks to some snow at the St. Paul airport) and found taxis to be in short supply. So, I hired a driver and on the drive over, had a great conversation. My favorite part came when we chatted about our days. Apparently, he’d been driving librarians to their hotels from airports all day — and apparently, they were starting to get on his nerves a little bit. Driving into downtown, he announces that there are librarians, hordes of them here for some librarian meeting. I’d mentioned that that probably explained why hotels were so expensive. I’ve been in Philly 3 times in the last few months, and I’m paying close to 40 dollars more a night than on any of those trips (and I’ve stayed in the same hotel each time). He’d said that was probably the case. Anyway, he goes on to tell me about how boring and cheap these swarming librarians are, telling me a few stories about people he’d taken into town today. He’d said he and the other drivers had been playing spot the librarian as people got off planes and started looking for rides to their destinations.
Anyway, after a day of flying, I found his stories hilarious. But it is interesting how folks see us. I don’t work in an area of the library where I deal with the general public. My public face is the face people see online, so I always get a kick out of how other people see librarians — especially when we start traveling in packs. 
–TR
3 Comments to How they see us
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[...] vs. Taxi Drivers Terry Reese’s conversation with a taxi driver in Phili is worth taking a minute to read. At first I was a little offended that this driver was so [...]
This is funny - I actually had a similar chat with a cabby in Monterey a few years ago.
There’s no need to get bent out of shape over this. Librarians celebrate having a culture that’s quite a bit outside the mainstream, and some people respond more positively than others. The only people who think we’re cool are retro nerds.