Truth is, professional librarians have always been like this, though without the internet, of course. And mostly without the tattoos.

The image of "librarian" we have isn't of professionals, but of ladies who kept house in libraries. We owe these ladies and their organizations a debt, because their charitable pursuits established many small reading rooms around the country that later became public libraries. The professionals, for years, worked primarily in other settings, usually in industry and academia. They couldn't be bothered to shush the public, encountering it so little.

A lot more librarians were men in the past, too. Rather like the history of teaching.

More professionals serve the public these days, as libraries become more than a combination of popular reading and archive. It has to be that way, just so the institutions can keep up.

Though I've never been a shusher -- I was shushed in a library as a kid and I continue to avenge that insult -- unfortunately somebody still has to enforce certain aspects of public behavior. One person to a chair, that kind of thing.

It's an odd thing -- that article and those like it make me smile, but don't exactly cheer me up. So much to do, so many ways to do it, so many dots to connect, and I know so little. Ah, well, we do what we can, keep learning and keep moving.

A little fun from Unshelved:

On the left, Merv, a 12-year-old library customer who doesn't like to read. On the right, Dewey, Merv's hero, a young adult librarian & comic book fan. More "Internet meets Library".

And for you, TB: The Color of Magic, one of the entries in the Unshelved Book Club.