480 How Myths about Librarians Get Started

Although I have two shelves of older unanalyzed first issues, I was reading two of my newer titles, Cottage Living and Find! to put in my hobby blog, In the Beginning, which is about first issue magazines. A man I see frequently in the coffee shop stopped at my table.

"You're always reading," he said. "I wish I had more time, I'd read." (This is either a lie or a fantasy told by most non-readers--he probably finds time to do what he really enjoys. Golf. Fishing. Watching TV.)

"I'm a retired librarian--you know, that's all we ever do--just read," I joked.

He asked where I had worked and I told him the Veterinary Medicine Library at Ohio State, and he said he is there frequently in his job as a caterer. He was quite jolly, and I'm sure he believed me that librarians read all day--that's how rumors get started--over coffee and jokes.