Kids, Not Parents, Imagine Barbie as a Librarian

-- Library Journal, 08/09/2005

Maybe it’s that kids have good experiences with children’s librarians, and their parents are too harried to do more than order books online. Or maybe parents can be just a little, uh, snooty. For whatever reason, a recent poll at the Barbie.com web site concerning a new career for Barbie showed that kids much more readily imagined Barbie as a librarian than did their parents. Similarly, a good number of kids also wanted Barbie to a cop, while their parents overwhelmingly voted for architect. (How many buildings would Barbie design?). The results as of last week showed 37 percent of kids voted for librarian, 37 percent for policewomen, and 25 percent for architect, while 93 percent of parents voted for architect, 3 percent for librarian, and 2 percent for policewomen.