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By Staff -- Library Journal, 4/1/2007

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I greatly enjoyed Francine Fialkoff's “The Image Thing” (Editorial, LJ 2/15/07, p. 8). My husband has always worn his hair long. Working for Indiana University (IU) libraries in a clerical position that paid less than $19,000 a year and with three young children, he dressed as well as he could, mainly Dockers with T-shirts or button-down shirts. Ten years ago, his supervisor told him he would never be promoted as long as he wore his hair long and dressed like that.

Ten years later, she turned my husband's position into a “Visiting” faculty position after the job description had been rejected twice by the university HR department as not meeting federal guidelines for a professional position. She then eliminated the position, leaving him with no Reduction in Force protections despite his having been employed by IU libraries for 16 years.... He still has the long hair plus some fabulous cashmere sweaters and a pair of Ferragamos to die for. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed an age-discrimination complaint against IU in this matter, and we are currently waiting for the university's reply....

Many who hold these stereotypes are librarians in positions of power. Nothing will change until they do. They pay lip service to “diversity” but will only accept it if it looks and acts just like them, albeit in a different shade.

I am disappointed in the promotion of style vs. substance and find it disturbing that Joan Bernstein would use another woman's sexuality to sell library services. (I assume the description of short skirts and high black boots does not include men.) It seems like trading one stereotype for another, the one most often seen in porn movies where the librarian whips off her glasses and loosens her hair and becomes the wanton sex kitten....

I wish LJ would quit playing up the “otherness” of librarians and focus on those things that have true importance to a librarian, like a push to form a national union based on the National Education Association model.... The young vs. old trope doesn't work either. Many of the people entering library school are older, and our ideals are universal. Bring us together, don't wedge us apart.—Laura M. Wilkerson, Genealogy Specialist, Owen Cty. PL, Spencer, IN, wearing a black faux lamb shearling blazer, white tuxedo shirt, black pants, flat shoes, stockings, and a charming vintage pin....but her hair is in a bun, and she wears glasses

Each year since 2005, I have looked forward to seeing [which institution] is named LJ's “Best Small Library in America.” This year it is another amazing winner in the Grand County Public Library in Moab, UT (John Berry, “Moab's Living Room,” LJ 2/1/07, p. 32–35). Yet each of the three winning libraries has been located in a new building. Each represents a county or a large service area rather than a single community, and each has an incredibly generous budget for the population served. Each of the three past winners are utterly deserving, but compared to many of the libraries here in the Northeast, they are by no means small! I was pleased that the Howe Library of Hanover, NH, received an honorable mention, but even it is a bit of an anomaly here in New Hampshire. I run a small public library that serves a population 80 percent smaller than Hanover, with less than a third as many books and only ten percent of the budget. We're not in the same league.

I would love to see LJ focus more on those “serving 25,000 and less.” There is a huge difference between a $400,000 budget and a $40,000 budget, a service population of 25,000 and 2500, or between serving an area the size of “Delaware and Rhode Island together” and a small community surrounded by other communities, each with its own library.

There must be fantastic libraries helping their communities with an operating budget of less than $100,000, serving fewer than 5000 people, and doing it with only a few people and in an older building! These libraries are helping their communities. Let's read more about the libraries that are doing it all for a lot less, and let's read about it in all aspects of LJ, not just the “Best Small Library in America” award.—Stephanie Chase, Dir., Frost Free Lib., Marlborough, NH

I share John Berry's enthusiasm for excellent dramatic performance, whether on audiobook, DVD, or at the theater (“Messages and Media,” Blatant Berry, LJ 2/15/07, p. 10). I disagree with his conclusion that it is the sum of these transformations into different formats that make up the totality of a literary work of art. A literary work is brought to life, or evoked, in the act of being read by a reader.... A book differs from a dramatization in that each individual is required to engage with the text, construct the meaning...without the assistance of a performer's interpretation. Dramatization has its place, but the medium of the book presents its text to the reader in strikingly different ways.... Let's not lose our appreciation for the literary work of art, or the unique, untranslatable experience of reading.—Scott Condon, Adult Svcs. Libn., Everett PL, WA