Ruth Kneale contributed the column Spectacles: How Pop Culture Views Librarians from 2005 through 2016, making her the columnist with the second-longest tenure. During that time, she was the systems librarian (based in the Tucson, Ariz., office) for the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope project. She was named an SLA Fellow in 2012 and was added to SLA’s Hall of Fame in 2022. Today, Ruth is retired, is quietly active in SLA, and still changes her hair color regularly.

“You don’t look like a librarian!” I heard that so often while I was in library school between 1997 and 1999 that I set my email signature file to be that quote and vowed that I wouldn’t change it until I went 2 months without hearing it.

Thus began what turned into nearly 2 decades of research on the image of librarians in pop culture. What started in 2000 with a series of talks at the Special Libraries Association and Internet Librarian conferences turned into 12 years of writing Spectacles: How Pop Culture Views Librarians for MLS, covering how news, Hollywood, and the internet talked about and depicted libraries and librarians. Between January 2005 and December 2016, I got to write about The Librarians show on TNT, Neil Gaiman, Jocasta Nu from Star Wars, Chance the Rapper, dozens of books, Monsters, Inc., Mud Flap Girl, Coldplay, Clive Barker, and more tattooed-librarian calendars than I bet you knew existed!

I’m happy to say that now, it no longer makes the news when a librarian is … a guy. Or rides a Harley. Or is a young woman with purple hair. The stereotypical image that we were battling when I was in school—the cranky older woman who jealously guards the tomes, doesn’t use a computer, and shushes everyone in sight—is hardly seen anymore. Movies and TV now show busy libraries staffed by loud, creative, tech-savvy people. It doesn’t make the news when someone discovers their favorite roller derby queen is a librarian. And social media has changed the game for marketing and promotion.

Libraries across the nation use various social media channels to reach more people than ever before, across age groups that more “traditional” means of marketing may not have reached. The ability of library and information workers to Show. What. They. Have. has never been greater, and what hasn’t changed for marketing and promotion is that visuals sell. On YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook, libraries from anywhere can show the public what they care for and why it’s important. From the Library of Congress showing a video of what was in Abraham Lincoln’s pockets when he was assassinated to your local library livestreaming Drag Queen Story Hour, these things get shared, and seen, around the world, and every single one of them is a marketing success for that library.