Academic Libraries

This week in 511 we were visited by academic librarians, one from Cornell and one from Bird Library. I went into the class being optimistic, actually keeping an open mind to considering academic libraries as a career path. I came out of it absolutely sure I did not want to be an academic librarian. The Librarians themselves were good people, I just found myself getting bored with the subject, which was the killing blow to my interest in being an academic librarian. It may have been the fact that they had slide presentations (one prezi, one powerpoint, the prezi presentation was a little more interesting and I have been meaning to try the tool out since a friend showed it to me last year. It is pretty awesome.), they are in fact the only visiting librarians that had slide presentations, maybe it was the fact that the other librarians didn't stand behind a pedestal and actually engaged us.  Is that just how academic librarians are? The psychology minor in me is peaking my interest in figuring out how librarians in different areas of the field behave and think (cognitive and behaviorist, talk about your oxymoron). Who knows, maybe it will help me figure out how to change how librarians are viewed. Its harder than changing my title as many have thought about, but I think it is more worth our time in redefining "librarian" than calling us something else. If you want to call yourself something else, go for it, but I would rather be called "librarian" and try to redefine it than to be call an "information specialist." That just sounds standoffish to me, something that would scare people away from asking me for help, which is why I want to be a librarian.
That brings up another point I want to make. I have been told several times that saying that you love books in a library interview is a bad idea, but I feel like that is wrong and denying your roots and yourself if you do in fact love books.  Loving books is what brought me to the library in the first place, and if I had never gone to the library, I would never have wanted to be a librarian. Yes that is one reason that I want to be a librarian, but it isn't the defining reason, and it isn't the only reason, but I don't think I should have to deny it or omit it just because some librarians have come to see "loving books" as taboo. The biggest reason I want to become a librarian is that I want to help people, something that I have realized before but not given much thought, but that does not make my love of books any less or any worse of a reason to be a librarian.