Librarian/Shambrarian Venn Diagram

To go with Ned’s “Great Library Stereotypometer“, which seems to be lacking one vital item, here’s a handy Venn Diagram…
venn
You may find it useful to copy the diagram out onto a small piece of card and keep about your person for reference purposes.
If you are a librarian and you meet a shambrarian:

  • DO ask questions such as “would you like some more cake?” and “what is your favourite cake anecdote?”
  • DO feel free to compliment the shambrarian if they are wearing a particularly witty t-shirt
  • DO NOT bore the shambrarian by talking about your recent holiday tour of “Ye Olde Gin Palaces of London Town” or by reciting verbatim your top 50 gin based cocktail recipes
  • DO NOT attempt to sexually arouse the shambrarian by showing them photographs of library porn (e.g. this, this, this or this)
  • UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you say “if all the librarians got together, we could easily index the entire web… probably using an index card based system”

If you are a shambrarian and you meet a librarian:

  • DO ask them questions such as “where is your closed stack1?” and “what is the Dewey classification for Chocolate Guinness Cake?”
  • DO feel free to compliment the librarian if you think that they have particularly nice cupcakes
  • DO NOT bore the librarian by showing them your Roy Tennant Fan Club membership card
  • DO NOT embarrass the librarian by asking them if “colon classification” means what you think it means
  • DO NOT attempt to sexually arouse the librarian by showing them photographs of shambrarian porn (e.g. this, this, this or this)
  • UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you say “Google Scholar is much better than that *very* expensive product your library just bought”

1 The “closed stack” is where librarians store their cakes and usually has a “NO ENTRY — LIBRARIANS ONLY” sign on the door. If the librarian does not have enough room in their office, the closed stack may also be used to house the library’s gin distillery.

24 thoughts on “Librarian/Shambrarian Venn Diagram”

  1. As a beer-swilling, curry-devouring, non-gin-drinking qualified librarian, this is giving me serious ontological anxiety.

  2. Rather than concentrating on what divides lib from sham, we should rejoice in what unites us. In *brarian porn terms: this, this, this and this. Shambrarians! Librarians! Let cake be the cake that brings us together!

  3. Potter: Roy’s a godlike colossus, striding across libraryland, and he can drink whatever he likes ;-P

  4. Emma, I think Julian’s mind has been warped by the gins and he was suffering the dreaded #GinRage 😀

  5. I nearly wept at the sight of the ZX Spectrum manual. Happy days. And I hate gin. My wife will be so relieved to hear that I’m not a librarian after all.

  6. I’m happy with gin or beer. Or even a Dog’s Nose. But cake leaves me cold. I am now completely unsure of my place in the world.
    On the other hand, I’m more of a sharchivist than a shambrarian. That might explain it.

  7. Roy: Yes, the fan club is run by Julian Cheal and myself. I believe Julian’s currently working on weaving a new type of tweed on his loom, which he’s going to name “Tennant Tweed” in your honour.

  8. Love this. Glad cake is the common factor – as it should be! 🙂 I’m a librarian and I like gin (and beer, a bit) but I like cake more!

  9. Feeling confused Dave. Despite a Library MA I seem to spend all my days hacking Perl scripts. I like Ale, but not Gin. Where does a Cat obsession fit in?

  10. Ed: I’d recommend an expensive course of therapy a.s.a.p. You’re clealy inhabit a weird limbo world inbetween 😀

  11. Perhaps we have to invent a whole new catagory for Julian? Maybe he’s a Tweebrarian or a Tweek?

  12. I like wine and cider and cats, and consider myself an ‘omnibrarian’ (copyright me). I’ll cat & class the rest of the world but won’t be cat & class’d myself 🙂

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