Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Conan the Librarian

Talking about Ivan Chew a.k.a Singapore's Rambling Librarian, I thought I would dedicate to him this poster which I lifted from somewhere else ages ago (so much for crediting sources!).


Conan the Librarian was born in a 1987 Mother Goose and Grimm cartoon before appearing in other spoofs including a segment in 'Weird Al' Yankovic's film UHF :



Now Librarians are the great unsung heroes of the book world, but as Ivan points out in this post and wear many hats ... although shushing people is not actually one of them! Instead you need to be everything from Event Manager to Customer Relations Executive to writer.

But inside every (note: I didn't say nerdy) librarian there is probably a alter ego struggling to get out. Ivan's blue haired guitar-playing Second Life incarnation says it all!

I'm looking forward to meeting him in First Life (a.k.a. "meat-space" at the Singapore Writer's Festival).

By the way, he isn't the only litblogger to hang out in Second Life, but I do tend to end up doing fairly predictable things!

But whichever incarnation I'm in there is a big part of me that regrets not having taken up that librarianship course when I was 18.

10 comments:

Alice said...

This is too cute! I see Conan the Librarian is on to a mighty huge mission.

Greenbottle said...

i stopped going to library when my own reached 1000 books several years ago.

i occassionally go to the brit council to read newspapers and watching beautiful young things falling asleep over their homework or magazines.

savante said...

You found a library in Secnd Life? I'm still wandering aimlessly trying to pick up suitors :P

Allan Koay 郭少樺 said...

i used to love libraries, but the libraries in Malaysia are getting pretty pathetic.

i was a librarian in school, and i was born in October. so you could kind of call me the Libran Librarian.

bibliobibuli said...

savante - i've found lots of bookshops and bookish things and readings and have met a lady editor who conducts most of her first life business there and has more work than she can handle.

i got distracted for the longest time by shopping and getting lovely clothes for free!

my most fun experience has been a speedboat ride under the stars with another (british) litblogger!

i'm sure there is a library but i haven't got there yet.

bibliobibuli said...

"libran librarian" - lovely!

msiagirl said...

I even wanted to be a librarian when I was little, and was a 'library prefect' in primary school - what is that eh? Bet it does not exist - I was the only one. I spent hours repairing books! Maybe one day I'll retrain as a librarian, nothing is too late!

Ivan Chew said...

I'm not sure why I never commented at this post before. You know, I prefer if they had Arnold play the "Terminator Librarian". The patron would check out the book and Arnie the Terminator would look the patron in the eye and say "It better be back". And in the extreme case when dealing with pesky readers, it's "Hasta la Vista, Baby". :)

I drive a car made out of cheese said...

I hate the librarians at my school, theyre always sending me and my friends out, also today I was given an after school detention for saying "bloody hell" in the same room with the librarian in :(

I was once gonna be a librarian but they didnt take me now I look back on it im glad they didnt :)

Brandon @ Moon Books said...

I loved that clip during UHF! I felt inspired by that and whipped up an ebook social network, with Conan the Librarian as the administrator. ;)

Check it out at http://ebookclub.moonbooks.net

Brandon