Although I wasn’t really a fan of the NYTimes article, I wholeheartedly agree with what Jessamyn had to say about popularity.

Librarians are one of the most visible professions online. We are blogging, sharing, mixing, like almost no other. This isn’t the first time an article about librarians has been in the Times’ or any other newspaper’s top 10 most read.

We have advantages that many other professions don’t - we are trusted, visible in the community, and accessible. We generate a lot of newspaper coverage that is on the whole very positive, and not as riddled with cliches as you might expect.

Yes, reporters do get some things wrong, and sometimes what we care about most (Open Access, digital preservation, intellectual freedom, information literacy, etc) doesn’t mesh with what the papers write about most (exhibitions, summer reading programs) but I have been pleasantly surprised by the slowly improving coverage of the former, for example this list of articles about Radical Reference. Hopefully this can only continue.

If truth be told, having been a DJ I probably fit into the definition of a hipster myself.