User:Geo Swan/Sexy librarian

The "sexy librarian" is a cultural based description that entered popular culture in the late 20th Century. Jeanette C. Smith, author of the Laughing librarian, called the sexy librarian an "anti-stereotype".

In her 2012 book, Not Your Ordinary Librarian: Debunking the Popular Perceptions of Librarians, Ashanti White described how she analyzed the increasing eroticization of the popular image of librarians. She found, for instance, that from 1979 to 1989 there were 49 erotic novels published that featured librarians as erotic figures. She claimed the sexy librarian depiction of librarians was the second most popular depiction, in popular culture, after that of the prudish old maid librarian. In 2010, Ramirose Ilene Attebury, in Library Philosophy and Practice reported she found that the sexy librarian depiction was more popular than the prudish old maid deptiction, in YouTube videos.

The meme was popular enough, and well understood enough, that when then obscure Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin started to receive wider press attention when John McCain chose her to be his Presidential running-mate, the press described her as an example of the sexy librarian look.

In 2011 a rock musical was produced, entitled "Sexy Librarian: File under Rock Musical".

Use of sexy librarian characters in computer interfaces
An early version of Microsoft's Bing search engine employed clips of actor Janina Gavankar, portraying the character of "Ms Dewey", described as a sexy librarian character in Miriam Sweeney's PhD thesis. Sweeney noted how sexualized Microsoft made the character, including having her wear a low-cut suit, use sexually provocative innuendo in her prerecorded dialogue, and even have her an S&M whip. Critics challenged the Ms Dewey interface.