Still Crabby after All These Years: A Crabby Librarian Origin Story

Abstract

The Crabby Librarian has her roots in the Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP) product catalog my co-workers received in fall 2005 before I even started working at Madison (OH) Public Library in January 2006.

The theme for summer 2006 was “Paws, Claws, Scales, and Tales.” At that time, if you wanted to guarantee delivery of items in the catalog several months before summer started, you needed to order in the fall. My colleagues (that I didn’t even know at the time) thought these crab hats in the catalog looked cute and “someone would use them for something,” so they purchased them.

The hats arrived a few months after I started as the new head of the children’s department. My new co-workers were sure I could do something with the hats, since they decided they didn’t want to wear them.