Hey Librarians…Take our Quiz & find the best Halloween Costume for You!

Celebrating both Halloween and the librarian profession simultaneously is now easy! Take NYLI’s short quiz and find out what kind of librarian you really are by answering (honestly!) our questions, and then costume up accordingly.

Librarian Costume Choice #1 Are you civic minded? Employed in a public library? Have more than one vocation in life? Three yeses? Consider going colonial by wearing bifocals, skull wig and carrying a kite as Ben Franklin who founded our country’s first public library…. or wear a suit, sport a white beard and hand out hundreds as library philanthropist Andrew Carnegie … or my personal fave — dress as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl of D.C. comics — both a public librarian and crime fighting superhero!

Librarian Costume Choice #2: Are you super-social but also super-serious about being a librarian? Kind of a celebrity in library circles and at conventions? A pop-culture junkie? If it’s yes, yes & yes – you’ve got some interesting choices; Pump yourself up as Conan the Librarian and demand those overdue fees, or be supportive and dress as the mild mannered bespectacled Dad Rupert Giles from the T.V. show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Bring your own Spencer and go 1950s style as Katharine Hepburn’s corporate librarian ‘Bunny Watson”from the film classic “Desk Set” (1957). But, “Hey, Hey, Hello,” if you really want to party this Hallow’s Eve, get the 90s downtown NYC look going ala Parker Posey from “Party Girl”(1995).

Librarian Costume Choice #3: Were you an English major in College? Have literary ambitions? Devoted to your book club? Many librarians are authors — so you’ve got a wardrobe full of choices! For Beverly Cleary, the beloved children’s author & children’s librarian, we suggest early 1960s styling while carrying a few ‘Ramona’ books with you. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage month, librarianship and Halloween all in one costume by dressing as Argentinian author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges. Prefer a 1920s look? Dress as Regina Anderson Andrews — the first African-American to head a NYPL branch, author and host of a legendary Harlem Renaissance salon. And then there’s poet Marianne Moore, another literary NYPL librarian, whose branded style include a cape, three cornered hat, white hair and quizzical expression.

The Librarian Costume Choice #4… is kind of the dark side of librarianship.… Have incorrectly catalogued items caused you to have high blood pressure? Is the rage for order your raison d’etre ? Do you plan for a world where librarians are dictators? Affirmative answers means that you can suit up as either former librarian Communist dictator Mao Zedong or former librarian better known as privacy stomping FBI director J. Edgar Hoover….

But let’s end on a happier (and more heroic) note— Librarian Costume Choice #5: Do you willing take on authority? Staunch First Amendment Defender? Listen to ideas other than your own? Then perhaps you might consider dressing as Marian Paroo, the Madame Librarian from “The Music Man” who made sure that Rabelais, Chaucer & Balzac remained available at the Madison Public Library. And a lesser know fictional librarian to consider is Bette Davis’ Alicia Hull from “Storm Center” (1956) who is shunned by locals after refusing demands to remove a book on Communism from the shelves.

No matter what type of librarian you are, librarianship is a cause for celebration. Providing information & dedication to our patrons makes us all superheroes everyday…even if we aren’t dressed as caped crusaders this Halloween!