In typical New York Times style, I can't tell whether this article in today's Fashion and Style section is sincere. Beginning with the tired trick of describing a scene only to upset expectations (or, in this case, boring stereotypes to which no one with, say, friends has ever been exposed), the reporter breathlessly tells us that a crowd of twentysomethings in "thrift-store inspired clothes and abundant tattoos" represents a new group of librarians ("or, in some cases," we're helpfully told, "guybrarians."), some even with "pink-streaked hair," distinguished by their "passion for pop culture, activism and technology."

So: another example of branding by the Gray Lady, which never met an enclave of any kind that it couldn't market and sell. These librarians -- the article goes at great lengths to show that the new kind aren't "bespectacled women with a love of classic books and a perpetual annoyance with talkative patrons," as if these were bad things -- belong to web organizations like Librarian Avengers (“`looking to put the ‘hep cat’ in cataloguing'”), meet for multicolored martinis, and attend panels hosted by the American Library Association with titles like “Future Friends: Marketing Reference and User Services to Generation X.” They model themselves after -- get this -- Parker Posey in Party Girl, the cinematic equivalent of orthodontal work. Poor Maria Falgoust is made to look ghoulish in a photo designed for MySpace hepcats. The only hint of social activism of the kind the reporter drools over comes in an innocuous remark about the Patriot Act.

I know a few people in the "library field." Liberals, sure. "Hip," perhaps. Drinkers, absolutely (they might balk at blueberry vodka and cranberry juice). They also delight in shushing patrons and reading Tolstoy.