Bookworms' backs up

Style queen Paula Ryan is about to give librarians a fashion makeover and the bookworms are aghast.

Ryan will run a workshop at the national library conference this month, offering tips on how to transform their "conservative and dated image".

In an email to librarians on Wednesday, the Library and Information Association's communications co-ordinator Megan Mathieson said the workshop was "a not-to-be-missed opportunity to be inspired and challenged by New Zealand's pre-eminent style guru".

"Librarians," she says, "have a very conservative and dated image: if we want to transform our profession then surely we must start by transforming ourselves?"

But that has outraged some in the profession, with a flurry of critical emails on the librarians' group mailing list.

One of the angry email writers described the workshop as "pompous twaddle".

"Putting aside the extent to which anyone would want to wear anything put together by Paula Ryan whatever is wrong with Trelisse (sic)? it is a ludicrous leap of imagination to, in any way, link seasonal fashion trends with the professionalism of a librarian."

Other writers were offended by the "conservative" stereotype, with one saying that surely this misconception had been laid to rest.

Some Auckland librarians even had pink hair, said one, dispelling the idea that librarians wore cardies and Roman sandals.

Ryan said she had no preconceptions of what librarians wore.

Whenever she had visited libraries the staff were very smartly dressed.

Her advice would include the use of colour, and ensuring fabrics were good quality and the use of colour.

"Any librarians are highly intelligent, bordering on intellectual I'd much rather be stuck in a lift with a librarian than Paris Hilton."