“Librarians have to care, and thus suffer a slippage whereby caring for books becomes being perceived by the public as guarding them. Thereby, a mean-spirited, censorious figure is born, figured forth as a crone. (In the popular imagination, librarians are always women.) Her hair is in a bun, and a scowl is on her face. We have done something wrong merely by entering the library. How dare we? And, once inside, how dare we proceed to talk? Another slippage: the library into a shrine, wherein the god of Knowledge is to be venerated by all who enter, while Vestal Virgins preside.”