SRS -

All good quotes.

While re-reading through this thread, a couple of comments about how hard it is to find good librarians triggered a recollection that sheds some light perhaps on how warped the views held by the general public, and unfortunately by some "academic professionals" really is.

Some may be familiar with a test called the MMPI that was used quite commonly by psychologists and counselors fairly recently. I don't know how frequently it's still used, but it was originally based on results from veterans returning from WWII, so it's been around for a while. It was reported as still used by a majority of "social counselors," in my area, as recently as 1998.

The Minneapolis Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) test presents a series of (usually) 100 statements, and you indicate whether each statement applies or doesn't apply to you. From the results, your counsellor essentially tells you how your personality conforms to "normal." Incremental updates have been made, and there are variations on the theme, but for the veteran population used originally to establish "normal" the norm may be taken as "blue-collar workers with high school education." The last time I had occasion to look at current versions, that was still pretty much true.

One of the statements on the test (ca. 1985) was:

"I would enjoy working in a library."

This is one of FIVE statements in the typical 100 statement test that determines whether you fit into a particular "personality group"; and using the "standard evaluation of results" agreeing with any one of the five would produce the result that you exceed the one-sigma level of deviation for:

"Likelihood of acting out homosexual tendencies."

There were (are?) standard corrections that were supposed to be made for things like age, sex, level of education, etc., but most "counselors" just sent them to a consulting agency who ran them through a machine for "analysis" and sent back the raw result.

If you were a male, with at least 2 years of college, your counselor would invariably (>80% probable) inform you that you displayed at least a "3-sigma" deviation from normal with respect to "strong homosexual tendencies" - if you were normal and WHETHER OR NOT you were so inclined - if only the standard "machine grading" of the test was used.

Competent counselors would automatically "hand grade" the test result, or at least apply appropriate corrections to the "machine result," for anyone who didn't fit in the "standard population," and wouldn't make the mistake; but the fact that the notion that interest in an "educated" job was associated with that kind of label by the large bulk of the population perhaps indicates the level of ignorance extant.

I'll note that the textbooks in the mid 1980s admitted that the test was incapable of indicating sexual preference for female subjects, and that any teenager graded against the "normal" curves probably would be reported as at least 2-sigma deviant for "rebels against authority" and "fails to consider consequences." So you need a counselor for that?

One other question that I specifically recall that was in the "group of five" was:

"I enjoy raising plants."

I can see a lot of farm folk getting hung by this one, and found it sort of humorous; but I suppose that male librarians especially should be warned - if you ever need counselling, don't mention the flower pot.

John