A romantic poster from the Los Angeles Public Library.

So you’ve been spending time at the library lately. You notice a cute librarian that you’d like to ask out on a date, but you’re not sure what to do. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources available to help you weigh the pros and cons of dating a librarian.

A list on the online dating website eHarmony offers a lot of encouragement. Librarians are literate, passionate about learning, great with kids, budget conscious, often have master’s degrees, and understand the importance of being on time (otherwise there’s a fine). Another list on WikiHowl has some similarities, including the apparent universally held notion that that librarians are great at Scrabble. But this second list also offers some caution that librarians may need some space (see #9).

Though librarians are human like all the rest of us, they have chosen to devote their lives to books and information. Don’t get befuddled, when they say they would rather stay at home instead of go out. Let them have their alone time.

Over at Library Journal, the Annoyed Librarian offers some analysis of a recent Daily Mail article about online dating preferences for male and female librarians:

Male librarians, along with bartenders and caterers, were also the least picky about who they would date. Perhaps if you’re a man in an overwhelmingly female-dominated profession, you have to lower your sights a little, because the pickiest women were going for advertisers, lawyers, and pilots.

However, female librarians were the most picky about whom they would interact with. Perhaps that makes some sense as well. When you’re a female librarian, men usually want you to let down your hair, take off your glasses, and sultrily gaze in their direction until they speak ungrammatically and totally ruin the moment. You have to be wary of that kind of thing.

On her blog, the Annoyed Librarian also posted about minorities in librarianship, prompting a commenter to give a blunt and cautionary assessment of the dating scene in libraries: “Cute single male librarians are like unicorns and as rare as a good looking normal girl at a Star Trek convention.”