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I wonder if it is the wealth of detail which attracts librarians to Tolkien? Much of their working days must be given over to arranging, classifying and searching for items so I can well imagine the attraction to a writer who has filled his work with detail waiting to be 'arranged'.
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Lalwende,
I have to smile.
My gut feeling is that the key must lie elsewhere rather than an "attraction to detail". I would respectfully demur on this image of our poor profession.
Librarians spend no more and no less time on "detail" than folk in other walks of life. My lawyering husband devotes endless hours to learning precedents and, in the particular area in which he practices, scrutinizes mounds of federal regulations. (Truthfully, I don't know anyone worse about detail than lawyers, and there aren't a large number of them who qualify as Tolkien scholars,
SpM and
Mithadan excepted, of course.) Similarly, my MD friend endlessly pours over new studies to find tiny clues to help treat her patients.
Just remember that most of the people you meet in a library are not (technically) "librarians". Librarians are not so good (or perhaps less hung up?) on drawing a sharp line between themselves and their support staff than is generally true in other professions. (Certainly, professors are very careful to make sure that you don't mix up a TA and a prof.) Most of the people behind the desks are not librarians. In fact in most larger systems, librarians spend more time managing staff issues and less time on arranging, classifying or searching for items. That was certainly true in every job I held except for my very first one. Remember, too, that those librarians who tend to be professionally active and serve on this type of body are less likely to be the person in charge of a small local branch and more likely to be someone further up the food chain. (It's easier for the latter to get travel money, permission to take off, etc.)
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So, if I went into my local library & asked for a recommendation, I can assume I would be told LotR after TKaM & the Bible
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Davem
Oh, my goodness! I hope not. If so, they are lousy librarians. They will hopefully speak with you first to get some good idea of what you are looking for.
I can tell you though what will likely happen to these recommendations, from a purely practical point of view. The local system will probably put them out in some kind of flyer with a little blurb on each telling you what it's about, along with the call number so you can quickly find it. Then when you go to the shelf, it will not be there because everyone else has picked up the flyer and searched out the same books! I would strongly recommend you follow Lalwende's good advice and dig the copies out of your own personal bookshelves.
Littlemanpoet
I think you're definitely on to something! Since our profession has such fuzzy edges, we need some way to distinguish ourselves. We can't assume the public recognizes our credentials in the same way they might clearly acknowledge a lawyer, doctor, teacher, or social worker! Librarians are very big on lists, and we tend to be a socially active bunch. We want people to think about big social questions, and we think it's our job to urge them to go forward in that direction. Therefore, you will often see books about war, gender issues, race, class realities on such lists.
Lord of the Rings does look a bit out of place in this company. That doesn't surprise me. Often on such committee picks, snuck in among the various titles, you can identify books that are there for a totally different reason. Simply put, the people who made the list had read the book and dearly loved it. It made a personal impact on their life.
I have served on TLA/ALA committees that drew up book recommendations and have seen this kind of thing happening (though none of my committees were ever this exalted). My gut feeling is that the Lord of the Rings is there because it was a personal favorite of a substantial chunk of the committee. It's not there to teach anybody anything (despite how we love to argue moral/philosophical/relgious underpinings on this board). Rather it's a good story that the recommenders were personally fond of.
Then again, it may be there because they had the good sense to include a children's librarian on the committee, and children's librarians are notoriously fond of real stories. I really do mean this. In a world that devalues stories, children's librarians are a hidden gem.