Enlightened Librarian: Why the Roman god Janus should be the official god of librarians everywhere

Why the Roman god Janus should be the official god of librarians everywhere · Nov 11, 02:56 PM

Doctors have the Caduceus; lawyers the scales of justice and engineers (Canadian ones anyway) an iron ring on their little finger. What do librarians have? Well, an action figure, but no more substantial—or noble—symbol that would identify librarians and help to focus and clarify their role in society.

Librarians need a symbol. I nominate the Roman god Janus.

Janus was the Roman patron of doorways, beginnings and transitions. Janus sees forward and backward at once, is host and guardian of the threshold and stands at the gateway of outer and inner worlds.

Janus is the guardian deity of gates, on which account he is commonly represented with two heads, because every door looks two ways.
—Bulfinch’s Mythology, chapter 1.

Only Janus embodies the two contrary duties—guide and guardian—that capture a librarian’s two essential roles. A librarian must turn toward to the stranger, welcome that stranger through the doorway and be a gracious and accommodating host. A librarian’s second duty is to defend the sheltering library itself, ensuring its safety, integrity and longevity. A librarian should be prepared to go to war to protect the home against those who would do it harm (more on warfare below).

He was worshipped at the beginning of the harvest time, planting, marriage, birth, and other types of beginnings, especially the beginnings of important events in a person’s life. Janus also represents the transition between primitive life and civilization, between the countryside and the city, peace and war, and the growing-up of young people.
—M.F. Lindemans, Janus

By providing access to all sorts of information, librarians supply a pivot point for transitional experiences. Since they are places where you leave knowing more than you did going in, libraries have the power to incrementally, or radically, change lives. How fitting, then, that a librarian adopt the Roman symbol for beginnings. The library is a place of perpetual beginnings, with every page turned and screen viewed.

By their nature, too, libraries are a place of transit between the past and the present, putting librarians in the position of connecting the circuit of history to present and potential events. Janus sees past and future at once. Librarians, at least, have the potential to fill the present with the resonance of the past.

The gates of [Janus’s] temple were kept open in times of war so the god would be ready to intervene when necessary. In times of peace the gates were closed.
—M.F. Lindemans, Janus

Librarians must not be cowed in the face of difficulties. Libraries under stress must be more aggressive in making their presence known—the gates must be open especially in times of war —and librarians should take the example of Janus and be alert, open and ready to intervene and give aid at any time.

I’m hardly the first to note that librarians have a Janus-like role. The idea has circulated in library literature for years. It’s time, though, to make the connection more explicit. Librarians need a logo. How about this?