So much for the stereotype. A playful pack of Texas librarians is showing a wild side.
Brainy women who spend their work hours amid books and researchers bared their skin and revealed their tattoos in a calendar -- all to raise disaster relief money to help damaged libraries.
Photographs of the librarians and their body art appear in a new calendar sold by the Texas Library Association. Some of the women gathered Wednesday at a library association assembly in Austin, where they posed for pictures and signed autographs for the official release of the calendar.
"It's a cool little PR -- show a little skin, get some people to notice that there are a lot of library issues that need to be discussed," said 40-year-old Shawne Miksa, an associate professor in the college of information at the University of North Texas. A self-described "goth" who dresses in black, she's the model for November 2010.
Chinese characters adorn both sides of her lower back, representing the words "wisdom" and "desire."
"I think it's a curiosity, because people are, 'Well, librarians aren't supposed to have tattoos.' I think people's judgment of tattoos has loosened up a lot," she said.
The "Tattooed Ladies of TLA" 18-month calendar is a follow-up to the successful "Men of Texas Libraries" calendar, which raised $9,000 to help libraries damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Some disaster fund money last year went to a Galveston library heavily damaged by Hurricane Ike.
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The women librarians, ranging from their 20s to their 60s, hail from throughout the state -- Dallas, Houston, Austin, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley, among other places. They work in urban, rural, school and college libraries. Some are retired.
One model shows off a small starfish next to her shoulder. Another wears a sleeveless shirt to display her arms decorated with stars and planets.
Beth Thames, 58, who retired as a school librarian and now coordinates the Texas Bluebonnet Award Reading Program, said she and former association president Melody Kelly started talking up the tattooed women calendar idea after the men's calendar was published. Thames' tattoos are bluebonnets on her upper back and a bee and flower on her lower back, forming the symbol "BB," the nickname her grandchildren call her.
"I try real hard not to fit into the stereotypical image," she said.
The Texas Library Association says libraries thrive on promoting diversity and free expression and the calendar exhibits that spirit.
Though they chuckled Wednesday about the attention paid to their nontraditional photographs, the librarians didn't neglect their serious side.
State Rep. Jim Pitts, a Waxahachie Republican who chairs the House appropriations committee, spoke with the librarians about current and future state funding issues.
And Miksa sought to encourage young people to enter the field: "Being a librarian, an information scientist, is a really good career right now."
