Hi! You are now “meeting” one, virtually speaking. We may be in a minority, but we’re out here. It’s not a field I thought about when I was in college (and certainly not in high school), for some of the reasons you mention. Later on, though, when I was facing the futility of getting a Ph.D. and plunging into a nonexistent job market for would-be professors, I thought about it. Like you, I’ve always loved libraries. (The smell of the university library is one of the most evocative memories of my college years.) I’d also worked in a few academic libraries in college and grad school, and I realized I also liked and admired several of the librarians, male and female, I’d worked for. And in a way it seemed the last refuge of the intellectual generalist. So … I decided to go for it.

That was over thrity years ago. I’m still at it, with no plans or wish to retire. Aside from the lousy pay, I’ve never regretted it.