Yeah, maybe it's different here in the U.S. Last month, Librarian ranked #46 in a "Best Jobs" list at the Wall Street Journal - with "stress" as one of the criteria. (Software Engineer was #2!)
You do make a good distinction between public libraries and others (school libraries, medical/law/corporate libraries). But even there, you might not have the full picture. The people who spend most of their time at the circulation desk in most libraries are not librarians. Meanwhile, librarians may spend most of their time doing jobs you don't see, like collection development (finding, selecting, and acquiring new which books or other resources).
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_BESTJOBS...
You do make a good distinction between public libraries and others (school libraries, medical/law/corporate libraries). But even there, you might not have the full picture. The people who spend most of their time at the circulation desk in most libraries are not librarians. Meanwhile, librarians may spend most of their time doing jobs you don't see, like collection development (finding, selecting, and acquiring new which books or other resources).