look I love being a librarian and im proud of the work we do. as touching as it is when people express gratitude and affection when i tell them im a librarian, i really wish the public understood that libraries are not flawless havens of moral purity. Libraries have a long history of racism, classism, and exclusion. While many librarians are actively working to dismantle those oppressive structures, we all (the public and librarians) have to recognize that at the end of the day, a lot of libraries call the cops on homeless people. a lot of libraries are overwhelmingly staffed by white cis people. there needs to be much more conversation about how we can and must change harmful practices like kicking out homeless people, for example.
at the same time, the public and especially the municipalities we work for need to realize that librarians are expected to do an extraordinary amount of work far beyond the scope of our job descriptions. Fobazi Ettarh explains all of this and more in in her article Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves, which every librarian should read btw, but anyway- while the fact that a few Philly librarians started the practice of getting staff narcan training is a good thing, it’s also fucking crazy that librarians are now expected to be emergency responders at work!! We aren’t EMS! Municipalities need to give us adequate funding to hire social workers who can help us assist the public in these ways that, again, go far beyond the scope of standard circulation jobs. Our cities and towns aren’t giving us resources to learn de-escalation skills or mental health resources- those are coming from other state and national librarianship institutions that are not necessarily accessible for all staff. in fact, it’s typically an online zoom presentation. this is not adequate for library workers who have to deal with extremely stressful emergency situations. and our municipalities sure as hell aren’t giving us fair wages for the work we do. many of us struggle to make ends meet, let alone pay for therapy.
anyway… yes libraries and librarians are wonderful and we do good work, but the expectations placed upon us are increasing and not sustainable for us. we can’t do all of this. we need funding and support to implement resources and hire more people who can help us. and on top of it, library workers in administrative roles need to implement policies and practices that address the rampant racism, classism, transphobia, etc that plague our field!!!
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