ANOTHER THING ABOUT PUBLIC LIBRARIES: being mad on the internet day

this might be obvious by now, but when people (and by that i mostly mean people who work in libraries) talk about the job of public libraries/librarians being “promoting reading” and “promoting books” as if those are the unshakable fundamentals of libraries, i get truly upset about it. yeah, libraries have books, and they always have and probably always will, but bottom line: it’s really fucking awesome that they can have more than that now. giving a shit about access to those other things isn’t a trend or anti-intellectualism. books are cool, reading books is really great, but when i interact with my patrons in hugely different ways, most of them not at all reading-related, i shouldn’t feel like i am doing something wrong or contributing to a decline in literacy because i am too concerned with “trends.”

granted, my particular job in government documents is pretty specialized and doesn’t involve a lot of pleasure reading for anyone, but a lot of people who come in with reference questions are doing scholarly research. i really like our collection and think it’s awesome and important, and if i so chose i really could have an attitude like “oh my god why are you checking out pride and prejudice when you should really be reading all these documents the government publishes because they directly affect your civil rights and liberties” but i don’t because a) i’m not an asshole and b) it’s not my job to tell someone what they should like or read, it’s my job to make sure they can get it if they want it.

you know what’s cool about my job?
i have two regular patrons who are blind, one who calls and asks me to look up sidereal time in an astronomical almanac and another who comes in with food stamp reapplication forms he needs me to read and fill them out for him. there is a funny dude who comes in every day and uses our scanner and always needs help. there is another dude who comes in asking me to look up government-funded foreclosure counselors. dozens of people come to me every day looking for tax forms and asking about our volunteer income tax assistance program. there are constantly kids here doing homework and getting so frustrated by google image search and i teach them how to google exactly what they want and their minds are blown. and i fucking love doing it! i like helping people because it makes me feel fucking great! i don’t give a shit whether they can or do read. my job isn’t to tell them what they’re reading is trashy or not good enough or what i think a better use of their time would be.

AND THE THING IS THAT most of them are also checking out and reading books, and i’m glad about it, but that’s not what my job’s about. all i do is answer questions when people ask them so that hopefully next time they come back to me or learn how to do it themselves. and i hate having to read what jerk librarians are essentially saying about MY nice patrons because they’re not using the library in the “correct” way.

sometimes i think librarians complain about what patrons are reading just because they’re contrarians or misanthropes or just plain bored by answering the same questions about the same things. but frankly it’s part of the job. DUH. DEAL WITH IT