βLook for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.β β Fred Rogers
I wasnβt born a librarian. I didnβt exit the womb clutching a teeny book. My path to librarianship is an interesting and slightly harrowing story.
I was living in Virginia. The day before my first public library interview, I was in a terrible car accident that should have claimed my life and the life of the driver who hit me. During my interview, I was so grateful to be alive that I was filled with joy and confidence.
When I went to work that evening, my area experienced its first derecho β a fast-moving windstorm. It was unexpected, intense and violent. Think 70 to 90 mph winds out of nowhere. I watched out the massive windows of the Barnes & Noble where I worked as trees were felled, streetlamp globes violently shattered and a transformer exploded in the distance. As I stared out the windows, I thought, βIβm going to get this job. Iβm going to be a librarian.β I wasnβt born a librarian, but that was the moment I knew I would become one.
I tell this story because many of us in the library profession arenβt born library workers. I share it because we are also human. We are helpers.
After more than 12 years in the profession, I am now a manager at Joel D. Valdez Main Library, 101 N. Stone Ave. I also lead our first Trauma Informed Care Team, devoted to supporting library staff. I am proud of the work these teams β and the library system β does. When I think itβs not possible to love these bright, energetic and talented people any more than I do, I find my heart further filled with care for them.
I want to celebrate my colleagues and honor their stories. Each of us working in public libraries has a story of how we got here. Some of those stories involve pain or love or struggle. Many of us have stories of great challenge that have brought us here and shaped us into strong and compassionate public servants. Our stories are often those that make us want to be helpers and to continue helping.
None of us serve in the field because it is easy. It is not. Library staff return to work each day because we want to see our community thrive. We want to thrive, too.
Our world is both tumultuous and beautiful. We cannot train our eyes on only one or the other. The difficulty and paradox of trying to take it all in at once is that it can be overwhelming, and even heartbreaking. And so, we take it in one piece at a time. We want to uplift others from turmoil. We want to see others helping one another. We want to witness and generate more beauty and humanity.
Colleagues, I see you. I see your hard work. I see how tireless you are and yet I know you are tired. Though we often tell ourselves we arenβt doing enough, that we are not enough, I see that we are enough. Thank you for you, and for us. I am glad we have each other and that we remain here for each other in even more powerful ways. I see beauty and humanity in you.
To our community, thank you for supporting us. Thank you for coming to see us, for sharing your stories and for seeking out new stories in our libraries. Thank you for utilizing the spaces and resources we build and maintain for you. You are why we are here.
Come and see us more often, get a library card if you havenβt, attend a program that might enrich your life. I invite you to share your positive library story with us and others. Consider telling library staff what they mean to you. They would love to hear it.
A San Francisco bookstore is sending boxes of LGBTQ+ books to parts of the country where they are censored to counter the rapidly growing effort by conservative advocacy groups and lawmakers to ban them from public schools and libraries. The bookstore has already sent more than 700 books around the country to places like Florida, Texas, and Missouri, where many of the book bans have taken place. One recipient is a recently opened LGBTQ+ community center in Florida.
