I decided to become a Youth Service Librarian because I wanted to share my love of reading with young people. When dreaming of my future career while slogging through my MLIS program, I envisioned myself quietly overseeing dedicated young readers as they pursued knowledge, enlightenment, and entertainment. I am a tad embarrassed about how naïve and old-fashioned I was. Luckily, my misconceptions about the librarian job description did not survive my first week on the job in a real-life public library.
Most of the children I work with come from troubled homes. Their parents are usually unwilling or unable to provide any kind of guidance for their children, so the parental duties are left hanging until a responsible adult decides to take them up. Most public libraries are awash with unsupervised children and teens, and librarians are obligated to assume to role of caretaker and disciplinarian in order to keep the peace. That is just one of the many things they don’t think to tell you in library school.
During the course of my employment at the library, I have had to do some things that my pre-librarian self would never have guessed. I have had to pull brawling kids off each other on more than one occasion. I constantly admonish teenagers for calling each other “ugly”, “ignorant”, or a variety of other names that I don’t recognize but am pretty sure are derogatory. I have tried to explain why violence is wrong and why every person should be treated with respect. I have launched a campaign to reinstate “please” and “thank you” into their vocabularies. I have tried to instill a sense of self-worth in them all. And all the while, I have tried to inspire in them a love of reading. Not an easy task!
Contrary to the two-dimensional librarians of yesteryear, today’s librarians have a responsibility to foster not just the intellectual development of children and teens, but the social and emotional development as well. While most librarians take up this mantle willingly, I think the job would be that much sweeter if we could know for certain that our considerable efforts have the power to turn a life around. Do they listen to us? Do they remember what we say? Does our good opinion factor into their decision-making process? And most of all, will we ever convince them that reading is fun?
There are times when it seems that the kids see me as a piece of furniture, but I have to remind myself that because of my close involvement it is difficult to see clearly. Several times in the past year I have had to take a step back from the situation in order to look at the big picture and make sense of it all. When the times get tough and I begin to forget why I ever chose to become a librarian, I reflect the times when I have succeeded (although they are always fewer than I would prefer). I remember all the times when I have been able to get a reluctant reader to sit down with a book, all the times that a child has asked me “please” when before they would have demanded, and especially all the times I have seen some of the local children “play librarian” when they think I’m not looking.
Someone recently reminded me that small adjustments are the least painful and the most successful. Although this person was not referring to library services, I think all librarians should take this aphorism to heart. It is the little changes I see every day, even the ones so subtle they are barely noticeable, that convince me that librarians have the power to inspire, teach, and lead in many different ways (not just by shelving dusty tomes and memorizing the Dewey Decimal System).
Posted by: Eva Mays