Ben Oddo is a Nashville resident, a writer and the former co-host of The Ben & Morey Show. In his recurring feature Conventional Wisdom, he’ll explore the many conventions and trade shows that Music City plays host to, from the esoteric to the mundane.
I love libraries. I really do.
Cicero once said, “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” Andrew Carnegie, the so-called Patron Saint of Libraries, proclaimed: “A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people.” Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are, recounted: “Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all of my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. ‘Dear Jim: I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ ”
That last one doesn’t really follow the other two, but it’s a wonderful story. And the point is: Where does one go to get a copy of Mr. Sendak’s Caldecott-winning book? Or look up information on xylophagia, the condition known as paper-eating? The library, of course.
What about the fact that more people visit their public library each year than attend the NFL, NHL, NBA, Nascar and movie theaters combined?1 Or that librarians and health care providers top the list for most trusted sources of information?2 I think about the things I have shared with my doctor — the unsolicited goings-on of my body3 — and begin to see librarians in an entirely different light.
“You probably have a preconceived notion about librarians,” says Pam Sandlian-Smith, director of AnyThink Libraries in Adams County, Colo. We are sitting across from one another in the exhibit hall of the Music City Center, where I have been dispatched to cover the Public Library Association 2020 Conference.
The PLA Conference is a biennial affair at which nearly 9,000 public library professionals share ideas, collect free books and exaggerate about how late they stayed out the night before. This year's conference features speeches from big names like Stacey Abrams, Soledad O’Brien and Samantha Bee, and offers more than 120 educational programs. I attend one such program called Recruiting and Engaging Friends and Trustees Under Age 40, because I want to know what their plan is to recruit me, an under-40. Plus, it seems preferable to my other options: Tackling Racism in Classic Children’s Literature (I’ll see you in hell, The Cat in the Hat) and my personal favorite, The Internet Is Dark and Full of Terrors.
But back to Pam. We discuss the pervasive stereotype that all librarians are bespectacled shush-meisters who pull their hair back in a tight bun and exude stuffiness. I see no tight buns during my three days covering the event, though I do notice that attendees become verklempt anytime someone doesn’t use the microphone during a Q&A. Still, Pam believes that libraries — especially public ones — are having an identity crisis and need to be reinvented.
Cue AnyThink Libraries. Once the worst-funded library in the state of Colorado, it rebranded itself, got rid of fines and did away with the Dewey Decimal System. (I’ll see you in hell, Melvil Dewey). They even train their staff in hospitality and have shirts that say “ ’Shhh’ Is a Four-Letter Word.”
I get a sense of their unconventional approach when I venture down to the AnyBubbler Town Square. It’s an immersion space put on by AnyThink and The Bubbler at Madison (WI) Public Library, and on this Friday morning, their young, coverall-clad employees are encouraging passersby to get up on a soapbox and rant. Personally, I launch into a tirade about how Trader Joe’s is a scam, what with their cutesy branding and low-quality produce. (“It’s owned by Aldi!” shouts a sympathizer from the crowd).
“I just hope you will discover that librarians are an interesting and curious and eclectic group of people who love their work,” Pam leaves me with. “They pour their heart and soul into the job.”
For many of these librarians, it’s not just about the books. Libraries, I hear more than once, are the lifeblood of our communities; our last democratic institution. They help people find jobs, give them a sense of belonging and provide support where others in society fail to. Having a Master of Library Science degree is nice, but compassion, I decide, is the main quality one needs in order to be a librarian.
So compassionate are librarians that I worry about their ability to laugh. When you spend your days bearing the weight of society’s woes — serving the homeless, combating fake news and misinformation, supporting communities through the opioid crisis — life must become a little less funny. It’s why I tense up when Soledad O’Brien tells an amusing story about the time she interviewed a man who believed his cat to be his reincarnated dead ex-roommate. “I interviewed him with the cat on my shoulder,” says the award-winning journalist, “which was disrespectful to the premise.” I look around the cavernous Grand Ballroom, half-expecting someone to stand up and shout, “That’s ghostism!” I am genuinely worried these world-weary librarians are going to find her comments flippant. Fortunately, the line gets a laugh, and I am just insane.
By the end of the PLA Conference, I am one with the librarian. I know about ARCs and F&Gs and blads. I feel overworked and underloved, because there is never enough time, funding or praise. And I am passionate about the upcoming decennial census. I ask Ron, a data and dissemination specialist for the U.S. Census, if we can use brute force to ensure a fair and accurate count, which we cannot. But as God is my witness, you will fill out the census. You will fill it out in person, over the phone or (new this decade!) online. Federal funding is based on population information, and libraries across the country depend on it — and I love libraries.
1 “But, Nobody Uses Libraries Anymore!!” Libraries 2020, EveryLibrary Institute, 22 Dec. 2019, www.libraries2020.org/but_nobody_uses_libraries_anymore.
2 Pew Research Center, “How People Approach Facts and Information,” 2017
3 [Redacted]
