#library workers

[archivlibrarianist]

Banned Books Week 2025 Theme Unveiled: "Censorship is so 1984. Read for your rights."

[booksinmythorax]

Hey library workers? Please take your sick days. If at all possible, if you can, please stay home when you are sick. I know some people get anxious about using that time, but when you do:

a) you make it culturally easier for your coworkers to use their own sick days when they're not feeling well

b) you might be preventing someone else from getting sick long-term if you have something contagious, ESPECIALLY if you have flu or cold-like symptoms that could very well be COVID even if you're testing negative

c) you break the culture of "saving" your sick time for some nebulous benefit twenty years from now (I'm all for saving for retirement, but you could get hit by a bus tomorrow - take your sick days)

"But my library is short staffed - " Not your problem. That's your hiring manager(s)' problem. If they try to make it your problem, that's them being bad at management.

"But what if I need that time later to take care of someone else - " That time exists for you to take care of yourself and others. Put your own mask on first.

"But I work in a library! They need me! But the community - " Vocational awe never made anyone healthier. Now more than ever, as library workers are expected to take on more and more work for the same pay, it's important for all of us to take care of ourselves and each other.

"But I'm part time and I don't have any paid sick time!" Okay, you've got me beat here. It is embarrassing that we don't give paid sick days to part-time workers DURING A PANDEMIC. It is embarrassing that so many people who work for an institution most people hold up as a public good are not given basic health benefits. (This is USAmerican specific and I hate it.) I don't have easy answers for you, but as an immune-suppressed library worker, I would ask that you consider staying home when you're sick and asking to make up your missed hours on a day you're feeling better. If they need you today, they'll probably need you tomorrow.

If you're full time, or if you live in a country where your government has figured out that paid sick time should be a human right for everybody, please stay home if you're not feeling well. Library workers deserve to take care of ourselves. We just do.

[unhinged-soapbox]

Something you should know about the library that I work at is that the director is a 70 year old man who is proof that ADHD is not a new thing and has enough energy to convince you he is at least 20 years younger (I love him, he's my favorite person, I plan on dedicating the day he retires to standing knee-deep in the sea and staring at the horizon in mourning).

Another thing you should know is I supervise the closing shift. I usually see him on his way out, but the people I supervise do not, and many have never met him.

The last thing you should know is sometimes he shows up late into the night to do Wild Library Director Nonsense like ask me how I think we can improve the collection or how we can connect more with the students on campus or what video game I'm playing these days. Or he locked his keys in his office and needs my help to get them back. Keep in mind, he is no longer in professional dress when this happens. He is usually in a baseball hat and hoodie.

So now. I need you to picture this wonderful man coming behind the front desk unprompted and saying "My friend! I locked my keys in my office and also my coat, can you help me? Also how is Stardew Valley going? My kids just informed me there is a cookbook, should we put it in the library?" While these 19 year olds look on in horror because there is a RANDOM MAN back here and "Madam Supervisor please do something, why are you GOSSIPING with him? Oh wait he probably works here."

And then after he leaves I need to explain to them that that man is in charge of the entire library.

[sadderbutwisergirrl]

Thank you notes to the Library from children.

[Image description:

Cards with adorable children’s handwriting saying, “Thank you for doing what you hafe to.” and “The best Librarians. I love coming to the Library. In my Library era”]

[sundaifm]

Work Fit

I like working in a library! I get to help people at no cost to them and I get to read a ton!! It’s amazing the accessibility I have to so many books and it’s really reignited my love for reading

I’m also on top of what’s new, what’s popular, current trends; but what’s really made me happy is the opportunity to have discussions with other people about the books I’ve read. It’s a burst of serotonin when I get to share my thoughts with others about books we’ve read lol

[archivlibrarianist]

The Unpaywall extension can be added onto Firefox and Chrome to find you free copies of any article you may need. On social media, #icanhaspdf is also still in use sometimes on Bluesky and Mastodon.

Finally, can't stress this enough: check if your library has Interlibrary Loan. Most libraries worldwide participate in it, and certainly libraries in the United States do. You may wind up waiting a few days for a paper, but it is an option and in most cases there is no charge.

Beware!

[hollyida]

Show some compassion, Asshole

When someone says “libraries,” what’s the first thing you think of? Books? Women wearing glasses with their hair in a bun? Computers? If you’ve visited one lately, you might think about children’s story times or author talks or programs on cooking or even writing your obituary. What about bottled water for people experiencing homelessness? Maybe even a snack? Resources for local shelters and…

[mossworth]

Can't help much with the fiction since the cataloging on fiction materials often is for accessibility (alphabetical organization based on author's name rather than genre, since genre tends to have a lot of overlap that works better for marketing rather than cataloging. That's why stores often can get away with it, but libraries can't 😅), and... depending on where you are, it might not be beneficial to have queer books made so visible (I know if we had an lgbtq+ section in my library, we'd end up with book challenges, or just straight up book theft, every other day). In that case, I'd maybe do some research into queer fiction authors who might pique your interest! (The Transfeminine review is a blog that has a lot of good list to go from. I'd highly recommend her most recent post about black transfemme authors!) BUT, non-fiction I can help you with! Non-fiction will most likely be organized under Dewey Decimal. In that case, you'll just want to look online for the number your intended subject is categorized under, or ask the reference/circulation desk, and look for the spine labels. Once you find a book with that number, you've found the section! Any book with the same or similar number on the spine label will be on the same or similar subject. At work, I explain Dewey Decimal like color gradients. There's a point we choose to be "green" and as "green" gradients out, eventually we get to "blue". But we still have all the colors in between that are sort of like green and sort of like blue. Just, instead of colors, we're using numbers! So, you'll find gradients like "Cooking" (641s) to "Homekeeping and home diy" (648s), to "arts and crafts" (740s), continue until you run out of numbers or subjects!

For general non-fic that are centered around queer identity, you'll wanna start in ~306.7. Though, of course, there are others! You'll find queerness everywhere.

Guys, queers. Specifically my fellow queers.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.

[libraryben]

"We often think of public libraries as safe havens, quiet places to study, think and retreat from life's hustle and bustle. But for those who work there, especially young women, the risk of sexual harassment by patrons is high, according to professors in the University of Alberta’s School of Library and Information Studies.

After conducting a survey of 500 library workers across Canada, Danielle Allard, Tami Oliphant and project partner and public librarian Angela Lieu found that only seven per cent had never experienced any sexual harassment at all."

[soundlikesblue]

Asking library workers "Do you just read books at work?" has the same vibes as asking cooks "So do you eat all the food you make at work?"

[grandmazambie]

I wanted this til I actually worked in a library and now I just get pissed off when anyone comes in after 6 bc I just want to go home 😭

[chaosgremlinlivinginyourwalls]

What it's like working at a public library.

The coworkers:

-Sassy 90 year old who everyone loves

-Retired music teacher who still plays piano for the Choir

-The manager/head librarian who's only been working there for two-ish years and has grown the library beyond anyone's expectations

-The chronically late highschooler they hired for extra help, also the only one the 90 year old will take criticism from (me)

we love our little library ❤️

[ceruark]

campus crush, pt. 2

synopsis: blue lock boys as crushes you’d develop at university! [ft. isagi yoichi, itoshi rin, and michael kaiser (pt. 2)] (pt. 1 here) words: 2.6k notes: gn! reader. a/n: thank you to everyone who supported part 1! let me know who else you'd like to see for this series :>

kaiser pt. 2 req taglist: @lizzzmm @mochiii-sama @anyaslittlepeanut rin req taglist: @levihanmyotp @ieathairs

isagi yoichi - lab partner

general education courses are the bane of your existence. wasn’t that high school’s job? why should you be forced to pay to take a class you have absolutely no interest in when you could be putting your time to good use pursuing what you love instead?

whether it’s as a gen ed course or a prereq for your major, you somehow find yourself in a chemistry class that, of course, starts at the crack of dawn (8 a.m.). you go into the class fearing for your life; you’ve heard horror stories from your friends about their own lab partners who would skip the lab period, slack off, and push all the work onto them while reaping the benefits of earning the same grade.

fortunately for you, your lab partner is nothing like that. isagi is the epitome of politeness, and as the semester goes on, you find him to be super sweet and extremely competent— at times, you find yourself feeling bad because he picks up the material much faster than you and sometimes ends up doing the brunt of the work. he always brushes off your apologies, saying that he doesn’t mind at all and that you’re plenty helpful during lab.

it’s extremely easy for you to get comfortable around isagi. his kindness is so genuine that it’s easy to fall into a real friendship with him. you end up grabbing lunch with him after lab every week, waving to him when you pass each other on campus, and even texting him about things other than your shared class, and soon enough, you find yourself mentioning him more frequently in conversation. you start talking about him so much that your friends start teasing you about having a crush on him, which you vehemently deny despite the blush that paints your cheeks bright red.

it’s around midterms when their casual teasing becomes far more serious, though, when two of your friends get out of class early one day and decide to sit with you and isagi at lunch. unintentionally, isagi is a social butterfly and hits it off with your friends immediately, who are just as charmed by his warm nature as you are.

“that’s boyfriend material manifest,” your friend says the second he’s out of earshot, “you better get on that, and fast.”

you spend the next couple of weeks continuing to spend time with isagi outside of class whenever you can, and skirting around your friends’ accusations of a crush. isagi is sweet, very much so, but it’s simply just not like that. besides, sometimes you worry that he’s a little too nice. you’re plenty capable of taking care of yourself, but it might be nice to have a boyfriend who can bite back on your behalf.

your doubts go up in smoke one day when you walk into lab a few minutes later than usual, only to see a tall blonde standing next to isagi at your shared workstation. you can’t see the stranger’s face, but you can see isagi’s: lips pulled down into a mean sneer, eyes blazing as he fires out insult after excruciating insult, exposing you to some of his more… colorful vocabulary. you feel yourself blush despite yourself, trying to crush the butterflies in your stomach.

it’s— well, it’s hot, to be quite honest.

you’re not really able to act normally around him after that. the feelings you’d been denying and suppressing have now arisen completely, refusing to be stamped down. you’re a blushing mess around him and, despite your best efforts, are now acting like a shy, awkward schoolgirl around a guy you’ve been casually talking to for months now. that would be embarrassing enough by itself, but everything is made worse by the fact that isagi isn’t stupid, and he’s able to pick up on your shift behavior and the likely feelings behind it—which, of course, leaves him a blushing, stuttering mess as well.

you’re wallowing in frustration over your helplessness, slouched over the workstation with your head in your hands before lab starts, when you hear something being placed down in front of you.

you look up, surprised. a box from a popular bakery near campus sits in front of you. you lift your head further and lock eyes with isagi, who is flushed red—from nerves or the late spring heat, you can’t tell, but you can appreciate the way his tank top shows off the toned arms you’ve rarely gotten to see in time’s past.

he scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, clearly riddled with nerves, yet you can see the determination in his eyes, which he refuses to avert away from yours.

“the first showing of this semester’s play is this saturday,” isagi says, fidgeting a bit with the hem of his sleeves. “i was wondering if, uh, you’d like to go with me? and maybe get dinner before that? if you’re available, of course.”

you lift the lid of the bakery box. inside is a cupcake of your favorite flavor, which you had offhandedly mentioned to isagi in conversation once.

you smile up at him softly. “of course,” you say, “i’d like that.”

you both stay like that for a moment, smiling shyly at each other, until the professor walks in and loudly asks isagi to take his seat. 

the fanfare your friend group chat meets the news of your date with does little to distract you from the side glances and sweet smiles he shoots you throughout the period.

itoshi rin - library worker

you seriously regret taking this literature course.

you’re just taking it to fulfill a requirement. it’s supposed to be a low-stress class; you’d done your research, and the professor was very lax, making the course an easy A so long as you were competent in stringing together an argument and structuring an essay. the only thing that gave you some pause was the fact that there was a research component to it, but a friend who had taken the course told you that it wasn’t anything super intense or difficult, so you went ahead and signed up for the course.

and it’s been fine the whole semester. the assignments haven’t been stressful at all, and the professor is incredibly funny and kind. it’s everything you could have asked for in a class. but things have taken a turn since midterms hit, which is when you had to start pulling together an outline for your final research paper. you have free range over the topic, and you’ve settled on exploring victorian gothic literature, so it’s not the paper itself that’s giving you grief, either.

no, it’s the damn student worker stationed in the library who’s been giving you your daily dose of migraines these days.

of course you know of itoshi rin; he and his brother are notorious on campus for their beauty yet cold personalities that leave them “untouchable.” your friends have fawned over the younger one more than once, given that he’s the same year as you all. you can admit that both brothers were attractive—you’d either be a liar or a contrarian to say otherwise—but you never really understood openly gushing over them when they could both be quite rude.

and now that you’ve actually interacted with rin, you are firm in your belief that the itoshi brothers are overrated and undeserving of their many admirers. 

rin glaring at you when you approached the reception desk was enough on its own to rub you the wrong way—god forbid you ask a man to do his job. and then, when you asked him to point you in the direction of the section related to your research topic, he sighed under his breath like you were inconveniencing him and told you the approximate location of what you were looking for in a deadpan voice that still somehow managed to come across as condescending.

it only escalates from there. he seems to always be on the clock whenever you have time to stop by the library to pick up books you checked out, and the cool glare he greets you with always manages to get under your skin. 

it’s as you’re checking out a copy of wuthering heights and returning a copy of dracula that he says, “your picks are very basic.”

your eye twitches. this is the first time he’s spoken a word to you outside of what his job requires him to say, and of course, it’s something that pisses you off. 

“they’re classics for a reason,” you respond easily, feigning nonchalance.

rin gives a noncommittal shrug, but you can feel the condescension in his gaze as he hands you the book, grating on your nerves. 

next time, you request a copy of the beetle by richard marsh. the mysteries of udolpho by ann radcliffe next. 

you’re picking up the last novel you selected for this paper, flatland by edward abbott, when he finally bothers to talk to you again.

“this one hasn’t been in print for very long,” he mumbles as he scans it into the system, registering your rental.

“i know,” you say, not bothering to keep the smugness out of your voice. “not a very basic pick, is it?”

he fixes you with that blank stare again, but you don’t quite miss the way the corner of his lip quirks up into the slightest of smirks as he slides the book over the counter to you.

despite the fact that you really don’t need to, you keep renting out a book from the library every week even after you’ve finished your essay. every time, you make sure it’s something that’s in the realm of horror but not a super common title, spending hours researching and compiling a list of novels that fit your criteria. it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the smart-mouthed guy handing the books off to you every week, who you’ve actually gotten to the point of bantering with (because, quite frankly, you don’t think your takes on the novels are as bad as he claims they are).

half your friends think you’ve just picked up a new hobby. the other half think you’ve gone insane. only one knows the truth, when they catch you taking a handwritten note out of the most recent book you’ve just picked up from the library, shaking your head and scoffing at whatever’s written on it, but also struggling to keep the smile off your face.

her curiosity spurs her into following you to the library the next week, where she catches you and itoshi rin in heated discussion over the novel, the man actually fully engaged in the conversation and having eyes only for you.

well, she can keep a secret just this once. far be it for her to interfere with your accomplishment of the impossible.

michael kaiser - study date (pt. 2)

you shouldn’t have agreed to come to the cafe with him—you’re in way over your head.

it’d taken four hours, the consultation of every friend you have on campus, and a seemingly endless amount of cycling through every article of clothing you own, but eventually, you’d looked into your full-length mirror and deemed yourself ready for your date with kaiser.

you thought that calling it a “date” was being generous, but your friends insisted otherwise. he asked you to go to a cafe with him, one-on-one. to study, you’d argued, but they just amended their statement to call it a study date. which is a thing, apparently.

regardless, you’ve gone with a relatively safe outfit—nothing too fancy, in case it really is just another study session, but still something nicer than you would normally wear around campus, especially to the library.

you headed out at about six-twenty, since you’d agreed to meet at the library at six-thirty. sucking in a shaky breath and wiping your sweaty palms off on your shirt, you threw your laptop into your bag and slung it over your shoulder, then began the trek to the library.

it felt like a death march. each step closer to the entrance had your heart rate increasing, and by the time you found yourself climbing the final steps to the floor that your usual study spot is on, you felt like you might have actually been having a heart attack with the way the organ felt like it was about to burst out of your chest at any moment.

remember, he asked you, your friend’s voice echoed in your head as you steeled yourself and ignored the instinct to turn tail and flee while you still could.

now, you’ve been sitting with kaiser at a cozy table by a window in the back of the cafe for just over an hour now, but you’ve felt like your face is going to melt off the entire time. the cool detachment from your previous encounters is gone now, leaving you in the wake of the flirtatious nature you’d only heard about from others, something so rare to behold it’d become something of a myth on campus.

an hour, and neither of you had brought out a single notebook or laptop. after ordering your drinks and sitting down, you didn’t feel like you had a moment to even breathe; kaiser kept your gaze trapped within his own intense one, his blue eyes locked onto yours as he made “casual conversation,” which mostly just ended up being him coaxing you into talking about yourself.

he answered some of your questions, too, about his major, plans post-grad, and even the people he insisted weren’t friends (you’d felt your nervous smile go a bit fond at that; he could say whatever he liked, but if he really didn’t like alexis and yoichi, he probably wouldn’t be spotted around them as much as he was). after expertly dodging your questions about his home life and family twice, you took the hint and backed off, steering the conversation back to yourself.

there’s finally a lull in your conversation, prompting you to finally tear your eyes away from his and look down at your backpack. fidgeting with the hem of your shirt, you ask, “should we, um, get started on work?”

a sense of deja vu washes over you when you don’t get a response. it seems his silence is a command for your attention, and you shyly peer up at him, nearly cowering under the bored glare he’s now sending you that very much reminds you of the day in the library that had landed you in this situation to begin with.

“why bother?” he asks, tilting his head against the palm it’s propped up against. “it’s irresponsible to start another assignment when you haven’t finished the one you’re currently working through.”

you raise an eyebrow at the implication behind that statement but decide to indulge him, anyways. “and just what assignment might you be working on right now?”

his smirk reemerges, and you feel your own face heat up again. “a research project, of sorts,” he answers breezily. “i’ve yet to collect enough data to satisfy me.”

“what a shame,” you say, somehow managing to keep yourself together enough to go along with the bit. “do you plan to gather more?”

he lets out a hum, then begins to trace his finger in circles along the rim of his mug. his eyes are so sharp as they gaze into yours that your breath hitches before he even answers.

“if my subject is willing to meet with me again, then yes.”

yeah, you’re definitely way in over your head with this one.

[jstor]

Happy National Library Workers Day! 📚 🦉 Today, we salute the heart and soul of libraries everywhere: the librarians and staff who guide, educate, and inspire. At JSTOR, we deeply appreciate your dedication to making knowledge accessible and empowering communities. Here’s to celebrating your invaluable contributions today and every day. Thank you for lighting the path of learning. 🌟 Image: Voigt, J.P. Bookplate of JV. 1897. Pratt Institute.

[starlight-tav]

We also have:

men that print out foot photos from the public computers and get mad when they cost 25c to print in color even though the price has been the same since 2010 and he does this every fucking week

young adults who smear their own feces on the bathroom walls when you politely ask them to turn their phone volume down

geese, raccoons, and field mice that think the library is their den and rush in through the automatic doors when it rains so that you, lucky you, have to chase them out with a broken mop

people by the dozens who think you, the librarian, are a qualified cpa that will do their taxes for them if they toss their receipts, w2s, and phones at you

a patron who snores very loudly and the patron who insists you do something about that immediately or they'll call The Board and tell them this is an unwelcoming environment

I could go on and on about the people and creatures I've worked with in the public library. It was rarely boring. And this list probably sounds like I hated it, but I didn't. I hated the administration. Most of our patrons were kind and understanding. It was just there were a few who really needed someone to yell at and we were nearest.

If administration had been better, I could have stayed at the public library for years and years. But I'm glad I moved to an academic library. Working in research/inter-library loan suits me much better. And in general, the people I work with are more professional, have better boundaries, and the pay is astronomically better (I do significantly less work for double what I was paid at the public library).

Looking for a career path? Why not librarianship! We have...

Workplaces that are 70% women and 30% gay men and everyone is at least 15 years older than you

Front row seats to the collapse of capitalism (unsexy edition)

Old people who are mad at you because they have to do everything through computers now and can't they just give you their social security number so YOU can do it?? (No, they can't)

Parents who immediately enter a catatonic state as soon as they walk through the door while their toddler immediately develops l'appel du vide and toddles right for the fucking stairs. Congrats! You're a babysitter now!!!

Books all the books you will bring home so many books because you don't want to weed them and you will develop a book savior complex your car is full of books now

[booksinmythorax]

If you're a library worker, I highly recommend this.