When Expectations Cross the line
Academic libraries on campuses large and small advocated for closing their libraries to fight the virus. Librarians recognized and argued that we had been growing online service for more than two decades and could close the doors to our libraries' physical spaces and instead focus on provision of e-content that could be delivered virtually (Flaherty 2020).
The majority of libraries closed, but sometimes libraries remained open even though staff didn't have PPE or even if community infection rates were climbing or already high. In others, even if the library building was closed to patrons, some or all staff were still expected to show up for their position with minimal safety measures in place. They continued to provide access to library materials through digitization and curbside service or simply turned up to work because if they didn't they wouldn't be paid and they needed the income (Moynihan 2020).
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how slippery the slope can get when expectations cross the line. But the tensions librarians navigate have a long history told through stories of sacrifice, heroism, rescue, and saviour behaviour. Before the pandemic library workers, especially in public libraries, were already serving as de facto social workers, daycare providers, and even paramedics. Some clasp the hero's mantle tightly about their shoulders, others wear the title lightly, others don't take it up at all.
Librarians began administering naloxone during the opioid epidemic (Barton 2017, Correal 2018, King et al. 2020, Kowalski 2017, Rosales 2018, Simon 2017, TEDMED Staff 2018) and their stories, like Chera Kowlaski's below exemplify the librarian as hero, underscoring how in a service profession your place of work often becomes a locus of care and intervention for the community you serve.
In a crisis like the opioid epidemic, scarcity can become our fallback position but there is a domino effect every time we go there in the face of need. An under-resourced community battling against opiod-involved deaths needs way more than just two doses of injectable naloxone locked up in the public library.
One person at a time in the bathroom? Get there and find out you need to go back to the desk for a key? What do you do if you're accompanying a child or elder who needs help? Or if you feel nauseous and need to use the bathroom quickly and don't have time to dash for a key and back to the bathroom? Or what if you need to spend more than 3-5 minutes in there because it is the only private place you have to pump breast milk, or change clothes between jobs, or even cry? If you're a patron, forget about it, you'll queue up and politely ask the librarian, because there's nothing they'd rather do than be the keeper of the keys to everything while policing the 3-5 minute rule for the bathroom?
This page has paths:
This page references:
- RandellBaze' Not a hero tweet
- Call to Action: Public Libraries and the Opioid Crisis
- Beyond books: Librarians on front line of opioid crisis
- I'm a librarian not a member of the National Guard or FEMA
- A notice on the bathroom door
- Saviour Mentality
- Librarians advocate closing campus libraries during coronavirus pandemic
- Most Libraries Are Closed. Some Librarians Still Have to Go In.
- Q&A with Chera Kowalski of the Free Library of Philadelphia
- The critical role librarians play in the opioid crisis
- The opioid epidemic is so bad that librarians are learning how to treat overdoses
- The Opioid Crisis and Administering Narcan in Libraries
- She's not a Paramedic . . . She's just a teen-adult librarian and saved six people
- Once It Was Overdue Books. Now Librarians Fight Overdoses. - The New York Times