When they came for the librarians: My profession is under attack -- what happens now?
America's libraries are under attack. It's no longer enough that far-right interest groups and politicians are coming for our collections; they've turned their ire towards our staff too. In recent months, there has been an alarming trend of community members and officials calling for the dismissal of librarians over books they've purchased for their patrons — usually titles focusing on race, gender and sexuality. Groups like Moms for Liberty are training their members on how to target us on our personal social media pages. Library workers are being vilified in the same way as teachers — a troubling phenomenon that's contributing to the nationwide educator shortage.
Morale among library workers has been suffering for a while now. Fobazi Ettarh's 2018 essay on vocational awe in the profession first called attention to the high rates of burnout among librarians based on the pressure of working in a noble-presenting field with little support. The new stress, fatigue and even danger that the pandemic brought to frontline workers has made it worse.
To fully grasp where we stand, it's important to understand how public libraries work. Although state laws vary in the specifics, your local library is funded through tax dollars. Some libraries are fortunate enough to have their budgets supplemented through charitable giving, usually channeled through a nonprofit like a Friends of the Library group or a foundation. Like most social services, we are constantly living with the real threat of budget cuts, and our funding is often inadequate. To put things in perspective, I own an average-priced home in a county with one of the highest property tax rates in the country. A bit more than $100 of my annual tax bill goes to my local library — a library that is funded above our state's legal minimum. That tax-based income funds every aspect of the library's budget, from maintaining collections and programming to personnel to caring for the building.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/when-they-came-for-the-librarians-my-profession-is-under-attack-what-happens-now/ar-AA10EqGC
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