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  • ae   Career Confidential: A Librarian Deal...  about 10 months ago
    • xx zz 10 months ago

      The point of libraries is uncensored access to information and tolerance and acceptance of all people. This means fundamentally that whether or not one agrees, approves, etc, of that accessed information isn’t of significance. There is no responsibility on the part of the librarian, an information steward, so to speak, for the use of any information accessed by patrons. What also concerns me is the ridicule, contempt and objectification of people in this post and in the resulting comments. And I’ll make this personal: I used the library from opening to closing every day to blog, research and hone my writing and networking skills. I was homeless and without any shelter, source of food and other living essentials for a great deal of that time. It was the sole place where I was not only tolerated, but was accepted. It was my remaining lifeline to society, which, as a whistleblower, had not only turned its back, but removed every single resource and means for living. I also carry several mental illness diagnoses - all a result of the above. I’ve been and still remain an “other” - someone for whom you - as a part of mainstream society - ridicules, uses as a means of voyeuristic entertainment (not all porn is sexual) and contempt. So when you demean others, you might, once in awhile, look in the mirror, and recognize that if you aren’t actively and directly engaging with people who are disenfranchised and being used as less than human, you are a perpetrator.