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Some people aren't listening. Why could that be? Vocational awe ≠ calling library workers who want to keep their jobs ignorant. Of course they want their jobs. That isn't the point.
Vocational awe is the notion that librarianship inherently is and does good. Therefore during a pandemic library workers must be martyrs, risking their health, the health of their families, and the health of patrons in the name of ongoing service.
http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/
http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/
And btw that health risk includes bullet wounds and other violence if a patron takes issue with adhering to a mask policy.
Many libraries have set spectacular precedents in protecting their workers AND their workers' jobs by embracing new service models and methods in the face of the ongoing pandemic.
It is the burden of the Commons to be expected to fill structural gaps like internet and textbook access while understaffed and underfunded, and also somehow to be culpable for those same infrastructure failures during a national emergency.
Library workers' personhood, their health, their safety, their dignity should not be framed as an inconvenience to the running of the library. It is paramount. Nor should it be at odds with service to our communities. It should be our first priority in any service we offer.
The call (from anyone) for libraries to risk re-opening because of the good we do for the community rather than adjusting that good to align with the safety of our workers (something libraries of every type across the country are managing to do) is a form of vocational awe.
Also our library workers ARE our community. Weird how that fact gets regularly obscured.
