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I asked a bunch of librarians for their take on this article; general sentiment is "a lot of us already do this, but also libraries cannot fix everything, and if we're being asked to fix everything, pay us appropriately" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/opinion/mail-voting-trump-libraries.html
"We shouldn’t continue just saying hey, we need to cut out blank, let’s just have the libraries handle it. It keeps furthering this idea that libraries on their own aren’t worth the tax money and librarians aren’t really doing anything with their actual jobs."
"Trying to justify it with libraries being “the most revered institutions” only makes it sound like we should be willing and ready to do this."
and my fav: "If they paid us for every goddam job they asked to do, we’d have a super PAC and no official would ever wonder aloud if the librarians could do yet another job again without being ratfucked the way only librarians can ratfuck. Thoroughly and credibly."
Wrote about all of this + the concept of "vocational awe," essential workers, and general cowardice when it comes to what we demand of those tasked w/solving massive societal problems: https://annehelen.substack.com/p/vocational-awe
Was very grateful to be introduced to the work of @Fobettarh, who's responsible for the concept of vocational awe. You can read her incredible piece on the subject here:
http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/
http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/
