Thursday Thoughts: What is the Library Lane?

We’ve all heard hot takes on libraries, from humorous to just depressing:

• That’s a job? I thought everyone at the library just volunteered!
• Must be nice to sit around and read all day!
• I love the library! Who doesn’t? Free babysitting!
• People don’t need libraries anymore. You can just look everything up online.

I started writing this post back in 2020, when public libraries were noticeably absent from both federal and state level COVID guidance. No one seemed to know what public libraries actually do or realize that library workers were at risk because of our work.

Governor Polis decided that Colorado libraries would make great KN95 mask distribution sites… not bothering to tell libraries about it before making the public announcement. Unemployment offices closed and directed people to “just apply online” instead. No computer? No problem! Visit your local library! I spent most of my early COVID library days helping people set up email addresses and use a webcam for the first time to verify their identity, so that they could apply for benefits. Not even our very own American Library Association saw fit to educate policymakers and advocate for us to get vaccination consideration. The Vaccine Working group worried that advocating for library workers might have “unintentional and potentially adverse consequences on state and local advocacy efforts in the future.”

(As I write today, the Trump administration attempts to defund the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the sixth time. So much for that strategy, ALA…)

Recent budget cuts at my current Oregon library centered around this question of the public library lane. City management and City Council eliminated our Social Services Coordinator because they didn’t consider it a “core service.” People can just go to regional partners, they said… while simultaneously slashing social services grants to said partners from $229,000 to $35,000, then advertising the library as a cooling center on social media the very next week.

Providing social services at libraries isn’t scope creep. Scope creep is when libraries are forced to function as one of the last social safety nets without adequate resources and support.

Do We Know Ourselves?

Policymakers and community members are not alone in their confusion about the library’s role. As Julie blogs, libraries desperately advertise ourselves as being “more than books,” as if free access for all to books and information isn’t a good enough mission. As if stories don’t save lives. As if information isn’t power. As if we as a field come even close to achieving this core mission when the overwhelming majority of book challenges target youth materials, and in response the ALA abandoned the concept of kids’ and teens’ reading rights in favor of parents’ rights. Censorship is fine and dandy as long as you limit yourself to censoring your own kids, to paraphrase the official talking point.

One would think sharing verified information during a public health crisis falls squarely in the library wheelhouse as one of the most trusted resources for reliable information. Not so at the library where I worked during the early COVID years. Grocery stores and fast food restaurants shared more public health guidance and information than our local library, because library leadership believed staying silent was staying “nuetral.” Instead of combating vaccine misinformation, our library took the opportunity to get into the wedding business. Thanks to the complete absence of libraries in public health mandates, people could “Say I Do at DCL” without the restrictions that shuttered so many actual wedding venues. My library exploited a loophole to make a profit, because making profit is what public libraries are all about. (Oops, my moral injury is showing).

As a former preschool/kindergarten teacher, I did a double take when I read an ALSC blog post titled “Children’s Librarians are Experts at Preparing Children for Kindergarten.” School readiness expertise should be credited to early childhood educators, who are undervalued and underpaid enough as is. Storytime and STEAM programs are wonderful supplements, not substitutes for a quality early childhood education. What message does it send, I wonder, when we advertise and promote “kindergarten readiness” library programs? And should school readiness even be part of the public library mission? (Shout out to the deep thinking on the intersection of school readiness and libraries that Lindsey shared with us on Jbrary back in 2023).

This identity confusion/crisis is not new, as evidenced by James Periam Danton’s 1934 article, “A Plea for a Philosophy of Librarianship.” In an exploration of why we find ourselves failing to communicate effectively with stakeholders again and again, Emily Ford suggests it’s because we don’t know ourselves. I keep going back to this quote:

Our conversations aren’t working because our language isn’t working. Our language isn’t working because our day-to-day thinking isn’t working. We should be engaging in a different conversation with ourselves and our community of library workers. We should individually and collectively reflect on the question: What do we do and why do we do it?”

What is the Library Lane?

I remember writing a personal philosophy of librarianship in library school. I no longer remember what I said. I wonder how it compares to what I think now. For that matter, I wonder… what do I think now?

In the day to day grind of working at a library short hundreds of staff hours during summer reading (but still operating the same open hours); which came hot on the heels of working at a library running 2 branches open 7 days a week with only 16 FTE; which came immediately after being one of only 3 youth services librarians providing school-age services and programs to 8 branches and outreach to 5 school districts spread across 700 square miles… I don’t know what I think anymore. When is the last time I had time to stop and think about what I do and why I do it?

I may be too tired to think and compose a new personal philosophy of librarianship, but I do know the day-to-day reality of what I do and what public libraries are: one of society’s last third places, a safety net and social commons. I tried to share a picture of this reality with budget decision makers in public comment:

Good evening, members of the Budget Committee. My name is Jessica Fredrickson. I am speaking for myself tonight as a lifetime library lover and longtime library worker, not a representative of the city.

I want to start by thanking city leadership for the difficult work they’ve done with next fiscal year’s challenging budget deficit. I’m here tonight to ask that the Committee continue that hard work and revisit some of those hard decisions, which the library director will share in detail later.

I have worked in public libraries for more than a decade. I’ve done many hard things over those years. I’ve helped patrons find books when all they can remember is the color of the cover. I’ve taught seniors how to download free e-books on the brand new kindles they got from their kids for Christmas. I’ve connected long lost family members across the country through genealogy research.

But the hardest questions I get sound like this:

“I’ve been laid off. I was on hold with the unemployment office for hours. They told me to apply online. I don’t have a computer. Can you help me?’

And, “My maternity leave is ending. I need to go back to work, but I can’t find childcare. Can you help me?”

Or, “My husband hits me sometimes. It’s fine, but I’m scared he’ll hit the baby. Where can we go? Can you help us?”

These questions come from both frequent library users and first time patrons, because the library is a social safety net and trusted resource for everyone. The proposed budget language suggests that social services is not a core library service. As a library worker who receives weekly if not daily information requests related to finding food, shelter and other social services, I disagree. Cutting our library connection to social services will have a significant impact on both community members and library staff, who are extensively supported by the library’s Social Services Coordinator through training and trauma-informed care.

Some say libraries are irrelevant. The door counter at the library, which registers well over 200,000 people coming through each year, says something different.

Some say books and libraries are nice to have, but not essential when money is tight. In a country where more than half of adults read below a 6th grade reading level, and in a community where less than half of students in our school district score proficient on the statewide English Language Arts Assessment, the library and the resources within are more essential than ever.

And so I humbly ask the Budget Committee to reconsider the priorities presented in the proposed budget. I ask the Committee to find a financial way forward that aligns with voter values, 57% of whom just voted to support a library levy to maintain library services – a levy that will not even come close to offsetting these proposed reductions.

I ask the Committee to find a financial way forward that does not make the library a less safe and welcoming space by eliminating 3 positions from the library’s internal Person in Charge de-escalation team, of which the Social Services Coordinator is a key member.

I ask the Committee to find a financial way forward that lives up to our first and foremost community promise of equity, and to find a solution that doesn’t disproportionately place the burden most on members of our community with the least.

Thank you for your time.”

These words had little impact on a city council that cared less about funding its local library (overwhelmingly supported by voters) and more about building a new $1.5 million police palace, complete with an underground shooting range and supplies for seven days self-sufficiency (a project overwhelmingly rejected by voters). The building project was backed by a PAC primarily consisting of the construction contract awardees. The library was backed by more than 1,000 community members who signed a petition advocating for the library and social services, by residents who spoke up and shared their testimonies at meeting after meeting. It’s almost as if elected officials, regardless of political party, don’t actually represent the interests of the people they supposedly serve… (oops, my Democratic Socialism is showing).

Same Old Question

The new PBS documentary The Librarians gets a lot of well-deserved hype. PBS also released an earlier documentary in 2025 called Free For All: The Public Library. The debate of what libraries should do, and who libraries should serve, started when public libraries were founded in the 1800’s.

What’s your answer to these age old questions?

I take some comfort in framing this time of book bans, budget cuts and attacks on unhoused people in libraries as a new chapter in the same old fight. I find hope in the fighters who came before us. I take strength from our collective wins and learn from our collective losses. I reject despair and remember this is the sustained work of generations.

In most stories at the library, there’s a hero, but in the story of the public library itself, I didn’t find one hero.I found a movement with thousands of unsung heroes, all fighting to create our libraries and make them free for all.” -Dawn Logsdon, Filmmaker

References

in order of mention

9 News, Some libraries to begin handing out KN95 masks on Thursday (News Article, 2022)
https://www.9news.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/colorado-free-kn95-masks/73-cd094c94-8aee-4a51-9260-f37f880d60a2

ALA, Vaccine Working Working Group (Council Report, 2021)
https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/aboutala/content/ALA%20CD%2047%20Vaccine_Working_Group_Council_Report_FINAL.pdf

Julie Jurgens, Scope Creepin’ (Blog Post, 2024)
https://himissjulie.com/2024/12/05/scope-creepin/

ALA, Unite Against Book Bans (Action Toolkit)
https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/toolkit/#talking-points

PEW Research Center, Most Americans – especially Millennials – say libraries can help them find reliable, trustworthy information (2017)
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/08/30/most-americans-especially-millennials-say-libraries-can-help-them-find-reliable-trustworthy-information/

ALSC Blog, Children’s Librarians are Experts at Preparing Children for Kindergarten (Blog Post, 2018)
https://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2018/12/childrens-librarians-are-experts-at-preparing-children-for-kindergarten/

Lindsey Krabbenhoft, Jbrary, The Myth of School Readiness (Blog Post, 2023)
https://jbrary.com/the-myth-of-school-readiness/

PBS, Free For All: The Public Library (Documentary, 2025)
https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/free-for-all/