Since I’m an imaginary sea witch these days I figure I get to make up a cool job title for myself. Upon learning that Seattle has it’s very own vigilante it became pretty obvious that needed to factor into my career path. There’s plenty of precedents in comic lore for librarians to moonlight as superheroes so why the heck not me? Exactly.
I’m not big into fighting. Not my jam. Unless I’m on skates and strategically throwing my torso and butt at opposing blockers to burst out of the pack. Then it’s literally my jam. It’s a very specific skill set one cannot center a career around, no matter how fun it is.
Then how do I fight? With my librarian powers, duh. The biggest enemy the twenty-first century faces is misinformation. A problem made worse by the rampant emotional illiteracy that results in tempestuous and confusing conversations about the truth. Working in a traditional library setting is no longer enough for me.
Public libraries are fantastic and magical places filled with heroes helping people every single day. Despite this, funding for libraries routinely land on government chopping blocks even as use is on the rise. Libraries transformed over the past few decades from shushy, stuffy spaces into thriving community hubs. Well… community hubs surviving as best they can given circumstances, skeleton crews, and budget deficiencies is more accurate. And not even cool skeleton crews that let you play their rib cage like a xylophone. More like the worst game of musical chairs that consists of department heads scrambling people’s names around a calendar until the need for coverage matches how many hours are approved only to begin again a few days later.
Which is why libraries need help. Libraries need champions to dip into the shadows and seek out community connections that prior obligations, hierarchical bureaucracy, and other nonsense won’t derail. I don’t want to be the only vigilante librarian out there. One person is not enough and we all know that crossover episodes and mashups are the best parts of extended universes. I have no concept of what a hoard of freelancing librarians will look like. What we can do. All I know is that I’m excited to see it unfold!
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