Librarians are dangerous
433 comments
·April 19, 2025dijit
soulofmischief
I grew up in an extremely repressed and abusive household. I wasn't allowed to watch the majority of television or film, and my room was regularly searched for offending non-Christian records and such.
My aunt was the librarian at my elementary and middle school. I was a voracious reader, but I had a collegiate reading level since i was 6 or 7 and the books available to us in our school library just weren't cutting it. I also pined for more adult-oriented themes and plots.
Out of sympathy, my aunt allowed me to access the "forbidden zone" of adult books of which our school apparently had a large cache, hidden in the back rooms. She didn't tell my guardians, and I can't overstate how important this was for me. I've always deeply admired her work and attitude towards information accessibility, and it left an indelible mark on me.
squigz
And this is why things like requiring identification to access the Internet is a bad idea, and the narrative it's wrapped in - "protecting the children" - is really more about keeping children away from differing viewpoints
soulofmischief
It's protecting the parents at the expense of the children.
Barrin92
I think it's a pretty fundamental mistake to conflate the library with the internet. Even the "dangerous section" of the library is still a curated, by nature of the medium (the printed word), high information, low noise environment.
The internet is a commercial, mass media space, in large parts an entropy machine, where you're unlike in the library backroom are always under surveillance, where it's not you actively engaging with books but the internet engaging with you. A library is a repository of knowledge (which is not the same as information or "data") the internet is a dark forest where some pretty eldritch entities are always on the lookout for someone to pounce on.
Kids can be free in the library because, as to the title of the thread, there's always a librarian. There's no heroin needles on the tables. You buy the freedom of the library by it being an ordered and protected space.
ToucanLoucan
Kids should have to identify themselves to access the Internet. I echo part of a previous comment from a ways back:
> I would not be the person I am today without early unfettered access to an uncensored Internet, and I say that both as a blessing, and a curse. It gave me at once access to early technology that's turned into a prosperous career, while also afflicting me with a lifetime of mental scars of varying severity and intrusive thoughts of things I saw and cannot forget. I struggle to label this trauma, but it's certainly not a good thing I carry.
And having reflected on this, yes, it's trauma. It's the dictionary definition of trauma. And crucially, none of this has anything to do with viewpoints. I wish I had found more shit about different viewpoints, and less about animals and people being tortured.
But identification as a child doesn't need to stop you from accessing opposing viewpoints, it needs to stop you from accessing... that. And I don't think anyone is going to argue that seeing some of the shit I saw was a growth moment for me or contributed in any way positively to me being a more well rounded person.
I think a far more effective actionable path here is disentangling the stranglehold that parents have regarding how their children are raised. We still ascribe very diligently to the Western notion that children effectively "belong" to their parents, and that their parents are the single authority figure that decides how this person is raised. Most of the time that's benign to a bit obnoxious on the part of entitled parents, but it also very very easily ramps up into straight up abuse. The notion that, for example, a heavily Evangelical parent feels entitled to and is endorsed by the system to be able to deny their child knowledge of anything outside their specific sect and it's religious text, and enshrine that as a reasonable choice, is horrendous. This is a whole other person, this child is, and in our current system they are effectively a resident of a totalitarian mini-state until the age of 18 (and given economic challenges, potentially much longer now) that is largely reinforced by our surrounding systems.
A child has basic rights, sure, to food, water and shelter, but even the enforcement of those can be inconsistent due to a combination of poor funding and an overall deference to parents that frankly is not deserved. We have reams upon reams of evidence of parents doing inconceivable evils to their children. It is not a given that a parent wants to care for their child and see them succeed. And advanced rights? They're a joke. A child doesn't have the right to consume and learn knowledge their parents find adversarial. They do not have the right to free association, parents destroy relationships their children have all the time, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of neglect, sometimes out of cruelty. Children's desires, identities, and interests are not able to be pursued if their parents disagree with them because there is nowhere a child can go (save for perhaps a Library, relevant to our thread) where they can freely do so, and their economic disadvantages put a hard limit on even that.
The notion that parents should have 100% authority to effectively shape other, new people into being whatever they think they should be is frankly unhinged if you think about it for more than a few moments. This isn't a matter of coming to grips with a child different from yourself, and learning who they are, and helping them be the best them that they can be: this authority grants parents the right to determine what a child can be, with ZERO oversight, and no ability for the child themselves to speak on the subject until it's possibly a decade or more too late.
It's incredibly frustrating as well because the same Evangelicals who will claim that every woman must be ready to lay down her life to bring a child into the world will then out of the direct other side of their mouths claim that that child, once born, has effectively no rights if said rights are potentially to be utilized against this unquestionable authority wielded by their parents.
js2
> I can't understate how important
Overstate?
sunshowers
It's like "could care less": not perfectly logical but quite idiomatic I think, and in any case the meaning is clear.
soulofmischief
Whoops! Thanks for the catch :)
daxfohl
underscore
grandempire
> I had a collegiate reading level since i was 6 or 7
They told me that one too.
__s
They didn't tell me that one. I could hardly read at 8
Once I started reading tho things really opened up for me
soulofmischief
And? I was literally reading high school and college texts then, are you indirectly claiming that this wasn't the case?
threatofrain
The next/current phase of the library and librarian is as a community center, and not exactly a center of information. Instead it will be eyed for its physical accommodations for purposes like student meeting rooms, or tutors who rent rooms to sell their services.
Loughla
That has been a thing for about a decade.
Librarians and libraries are more like community outreach centers now that you can Google anything.
Many are struggling to help people with media literacy, and I don't know of any that are really doing a great job with that.
trollbridge
Mine has rooms to park your kids in with cartoons playing on a TV. I want my kids to be interested in reading, not watching cartoons. When I discussed this with them, their answer was "Well, kids aren't that interested in books anymore."
dugmartin
Yes - they built a huge new library in the town next over as the old one was overflowing with books and then only moved about 1/5 of the books over when it was completed. They disappeared the entire CS section. But it has about 5 unused meeting rooms, an unused “media maker space” and an enormous light filled open second floor area with two couches.
mingus88
If your CS section is anything like the “computers” aisles I see here, good riddance. I would rather see open space than shelves of outdated Dummies books.
We need to bring back “third places” (not home, not work/school) and libraries are excellent at providing that. You don’t need to buy anything, you can stay as long as you want, and there is ample community space to socialize.
Without a third place, folk just end up wasting their time online and tanking their mental health. Those connections aren’t real.
I truly feel that the rise of LLMs will devalue online interactions to the point where in person interaction is the only thing we trust and value. And we will be better off for it.
p_l
The trick to handle it well is easy access to catalog and ability to recall books from storage.
Another superpower in some countries is the inter library loan - you might need to befriend the local library to utilise it fully, but a classmate of mine in high school used it as effectively free pass to university libraries that you can't borrow books from when you're not suffering or faculty.
reader_x
The librarians I know are adamant about keeping private the records of what patrons have checked out or searched. I don’t know the history you refer to, where library records were used to identify certain sections of society. Where can I read more about that?
Larrikin
The first sentence tells you what to look for
StopDisinfo910
That’s in a lot of way a reversal. The default state of thing before World War II was very little data collection and even less aggregation.
Everything pretty much started in the 30s with data processing mechanisation and World War II didn’t end with more protection. It ended with states having the tools to collect and feeling ready to use them with things like the generalisation of passports, social security numbers becoming standard.
It has actually pretty much gone down hill from there since. I think people overestimate what’s appropriate to collect and misunderstand how things used to work which is why they tolerate so much monitoring.
neilv
Good observation.
Years ago, I pointed this out in a university forum, where a lot of the students didn't know this history of public librarians as intellectual defenders of freedom (e.g., promoting access to information by all, protecting privacy of records against tyranny, resisting censorship and book burnings).
I don't know whether this awareness-raising was net-positive, because it turned out that had painted a target on their backs, for a bad-apple element who was opposed to all those things, in that microcosm.
With that anecdote in mind, at the moment, with all the misaligned craziness going on the last few months especially, and the brazen subverting of various checks&balances against sabotage... I wonder how to balance communicating to the populace what remaining defenses we have against tyranny, balanced against the possibly of adding to an adversary's list of targets to neutralize.
In the specific case of public libraries, techbros have already insinuated themselves, and partially compromised some of the traditional library mission, before the more overt fascists have even started to use their own tools. (Go check your local library Web site or computerized catalog, and there's a good chance you'll find techbro individual-identifying cross-Web tracking added gratuitously, even for the physical copy media. I just did in mine. And the digital-only lending may have to be thrown out entirely.)
But when we happen to realize non-library ways to further good ideals, in a period of being under occupation by comically evil adversaries with near-ubiquitous surveillance (again, thanks in part to techbros), we might have to figure out discreet ways to promote the goodness.
13_9_7_7_5_18
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nimish
Librarians are also at the forefront of censorship and shaping information, so we also must put them under the greatest of scrutiny.
We don't live in an age where access to information is limited. Curation (retrieval) is more important than ever.
pyfon
Maybe true in 1999? But now the library is a tiny fraction of where people get information from.
o11c
It has never really been about "information wants to be free". Librarians (and hackers, etc.) have always restricted the flow of information.
It's just called "curation" when you agree with it rather than "censorship".
soulofmischief
Every school librarian I ever had fought against the administration constantly about restricting access to "banned books".
We'd often have "banned book week" where our librarians and English teachers would encourage us to read books that have either been banned in the past or were currently banned from our schools.
I'm not sure what you mean about hackers restricting the flow of information, please provide a citation that backs up your blanket generalization.
pclmulqdq
I somehow doubt that Mein Kampf or playboy magazines would feature at "banned book week."
lurk2
> We'd often have "banned book week" where our librarians and English teachers would encourage us to read books that have either been banned in the past or were currently banned from our schools.
These titles are invariably widely accessible and banned from public schools because they contain graphic displays of sexuality that parents don’t want their children to be exposed to. The few exceptions I can think of were based on religious objections (e.g. Harry Potter).
They’re never putting Mein Kampf or any book that has actually been banned by a national government on these displays.
fallingknife
Yeah but do they include the spicy ones like Mein Kampf or just the ones that agree with their politics. It's not really a "banned book week" unless you're pissing everybody off.
ants_everywhere
Lol you've really triggered the pro Mein Kampf culture warriors
collingreen
I get your meaning but it feels overly reductive. I'd call good faith picking a catalog and not trying to prevent people from finding certain books "curation". I'd call "delete anything that says gay" censorship.
toast0
It's hard to have an objective standard. A curator and a censor are both trying to pick content they think is appropriate for their community.
There may be a difference in what they do when the community requests content not in the catalog. I would think most librarians would consider adding requested content or at least referring the patron to another library or other means to access it.
bluefirebrand
I think the point is that whoever is in charge of curation can (and likely sometimes do) quietly and easily delete anything that says gay without anyone really noticing
Then those same people will often make a fuss when someone else tells them what they are allowed to curate
trelane
Seems relevant: https://www.thefp.com/p/the-truth-about-banned-books
bityard
How have hackers restricted the flow of information?
mystraline
I have, personally.
There was a local municipal hack that affected in-person county operations.
The fix would be around $2.2M.
I chose to keep quiet because that money could be better spent elsewhere.
So yes, I did censor myself because the harm of speaking was much greater than being quiet.
tbrownaw
- any ransomware gang when their target pays up
- the people on the technical side of Digital Restrictions Management stuff
- the folks behind SELinux
- anyone DOSing a service they don't like
mschuster91
> It's just called "curation" when you agree with it rather than "censorship".
At least in Germany, virtually all public libraries are interconnected with each other, so if one library doesn't have a particular book, another one which has it can send the book their way. And in the case that there's no library at all holding it in stock in all of Germany (which is damn near impossible), as long as the printers have fulfilled their legal obligation to send at least two copies of the book to the National Library, they'll be the "library of last resort".
AnIrishDuck
This interconnection is the case in the US as well. It's trivial to get books within the same regional system, and you can do inter library loans for pretty much any other library in the country (though not the Library of Congress, which is the US "library of last resort").
The core "engineer mindset" is solving interesting problems. The core librarian mindset is connecting people with the information they are seeking. That's what drives them.
trollbridge
I wish we had this in the U.S.
We've actually had to travel (as in physically drive to D.C.) to the Library of Congress because it was the only place that had a book.
null
weard_beard
A librarian and a censor walk into a bar. The librarian orders 3 drinks and a glass of water.
The censor orders seafood, a live show with pyrotechnics, and the dishwasher's birth certificate.
ang_cire
Took me a second, but it's a great analogy for the difference in power.
mpalmer
Look, I love the sentiment, and the illustrations are charming.
Unfortunately, the writing.
It's...stilted.
It's presented as a letter/email, but it reads as though the author wants you to hear someone with good comedic timing... DELIVERING IT LIKE STANDUP!
But ellipses...do not translate to funnier text. The text just has to be funny! "Pauses" only enhance what's already there!
> write a quippy, funny letter from a "concerned citizen" to their community highlighting the "danger" posed by librarians. said "danger" is their vendetta against ignorance, illiteracy. style should involve SUDDEN CAPS FOR EMPHASIS, ellipses...for...artificial comedic timing. But there's something more important to the style. Something being demonstrated in this very sentence. Yes - it's *short, narration-like rhythms". These shorter sentences should occupy their own paragraph.
If you can replicate a blog post with a single LLM prompt, you start to wonder whether the author had the same thought.
cootsnuck
Only on HN can a light-hearted librarian appreciation post still be treated with heavy cynicism, geez lol
mpalmer
Why is criticism bucketed with cynicism? I led with my appreciation of the good things in the post.
When the day comes that I post something of mine on HN, I will be tremendously disappointed if all of the comments are the textual equivalent of a participation trophy.
jasonlotito
> I led with my appreciation of the good things in the post.
Maybe you like frosting on shit, but it's still frosting on shit.
EasyMark
I guess they want a 500 page manual done with LaTeX or gtfo :)
almostgotcaught
do enough PR reviews and you start think everything is one. alternatively, with the causality reversed, explains why most people are pricks in PR reviews.
mpalmer
If I reviewed PRs like I comment on HN I'd get fired. Know your audience!
Seems like you think PRs are the only place where criticism happens.
enthdegree
Reminds me of the old The Oatmeal infographics. Very epic mustache
elliotto
A writing style like this indicates that the author does not have the taste to write well. This is a signal that the content will not be good.
asdf6969
It’s written in the style of a children’s book but with a millennial accent. Not a good fit for this audience but it’s not that bad
gadders
It's like one long Reddit post. Very cringe.
ryandrake
I was thinking it reminded me of a LinkedIn inspir-tizement post, but yea, also feels like a Reddit lecture. It reads like it is trying desperately to hold the reader’s attention while they are simultaneously driving a car and in another browser window scrolling through brainrot TikTok videos.
jasonlotito
> Very cringe.
The irony.
glacier5674
"Write a critique of the following article, using the style of the article:"
mpalmer
If you get anything as succinct and focused as what I (genuinely) wrote myself, I'll gladly take the criticism!
adammarples
to be fair i pasted your prompt into chatgpt and it was genuinely funnier and more readable than the article, it even had jokes.
They are EVERYWHERE. Behind desks. In alcoves. Possibly in your very home...if you've recently borrowed War and Peace and failed to return it on time.
lol
mkoubaa
Agreed. This kind of writing is skimmable but not readable to me.
jasonlotito
Unfortunately, the comment. Witless. Pointless. Worthless. Less.
makeitdouble
Indeed
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_War
Joking aside, librarians have always been facing so much. Kids and parents are a whole topic, but many adults coming to a public library aren't just there to spend some time, they can be at a pivotal time in their life with a specific need, and getting enough info or access to the proper resources is so critical.
I still remember a clerk at our public library talking to an old lady who's husband was hositalized, and trying to guess what medical book covered the proper stuff.
tianqi
A fun fact that please excuse me if off-topic: Mao Zedong was a librarian before he started the Bolshevik Revolution in China, and then he changed all of China. So it's often said in China that it's really dangerous to upset a librarian.
Pooge
Is it known which kind of books he read?
tianqi
Many of his readings are mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong
deathlight
My understanding is that Mao was a rural peasant from the distant Countryside who was looked down on and marked by his more (self declared) socialist Coastal betters along China's Coast who were contesting with the kmt and later Japanese invasion. The idea that Mao invented the communist or socialist revolution in China is laughable because that revolution had been ongoing prior to Mao's entrance into it. My understanding is that Mao was the guy that stood up and said look, the peasants in the Hinterlands are an Unstoppable Army that is going to come flooding from distant and Central China on to the coast and push all opposition aside and so Mao was basically saying that that the Communists should be attempting to position themselves as favorably as possible in relation to the rising peasant tide of discontent in China. If anything the concern is that if you say anything that the modern Chinese Communist party does not like or agree with they will disappear you to all the corners of the Earth. It is probably only in Taiwan that you could speak openly and honestly about the nature of modern Chinese history from let's say 1900 to the current day. They probably have a better accounting of what was actually going on, and that will soon be deleted by the now dominant Communist Party of China. You can see how they have treated their assimilation of Hong Kong, and Macau before them to imagine what awaits Taiwan.
jadar
The tragedy of the modern library is that no one has the attention span for good books. Libraries are getting rid of the classics to make room for new books, the majority of which are not worth the paper they’re printed on. We would do well to heed C.S. Lewis’ call to read more old books for every new book that we read.
makeitdouble
I personally think the focus on attention span is a red herring.
Many good books don't require that much attention span, and putting the onus on the reader to like and focus on a book that is supposed to be good feels kinda backward. Given that people binge watch whole tv series and still read a ton online there is a desire, and probably ways to properly reach the audience.
Not all classics need to be liked forever, tastes change, and the stories are retold in different manners anyway. I'd be fine with people reading Romeo and Juliet as a mastodon published space opera if it brings them joy and insights.
cogman10
Some classics were written with a "per word" payment scheme to the author. That created bad writing in awkward places.
The Swiss family Robinson is an example of this. Times of interesting adventure and then long passages about poetry analysis.
Ironically, reading it feels like you are reading the works of an author with a low attention span.
There's a reason so many of the classics have abridged versions.
mingus88
Even a short and engaging chapter book will require someone to focus for more than 10 minutes on the text
I have been online since the early web and have seen how much content has changed to engage people. It’s all short form videos and posts with a 4th grade vocabulary now. If you post anything longer I have seen people actually get upset about it.
People may binge a series but they are still on their phones half of the time scrolling for dopamine. I am trying to train my own children to seek out difficult things to consume and balance out the engagement bait.
It’s hard these days. Everything is engineered to hijack your attention
stevenAthompson
> People may binge a series but they are still on their phones half of the time scrolling for dopamine.
This. Both movies and series are now FAR less popular (and profitable) than video games, and video games are far less popular than social media. Even the minority that still enjoys legacy media enjoys it WHILE consuming other media.
Movie theaters are in as much trouble as libraries, and blaming either of them for their decline in popularity without mentioning the root causes would be myopic.
The cost of all this is that nuance and the ability to have a single train of thought that lasts longer than the length of a TikTok video or tweet are dying.
EgregiousCube
I wonder if it's not that people are getting dumber or less able to hold attention; rather, that everyone is being more exposed to lowest common denominator material because of efficient distribution.
Reader's Digest was always there on the shelf at the store and was very commercially successful. Most people who consumed more advanced content ignored it.
makeitdouble
> It’s all short form videos and posts with a 4th grade vocabulary now
We've had more publicly available educational content than ever with 40+ minutes videos finding their public. Podcasts have brought the quality of audio content to a new level, people pay to get additional content.
People are paying for publications like TheVerge, Medium and newsletter also became a viable business model. And they're not multitasking when watching YouTube or reading on their phone.
That's where I'd put the spotlight. And the key to all of it is, content length is often not dictated by ads (Sponsors pay by the unit, paid member don't get the ads) but by how long it needs to be.
If on the other hand we want to keep it bleak, I'd remind you that the before-the-web TV was mostly atrocious and aimed at people keeping it on while they do the dishes. The bulk of books sold where "Men come from Mars" airport books and movies were so formulaic I had a friends not pausing them when going to the bathroom without missing much.
Basically we accepted filler as a fact of life, and we're now asking the you generation while they're not bitting the bullet. And honestly, I can still read research papers but I completely lost tolerance for 400 pages book that could have been a blog post.
jimbob45
I’ve come to the same conclusion after years of feeling like the idiot for not being able to sit through books. If people aren’t making it through your book, they might have a short attention span but your book also might just be bloated, unclear, or uninteresting. It may even not have set expectations well enough. As Brandon Sanderson says, it’s very easy to skip out on the last half of Into The Woods if you don’t know who Stephen Sondheim is as a writer.
stevenAthompson
Early in life I learned the rule: If one person is a jerk, he's just a jerk. If you feel like everyone is a jerk, you are probably the one being a jerk.
The same is true of books. If you think one book is bad, it's probably the book. If you think all/most books are slow you should work on your attention span.
toast0
Most libraries track circulation of their catalog. If nobody is using the classics, they're going to get weeded. Most libraries have limited shelf space, and it's best used for things that people are using.
Archival can be part of a library too, but I think a reasonable tradeoff is interlibrary loans, public catalogs, and considering copies in other libraries while weeding. Some library systems can also move items to non-public stacks which may be less space constrained, and only access them on request.
bigthymer
This has been an ongoing discussion within libraries for more than a hundred years not a recent issue. Should libraries be a place with classics to uplift people or popular books that people want to read even if they are low quality?
null
nathan_compton
I think this is a somewhat wrong framing, and its also shitty to blame libraries for this shift. Tech companies, for the most part, are responsible for the destruction of attention spans, if that has really happened. And I'd be happy to bet that by whatever criteria you choose to select there are more great books written per year now than in 1240 or whatever time you think they only wrote great shit. Its just that now there is much more to wade through and the media environment is totally different.
At any rate, I just think that its a very strange thing to do to use "old" as a substitute for "good." There are tons of old books that are moronic and if the population of the world back then had been the same as now there would be tons more.
add-sub-mul-div
People don't even have the attention span for tweets. You see people asking grok to summarize the points of whoever they're fighting with.
Try going back in time and explaining to Neil Postman that people today find watching TV to be a chore that needs abbreviation or summarization.
geerlingguy
"Grok summarize this comment"
I kid you not, I've had people ask Grok to summarize a 3-4 tweet thread I posted.
alganet
40 minutes or so? You guys are getting lazy. I expected an AI connection in less than 10 minutes after the post.
add-sub-mul-div
Are you being too passive aggressive to say directly that you're offended by commentary about AI that disagrees with your stance, or do you really keep track of these timings?
jasonlotito
> The tragedy of the modern library is that no one has the attention span for old books.
Fixed that to mean what you say.
Luckily, people still have the attention for good books. Which is why libraries still stock good books, classic or otherwise. They also stock books that people want to read. Which might seem odd until you realize that libraries are there for the community to use.
However, you are free to setup a library that stores books that no one reads.
KittenInABox
I find that old books can often take away more than they give to me. They often have outdated ideas on women or race and are usually far clumsier with depicting homeless, disabled, or sick people. Engagement with fans of old books often is a set of very sheepish defensiveness when I point these out.
nathan_compton
You're lucky these days if all you get is sheepish defensiveness and not revanchist conservatism.
kmoser
I thought this was going to to be about how librarians were instrumental in forming the OSS, which helped the US win WWII (yes, this is real).
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/book-and-dagger-elyse...
elashri
I used to skip school for at least two days to go to the big library in my city. I taught myself a lot of things. Did have access to books and high speed internet (by this era standards anyway) that I couldn't have or afford at home.
I wouldn't encourage people to skip school to do that of course. But I owe this period of my life a lot of what I am today. Someone with interest in science and tech. I have known some of the people working there and they were happy helping me navigating the library (and grap books for the short boy who is too short for most of the shelves).
I wasn't happy with how it turned out the last year when I visited.
lurk2
This reads like the sort of self-congratulatory articles journalists were fond of writing about themselves in the late-2010s, just as public trust in journalism was reaching an all-time low.
I suspect the same thing is happening with librarians as they’ve begun to abandon all pretence of being impartial guardians of information in favor of larping as members of The Resistance. Ironically, the experts never seem to learn that you can only play this game for so long before no one cares what you have to say anymore.
hitekker
I thought you were harsh, but then I read this piece:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/peel-school-board-lib...
It's dispiriting to see librarians distort a normal process (deaccession) to cover up their own book banning.
defrost
In the article librarians talk about the normal process of weeding out old books, duplicates of rare accesses, etc.
The article itself contrasts that with school boards directing librarians to remove far more than tha regular weeding.
The boards set policy that the librarians are compelled to follow or risk being fired.
amanaplanacanal
Resistance against book banners has always been part of their core ideology, there is nothing new about that.
delichon
Ideas are dangerous, librarians just stockpile and distribute them. In terms of potential energy books are more disruptive than nukes. The keepers who wrangle their power should have proportional status.
WillPostForFood
You could say they are the censors of the ideas that get into the library. So they should be accorded status based on that power, but there also should be accountability and transparency.
WarOnPrivacy
> You could say they are the censors of the ideas that get into the library.
But I wouldn't. This context incorrectly implies librarians are working from a position of restricting knowledge. In modern times, librarians are working against the factions that do that.
> but there also should be accountability and transparency.
There is. 'Books on the shelf' is a gold standard of transparency. They are showing their work in the fullest possible measure.
In short, librarians are extraordinary examples of good faith. The appropriate accountability for that is letting them do their jobs.
AnIrishDuck
> In modern times, librarians are working against the factions that do that.
A thousand times this. People who think that librarians are secretly censoring the flow of information are completely out of touch with how librarians work.
Librarians take their responsibility to their community seriously. This responsibility, to them, is nothing less than presenting their patrons with all of the information (books and beyond) that they are trying to access, regardless of their personal feelings about said information.
9x39
>But I wouldn't. This context incorrectly implies librarians are working from a position of restricting knowledge. In modern times, librarians are working against the factions that do that.
Peel District restricts books to materials post-2008 and deemed antiracist, which is an incredibly narrow slice of the historical body of human literature: https://www.peelschools.org/documents/a7b1e253-1409-475d-bba... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/teacher-librarians-sp...
On the opposite end of the western culture war, we have the elimination of the corpus of queer texts at a Florida college: https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2024/08/1...
Either way, it's a position, institutional or otherwise, of restricting knowledge that is inherently subject to the political pendulum swings.
>In modern times, librarians are working against the factions that do that.
Librarians apparently are the factions that do that. What books or why varies, but the "weeding" is the euphemism of the day to restrict with.
>In short, librarians are extraordinary examples of good faith.
I think this is closer to hero worship or beatification than a useful model for a political process.
WillPostForFood
Choosing what to put on limited shelf space is inherently a process of choosing what to remove and to exclude. It is zero sum.
Books on the shelf is partial transparency. What was excluded, what was removed. What was requested for by patrons but not chosen.
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mingus88
A curator promotes. A censor deletes.
Sure you could argue that with limited shelf space, a librarian is a censor by choosing what they do and do not carry, but then you have to ignore a lot about what censors and librarians actually do.
lurk2
You know this isn’t true.
satoru42
I thought the author was describing a chatbot when reading the first half of this article.
alganet
Ah! It makes a reference to Rose, the Hat (character in the Doctor Sleep movie). "My head is a library [...] you're just a fucking child". Hence the drawings looking like children homework.
So, if it is an AI that wrote it, maybe it has movie script training. That would be a smart move. Movies themselves draw specific personas to the foreground of a human mind and could put them in specific moods.
Or is it a human who wrote it? Maybe it was an angel.
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Ok, no movie business. Is there a difference between biblioteconomist and librarian? I think one is more akin to that notion of classifying without curating or censoring that so many here aluded to.
In practice, I wouldn't know! (fun oversharing fact: I actually considered biblioteconomy as a degree).
I think the post is good and kind for a general audience. It's a good message that I truly believe in.
But I believe it could be harmful for those diagnosed with conditions such as Havana Syndrome, Schizophrenia and similar disorders. That is due to the fun ambiguous tone of "dangerous", which could have unexpected effects in someone going through a psychotic episode (I had one once, not a pleasant experience). There must be a better, less snarkier way of promoting literacy without creating those potential side effects.
ThinkingGuy
This is consistent with my experience. One of the most impressive and inspiring presentations I saw at last year's HOPE conference [1] was from members of the Library Freedom Project [2].
I always found it interesting how hacker culture is largely propped up on the protections society has carved out for librarians following world war 2 (where certain sections of society had been identified based on what books they had looked at).
The hacker culture of “information wants to be free” is largely predicated on the librarian mantras of the same sentiment and only given protection by western europe after clear and serious abuse.
Librarians are the very forefront of information access and the privacy of looking up certain information, we owe them a lot.