Hello librarians!  It’s National Library Week and I just want to celebrate all of you for everything you do for your students, children, communities, and society every day.

If you haven’t listened to my episode 2, “Librarians, You Matter More Than You Know”, I encourage you to take some time today and listen to that. You can find it at masterfullibrarian.com/ep-2.   It’s full of heartwarming stories of how librarians make a difference to the people they serve. What you do every day is vital to us all – even if that isn’t always acknowledged and appreciated.

Libraries and librarians are always working hard to provide resources, services, education, and programming that supports your users.  That’s just how librarians roll.

Libraries are the great equalizers, ensuring that everyone, regardless of ability to pay, has access to the world. 

But over the last year, during the stressful and often scary pandemic lockdowns, libraries and librarians really stepped up – as I knew they would.  

You found ways to safely provide curbside service to school children and to community members.  You got innovative with ways to be sure people could still access your wifi – sometimes going as far as erecting shade structures outside your buildings and in some places bringing in porta-potties so students could stay  for a long time and work on their schoolwork. 

You developed virtual library lessons and learned how to provide story hour virtually.  You even held summer reading programs using Zoom, though you might never have used Zoom before then or any other type of meeting platform. 

Some of you even opened back up with limited hours and occupancy and had to enforce mask-wearing and social distancing – which often was ugly and unpleasant.  

You worked hard to overcome physical and virtual challenges and to find a way around these new and ever-evolving obstacles. 

And you did it all with shrinking budgets, reduced staffing, and, even, while working from home.

So to all of you working in academic, public, school, and special libraries all over this country, I say Happy National Library Week and thank you.  I and hundreds of thousands like me appreciate all you’ve done since March 2020 and before.  

We couldn’t have done it without you.