Librarians, You Matter More Than You Know

 Hello, Librarians.  In today’s episode, I want to talk to you about how important you are and how much impact you actually have on the people you serve. You all matter so much more than you may know or realize.

            In my very first podcast episode, Why I’m Glad I Lost my Library Job, I talked about how I reached out to librarians all over the country and asked questions.  If you haven’t listened to that episode, you can find it at MasterfulLibrarian.com/1. 

Those conversations were both informative and heart-warming. What I heard over and over is that you love your work and the people you serve. And that you want to have an even greater impact than you feel you’re currently achieving. But I also heard lots of great stories about the positive impact librarians are already having.  And that was the truly heartwarming part. 

If you’re at all like me, it’s easy to let the less pleasant things that happen in your work dominate your attention and your memories. Like, remembering that Board member who objects to every single programming change you bring before the Board, or every policy change;  or  the parent who comes in and complains that you were buying too many diverse and inclusive books; or the lawmaker who held his expensive tablet up while asking why you need more print books when everyone has one of those. 

Those memories might take up way more space in your mind than maybe they deserve. That’s only normal - research suggests that events charged with emotion, especially negative emotion, stick more in our minds. So it’s only natural to remember those things more.  But it can definitely put a damper on your morale and enthusiasm for your work.

So today, I’m going to tell you about some real life stories of magical things librarians have done. And this is meant to stir memories I know you have of times you’ve made a difference in the life of a patron or a student. And I hope that it lifts your morale a bit and brightens your day. Because what you do truly matters. It has the power to change lives and inspire greatness. Often, some seemingly small action you take, a book you share, or a program you offer, will be that one thing that causes a sea change in someone’s life.

            A parent recently shared with me that when her now adult children were little and she was newly divorced, she didn’t have any money for any entertainment for her kids – not even for something like a movie rental. And back in those days, movies were coming from places like Blockbuster. So, every week, they’d make a trip to their local public library where the kids not only got great books to read, but where they could check out movies to watch at home. She told me that some of the happiest moments she had with her little ones during those very difficult times were when they were sharing books and snuggling up together in front of the TV to watch a movie from the library. She also shared that she regrets that she never let the librarians at that branch know how important that service was to her.

            Mary Chappell, my friend and a rock star elementary school librarian, recently told me a story that brought a tear to my eye.  When her district closed schools in March because of COVID-19, she went to her principal and said, “our kids will be scared. They need to see one of us every day to see that we’re all fine. They’ve got to see someone they know really, really well, so I’m going to start doing videos and posting them on the school website.” She  started those videos that next Monday and got an email in about ten minutes from a parent saying this:  “I had no idea that our child