Librarian as Therapist

A friend sent me a recent NPR piece entitled "Why the Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries." Mmm, cupcakes... The author reminds us that librarians are cool because they know stuff and fight for good things and that libraries are green and free and suffused with goodwill. And, hopefully, helpful.

This summer I read This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson.
Amid the stories of librarians as avatars; as activists who work to empower the poor; as physicians for those with "information sickness;" and as the heroic people who risked jail and the wrath of the Attorney General to protect patron privacy in the aftermath of the Patriot Act, Johnson writes:

"Librarians' values are as sound as Girl Scouts': truth, free speech, and universal literacy. And like Scouts, they possess a quality that I think makes librarians invaluable and indispensable: they want to help. They want to help us. And they're not trying to sell us anything."

Check Librarians Go Gaga: 9 of the Funniest Library Videos Ever on The Huffington Post. (Thanks to Betsy Byrd of A Fuse #8 Production for the link.) Dewey Decimal raps, a parody of Lady Gaga, and weight loss for librarians are just a few of the gems. (If the embed doesn't work, click here)



One of my roles at school is to try to help anyone who comes in the door with a problem. During a two-week period last spring, I talked to parents about their children and gave them materials to help deal with the following problems:

• a 9 year old facing surgery for a brain tumor
• a 6 year old whose father will be going into hospice
• an 11 year old whose parents are getting divorced
• a 7 year old whose mother is undergoing radiation treatments
  
• an 8 year old who struggles with reading.

At the same time, during my regular classes, I led a discussion on cyberbullying and listened intently as a few 11 year olds told hair-raising stories of vicious and smutty things that they have encountered in the cyber world. Then, I read aloud Jasper's Day to a group of 5-6 year olds and passed the tissues (and used one myself) as children told stories of losing beloved pets and grandparents. (For my earlier post on children and grieving, click here.)


I have never been accused of practicing therapy without a license. But I listen intently, all the while racking my brain to think about what book, what video, what website might offer a library patron comfort, reassurance, or some way of feeling less frightened or alone.

Academic librarian Meredith Farkas, who writes for American Libraries and blogs at Information Wants to Be Free, mentions in an interview that she used to be a psychotherapist before becoming a librarian: "I became a librarian because I am really passionate about being able to help people in a concrete way." I feel the same way.