The Important Emotional Labor of Librarians Most People Never Think About

Librarians take on that chaos; we have no choice but to face down the power, joy and suffering both, that people bring into our space

For librarians, as with many other professions, “Other duties as assigned” is code for tasks that are distasteful, off-kilter, or just plain gross.

I’ll be blunt: Almost every librarian I know has a story or three about retrieving something odd (think half-eaten food, cigarettes, live animals) from the book drop, cleaning up feces or other bodily concoctions, or finding members of the public doing foul deeds (clipping their nails, bathing naked in the bathroom, masturbating) in the library. But that’s not what this article is about. For librarians, “other duties as assigned” has another meaning, too.

Most people intuitively understand the emotional load taken on by professions like social workers, nurses, 911 operators, and teachers. Rarely, however, do people consider the emotional labor of librarians. Spend a day at the service desk of a busy library and you’ll see people on their best and, too often, their worst days. Spend a few months and you’ll begin to follow the lives of your repeat visitors — you’ll be privy to, and sometimes help them solve…