To Karen E. Fisher, a professor at the Information School at the University of Washington, the growing concerns about the well-being of librarians — amid more stories of violence — deserves more attention.
“The effects that we’re seeing is that library staff, they’re changing jobs, they’re changing library systems that they work for, things like that, and people are just quiet quitting and retiring early,” said Fisher, who has studied libraries and their collective impact on communities for most of her career. “I mean, that’s horrible because there are more needs for libraries today than there has ever been in the past.”
I called Fisher following an incident in March at Franklin Library in Minneapolis. Members of the Black Knight Protection Agency had been accused of aggressively detaining an Indigenous man who‘d been previously banned from the library for drug use and then using pepper spray against a crowd that had gathered. There were disputed accounts about the actual scuffle. Witnesses said the man’s head had been slammed into the pavement during what the agency called a “citizen’s arrest.” The agency, which was pulled from that library after the altercation, has denied that account.
The Franklin case highlights a significant challenge for our libraries: They are increasingly valuable community centers that often lack the proper resources to address that reality. As summer approaches, their role will again shift as more kids frequent our most important public facilities throughout the Twin Cities. Yet, the influx also comes with challenges, which have been magnified as previously accommodating spaces now restrict the public’s access to them. For example, at malls, there are physical barriers that prohibit where people can walk. Early closing times, increased security and curfews also put limits on teens in malls without parents.
That change has placed a greater burden on our libraries.
Fisher’s national study on the state of libraries post-COVID showed that “there were extra pressures on the [library] staff and extra pressures on the public.”
“Public libraries are the safety nets in communities,” she said. “I mean, everyone is welcome. The libraries are open seven days a week in every community, every neighborhood. And there is a stereotype that libraries are just about the books, but actually they’re about much more than just the books. And while Fisher said it’s great that the public is flocking to libraries for help with everyday needs such as tax preparation, she added that library staff lack support to meet the demands from patrons and also deal with some tough situations.
Full disclosure: I have a strong relationship with Hennepin County Library and Friends of Hennepin County Library, both of which back the Mary Ann Key Book Club that I founded four years ago. So I purposely did not reach out to anyone affiliated with the Hennepin County system before writing this piece.
