Children's Librarians are Better Than Yours

I honestly do not know why people have this assumption that librarians are scary relics. Actually no, I do understand. One of my earliest memories is, coincidentally, in a library, and I remember the librarian was absolutely Stone Age. We called her Ms. Merriam*, and she ruled the library with an iron fist. A fist of steel. She watched everyone pass through the hallowed doors of her library with that piercing narrowed eyed gaze that just promised retribution if a page was bent, a cover smudged, or, heaven help you, you spoke. 

*Her name was not Ms. Merriam. 

As a child, she was terrifying. Forget the evil villains on television, Ms. Merriam was it. 

She was the boss, and everyone knew it. 

To be fair, Ms. Merriam was not what would be considered a Children's Librarian now. I am not entirely sure she was one either. Most likely, she was a reference or Adult Services librarian, not trained or otherwise inclined to deal with small hellions running around the library building forts out of the books, or hiding under tables playing games in a manner reminiscent of trolls under bridges. 

Libraries and Librarians then, as opposed to now, were not necessarily geared towards young readers. 

My Aunt has informed me that in her day, aka ancient history, children were allowed into the library on Tuesdays and Thursday between the hours of 4-7, and Saturday from 10-Noon. There was no designated Children's Section or staff. What was that? A whole department geared specifically towards kids? And you offer programs and reading times for them? Well, there was nothing like that when I was young, let me tell you. 

So what we are left with is an understandably nervous population of adults who maintain a certain degree of wariness towards librarians, you know, those fire breathing ladies (and men) of their youth. Their children know better of course, because they have us. The friendly  librarians that smile and help them find books and understand the library. The librarians that give them puzzles to play with and will high-five them on the completion of a really really long book. 

It should come as no surprise that we get a lot of adults asking us to help them. Us, the Children's Librarians. Because we are nice. And not scary. And wear bright colors. Not like, you know, those Adult librarians. They are scary. And probably mean. And they absolutely do not coo over their patrons. 

Well for one, it is totally cool to coo over an infant or an adorable toddler. It is not really the same to coo and coddle a grown man or a grandmother. I will bet you money that if I cooed over some guy who came up to me and asked me to help him find a book that he would probably think I was mentally challenged, really scarily weird, or sexually harassing him. But clearly, Children's librarians, totally friendly, because we coo and shit. 

Adult librarians must be the final hold out on the frontier to have super savvy and in-touch with the population librarians. They need to be eradicated! Alright alright. Not eradicated, but possibly reprogrammed, kind of like how those kids that were saved from cults get reprogrammed. We will make them friendly and helpful, and knowledgeable and totally not like those evil scary librarians that they use to be before. 

I would not call this extremism, just common sense. Amirite?

So Children's librarians. Let me think. We are friendly, mostly. We can stop a kid with the glare of icy death at ten paces if need be, but really we are just super cool and very fun. What else. Oh! We are younger, ergo, friendlier. Except that is hardly true, most departments are made up of staff of differing ages, experience, and not too mention, awesomeness. 

I am by no means the happy cooing Children's librarian first thing in the morning before my coffee induced caffeine high has had time to hit the bloodstream. But I have no problem crawling around on the floor looking for a book that is hiding somewhere on a bottom shelf, or helping a child pick up the pieces of a puzzle that was accidentally dropped. Sometimes, in the evening, there is no smile hiding in the quirk of my lips, or any excitement at all to be mustered over a kid who is really excited about the new series I told them to read last week. Dude, I am human, not a robot. 

I think though, that there is one thing that we are doing that is completely invaluable. We are teaching kids that the library is a friendly and accessible place regardless of your age, background, or lifestyle. As these kids grow up, they will know how to use the library. They will know that librarians are there to help them find their books, or offer recommendations of new titles to try out. Most importantly, the next generation of library users will not be terrified by the guardians of books. Because, you know, we're pretty cool folks.