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Jennifer Sullivan who blogs at Adventures in Storytime (and Beyond) recently wrote a deeply thoughtful post about the harm vocational awe can do to us as youth librarians. In this forceful essay, she also calls out those in the profession and in our youth area of the profession who shame those who don't measure up to the harmful "superhero" librarian trope.
She writes:
"You know, if there was any good to come from this terrible pandemic, I would have thought it would have gotten us as a profession to kick this ridiculous sense of vocational awe to the curb. You know, the idea that libraries are sacred and that librarianship is a virtuous calling we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for. The pervasive feeling that we have to be all things to all people, fill all the cracks in society that people inevitably slip through, give of ourselves until it hurts. I think this idea is the most pervasive in the area of youth services.
Vocational awe leads to mission creep, overworking, understaffing, and people that are underemployed and/or underpaid. Library staff resort to buying program supplies with their own money, working unpaid hours, often struggle to live on wages that are below the cost of living, and burn ourselves out in just a few short years by offering a myriad of programs, pushing for bigger and bigger, more and more... And if you aren't willing to make all these sacrifices, if you can't be all things to all people, aren't a "rock star librarian" (whatever the hell that even means), then you simply aren't dedicated enough, passionate enough, or innovative enough."
To read the entire post, stop here. [Can We PLEASE Stop with the Vocational Awe Already. Sullivan, Jennifer. Adventures in Storytime (and Beyond). June 18, 2022.]
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