The Librarian I Never Forgot
A librarian gave me a cookie and a tour when I was a kid, and it changed the direction of my whole life. Librarians do that, and they almost never get the credit.Share on X
When I was young, my mother dragged me to the local library, against my protests.
I didn’t want to go. Then a librarian met us, gave me a cookie, and walked me through the place on a tour. That was it. A small kindness and a few minutes of attention. But I came out of that visit understanding something I hadn’t understood walking in: that the world was much bigger than the one in front of me, and that all of it was sitting right there on the shelves, waiting.
That librarian didn’t know she was changing the direction of a kid’s life. She was just doing her job, being kind to a reluctant child. But that visit set me on a path of reading that led, eventually, to writing over a hundred books. I never forgot her, and I never will.
Watch: What Librarians Wish You Knew About Libraries, Ariel Bissett
What Librarians Do
Every librarian is a guide to all of human knowledge, and they hand that guidance to anyone who walks in, for free.Share on X
Most people think a librarian’s job is shelving books and shushing people. It’s so much more than that.
Librarians are guides to the entire accumulated knowledge of the human race, and they offer that guidance to anyone who walks through the door, free of charge, no questions asked.
They help a kid find his first great book. They help a researcher track down an obscure source. They help an adult learning to read, a job seeker, a curious retiree, a child who has nowhere else warm and safe to go after school. They’re one of the last institutions that gives real help to anyone who asks, expecting nothing back.
When almost everything has a price and an angle, the library is a rare thing, and the librarian is the person who makes it work. They’re quiet, underpaid, and essential, and they shape more lives than they’ll ever know. Mine is one of them.
How do you spend National Librarian Day?
Thank a librarian. If you have one in your life, or one who helped you once, tell them. They almost never hear it, and the work they do is exactly the kind that goes unthanked.
Beyond that, use your library and support it. Get a card if you don’t have one.
Check something out. Show up to the programs they run. Libraries survive on use and on public support, and both are under constant pressure. The single best way to honor librarians is to make sure libraries keep existing, because a town without a library is a town where no kid gets the cookie, the tour, and the quiet realization that the world is bigger than they thought.
I got that, from a librarian, and it made all the difference.