America's libraries are under attack. It's no longer enough that far-right interest groups and politicians are coming for our collections; they've turned their ire towards our staff too. In recent months, there has been an alarming trend of community members and officials calling for the dismissal of librarians over books they've purchased for their patrons — usually titles focusing on race, gender and sexuality. Groups like Moms for Liberty are training their members on how to target us on our personal social media pages. Library workers are being vilified in the same way as teachers — a troubling phenomenon that's contributing to the nationwide educator shortage.
Morale among library workers has been suffering for a while now. Fobazi Ettarh's 2018 essay on vocational awe in the profession first called attention to the high rates of burnout among librarians based on the pressure of working in a noble-presenting field with little support. The new stress, fatigue and even danger that the pandemic brought to frontline workers has made it worse.
