Find the Cracks: That’s How the Light Gets In. on reclaiming joy in library work without losing yourself to it

I get asked a lot to do something that feels contradictory to me, and I’ve been struggling with it for a while. How to reground librarians in their work or help librarians find joy in their work. I think this topic is both incredibly important and it makes me anxious because it feels like it could slide into vocational awe very easily, either on my part or through the interpretation of the audience. The word “joy” has been everywhere lately, and I worry it’s starting to sound like toxic positivity, like we’re asking people to feel better about hard situations instead of changing the situations.

But I keep coming back to something Fobazi Ettarh said. One of the questions she gets often is whether she’s saying we’re not allowed to love our jobs. And she’s clear: that’s not what she’s saying. We spend most of our lives at work. It should be a place where you feel good.[i]  And that we need multiple ways to survive, work is just one of those.

Vocational awe, the idea that libraries as institutions are inherently sacred, which can compel employees to sacrifice their own well-being for the mission, is a trap.[ii] It’s a particularly insidious one because it looks like dedication. It takes the genuine care many of us have for this work and turns it into a mechanism for accepting conditions we shouldn’t accept. It teaches us that to push back is to be insufficiently committed. That rest is selfish. That our identity and the job should be one and the same.

Joy that comes from that place isn’t joy. It’s awe. Awe isn’t just about wonder and beauty, it’s about fear and dread too.[iii]  

It is impossible to talk about joy in libraries right now without talking about Mychal Threets. Not just what he’s built, the platform, the presence, the way he talks about libraries that reaches people who had no idea they needed to hear it. But also, how he got there and responses to it.[iv] The way he talks about joy is grounded in genuine love for this work and for the people libraries serve.

We need to be able to have and hold that joy while simultaneously not allowing it to become permission for abuse and self-sacrifice.

The “choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” idea or quote is one we’ve all heard.

Instead I like this quote from Adam J. Kurtz, author of Things Are What You Make of Them: Life Advice for Creatives

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life work super fucking hard all the time with no separation and no boundaries and also take everything extremely personally.”

 A lot of us believed the first when we came into this profession. The problem isn’t loving the work. The problem is when that joy and dedication get used to justify everything else – the low pay, the overwork, the expectation that your passion makes up for what the institution won’t provide. Fobazi said we need multiple things to survive.[v] Work is one part of a full life, not a substitute for the rest of it.

Passion can also be weaponized. When passion becomes proof of worth, when being truly committed means saying yes to everything, staying late, absorbing more than your share, taking on work that you don’t have the capacity for, taking on work that isn’t yours, it stops being about you and starts being about what the institution or society can extract from you. Because often the library is asked to take on more because other resources and services are being cut. But what that really means is that librarians and library staff are taking on more. It’s not just the library itself that’s extracting from us, but the community, the local government, the university. The library is a building; it does not function without the people, and yet we so often act and speak as if it is a being while ignoring the labor that makes it real.

That doesn’t mean you have to abandon your passion. It means holding onto it while also holding onto yourself.

Ettarh is also clear that library identity is not a 24/7 identity. The sense that being a librarian is something you are, not something you do, is something I see a lot, and something I struggle with personally. But you (we, me) need an identity outside librarianship. Not because the work isn’t worth doing or doesn’t matter, but because you are a whole person, and the job is not all of you. When things get hard, or the institution fails you, or you just need rest, you need something to come home to that isn’t work.

Rest Is Not Selfish.

Rest Is Political. Audre Lorde wrote that caring for yourself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. And when we use this reference, we must acknowledge that Lorde was a queer black woman who spent much of her life fighting for rights, who wrote these works after being diagnosed with cancer for the second time.[vi]

In a profession shaped by the expectation of self-sacrifice, choosing to actually rest is a form of resistance.[vii] The idea that rest is lazy is part of the same system that benefits from your exhaustion. Taking your vacation and sick days, not answering email at 11pm, protecting time that is yours, is important to your physical and mental well-being.

The Long Haul

Library careers are long, whether that looks like being the children’s librarian for 30 years, moving into management roles, or changing libraries for something new. The people who sustain those careers are not the ones who gave everything in year three. They’re the ones who figured out how to pace themselves and take care of themselves along the way. The institution will keep asking. You have to be the one who decides when enough is enough.

Find the Cracks

The cracks are where the light gets in.* The small, specific, real moments that make this work meaningful – the patron who came back to tell you what happened, the student who found what they didn’t know they were looking for, the program that actually worked. Those moments are real. The work is to protect them. To understand that sustainable joy requires boundaries, and an identity outside the job, and the ability to critique the institution even while caring about the work.

When I talk about joy and reconnecting with your roots, and regrounding, I want to be clear about what I mean and what I don’t. I don’t mean pep talks or productivity hacks or asking people to feel better about structural problems. I’m not interested in those conversations.

What I do mean: you’re allowed to feel good in this work. You’re allowed to love parts of it. You’re allowed to find meaning here, as long as you don’t have to sacrifice yourself to the institution to do it.

Find the cracks. That’s how the light gets in. And then protect them like your career depends on it, because it does.

* I was inspired to finish this draft this morning after watching an episode of Fringe last night (Season 2, Episode 21, titled “Northwest Passage”). I stole the line from there. An internet search this morning reminded me that it is based on a Leonard Cohen lyric.

References and Recommended Reading

“Definition of AWE.” May 30, 2026. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awe.

“Student Snippets : School of Library and Information Science : Simmons University.” https://slis-students.simmons.edu.

“Vocational Awe and Librarianship | Califa.” Accessed June 4, 2026. https://califa.org/self-care/vocational-awe.

Atske, Sara. “News Platform Fact Sheet.” Digital News Landscape. Pew Research Center, September 25, 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/news-platform-fact-sheet/.

Bryony Porteous-Sebouhian. “Audre Lorde, Self-Care and Its Roots in Black History | MHT.” Mental Health Today, October 27, 2021. https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/awareness/why-acknowledging-and-celebrating-the-black-feminist-origins-of-self-care-is-essential.

Calfia. “Vocational Awe and Librarianship.” https://califa.org/self-care/vocational-awe.

Caron, Christina. “Librarians Face a Crisis of Violence and Abuse.” Well. The New York Times, October 31, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/31/well/mind/librarian-trauma-homeless-drugs-mental-illness.html.

Cho, Allan. Remembering Self-Care and Vocational Awe in the Post-Pandemic World. March 6, 2024. https://www.allancho.com/2024/03/remembering-self-care-and-vocational.html.

Ettarh, Fobazi. “Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves.” In the Library with the Lead Pipe, January 10, 2018. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/.

Flanigan, Abby. Vocational Awe and Professional Identity – ACRLog. First Year Academic Librarian Experience. January 12, 2018. https://acrlog.org/2018/01/12/vocational-awe-and-professional-identity/.

Hersey, Tricia. Rest Is Resistance: Free Yourself from Grind Culture and Reclaim Your Life. Aster, 2024.

Keach, Jennifer, Jenne Klotz, and Galen Talis. “Leading with Joy: Lessons from the Literature.” Libraries, July 25, 2024. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/letfspubs/249.

Newman-Bremang, Kathleen. “Reclaiming Audre Lorde’s Radical Self-Care.” Refinery29, May 28, 2021. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/05/10493153/reclaiming-self-care-audre-lorde-black-women-community-care.

Oregon Library Association, host. S4, E5: Escaping the Vocational Awe Trap w/Fobazi Ettarh (Re-Release). OVERDUE: Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries. August 29, 2025. https://www.buzzsprout.com/1948067/episodes/17732368-s4-e5-escaping-the-vocational-awe-trap-w-fobazi-ettarh-re-release.

Phillips, Abigail L. “Beyond Self-Care in Libraries: Supporting Ourselves Through Real Change.” March 19, 2024. https://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Beyond-SelfCare-in-Libraries-Supporting-Ourselves-Through-Real-Change-162859.asp.

Yazeed, Dr Carey. “Mychal The Librarian and the Attack on Black Men Vulnerability.” Substack newsletter. The Misadventures of a Retired Hot Girl, March 2, 2024. https://retiredhotgirl.substack.com/p/mychal-the-librarian-and-the-attack.

[i] Oregon Library Association, host, S4, E5: Escaping the Vocational Awe Trap w/Fobazi Ettarh (Re-Release), OVERDUE: Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries, August 29, 2025, https://www.buzzsprout.com/1948067/episodes/17732368-s4-e5-escaping-the-vocational-awe-trap-w-fobazi-ettarh-re-release.

[ii] Fobazi Ettarh, “Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves,” In the Library with the Lead Pipe, January 10, 2018, https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/.

[iii] “Definition of AWE,” May 30, 2026, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awe.

[iv] Dr Carey Yazeed, “Mychal The Librarian and the Attack on Black Men Vulnerability,” Substack newsletter, The Misadventures of a Retired Hot Girl, March 2, 2024, https://retiredhotgirl.substack.com/p/mychal-the-librarian-and-the-attack; Christina Caron, “Librarians Face a Crisis of Violence and Abuse,” Well, The New York Times, October 31, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/31/well/mind/librarian-trauma-homeless-drugs-mental-illness.html.

[v] Oregon Library Association, S4, E5.

[vi] Bryony Porteous-Sebouhian, “Audre Lorde, Self-Care and Its Roots in Black History | MHT,” Mental Health Today, October 27, 2021, https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/awareness/why-acknowledging-and-celebrating-the-black-feminist-origins-of-self-care-is-essential; Kathleen Newman-Bremang, “Reclaiming Audre Lorde’s Radical Self-Care,” Refinery29, May 28, 2021, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/05/10493153/reclaiming-self-care-audre-lorde-black-women-community-care.

[vii] Tricia Hersey, Rest Is Resistance: Free Yourself from Grind Culture and Reclaim Your Life (Aster, 2024).

From the Reader Advisories for All blog, a guest post from Robin Bradford; both Robin and Becky (the blog owner) are public librarians working in the U.S., and dealing with both the constant cuts to public libraries' budgets, and the harm that 'vocational awe' does to actual library staff trying to perform superhuman feats on the regular.

#USPolitics #Libraries #Librarians #VocationalAwe #BookBans

https://raforall.blogspot.com/2025/01/library-staff-are-not-superheroes-guest.html

Love, learning, and all the rest: Fictional libraries in “Fruits Basket” and beyond

Before watching Fruits Basket, an anime which mixes the romantic comedy, slice-of-life, and supernatural genres, I knew there was a librarian character (voiced by Sayumi Watabe). I was not aware, however, that libraries would have an important role in the series, at least in a few episodes. In this post, I’ll examine the scenes in Fruits Basket, and connect it to other posts on this blog.

In the third episode of Fruits Basket, a schoolgirl confesses to Yuki Soma (voiced by Nobunaga Shimazaki) in the library and he pushes her off. She is disappointed, saying he is closed off to most people and asks why he can’t let her in. The truth is that if women hug him, then he turns into an animal, a rat to be specific. The schoolgirl, understandably runs off, sad and likely crying, leaving him standing in the library. As it turns out, Tohru Honda (voiced by Manaka Iwami ), who is living at his house, tells him later that she is happy that he let her in, making him happy. The impact of this library scene is a strong one, even though the scene is pretty short.

In some ways, I can relate this to a few issues of the romantic slice-of-life webcomic, Literary Link. The protagonist, Faye, gets a community service job at the local public library’s literary club, due to a fighter in school, and meets a girl named Atlas. As would be expected, Faye falls in love with Atlas, after she teases her a bit, and agrees to keep volunteering at the literary club. Although Atlas isn’t sure if Faye will return, she does, making her happy, especially when she brings cupcakes, and Atlas bandages Faye up from an earlier fight. [1]

Literary Link and Fruits Basket are relatively different from other depictions of romance within libraries that I’ve noted on this blog. In The Truman Show (1998) and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008), which I wrote about in the early days of this blog, the libraries play a big role in the stories of each film. In the first film, it is pivotal moment for Truman Burbank, as he meets the woman he loves, Sylvia, and runs out from the library with her to a secluded beach. In the second film, Harold remembers how he met his ex-girlfriend, Vanessa, in the library. Both of them, in line with the fact the film is a stoner comedy, smoke pot in the library, even though it isn’t allowed.

There are many other examples of love, and romance, within libraries, whether Luz’s crush on Amity (which is later canonized) in The Owl House, Sophia beginning to confess her love to Catarina in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, an almost-kiss between Shizuma and Nagisa in the Strawberry Panic! episode “Etoile”, and Fumi and Sugimoto kissing in an episode of Whispered Words (“Adolescence is Beautiful”). There are other instances of love being expressed inside of library walls, including a bun-wearing librarian shushing male students who are expressing their romance in the library.

The second time that libraries appear in the series is a short scene at the end of the fourth episode, when Tohru checks out books from the library about vegetable gardens and martial arts, so she can learn about what Yuki and Kyo like and dislike. She hopes to find “hidden sides” of them. Not long after, she ends up dropping these books, dramatically, when she learns that her Grandpa’s place is now ready for her to move back in. As it turns out, she doesn’t want to go back, but she decides she has to, although she is later saved by Yuki and Kyo in the following episode. This library scene has the first librarian character in the series, the aforementioned librarian voiced by Sayumi Watabe. This librarian is a student library worker. She checks out the books for Tohru.

Such librarians are not unique in anime. I mentioned many of them in my post back in April, including one protagonist, Haruki, in the striking and moving anime film, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas. He ends up helping another protagonist, Sakura Yamauchi, who’s disabled and uses a wheelchair. He becomes her good friend and later her love interest. She works in the library alongside him. This example differs from school-age student librarians, library workers to be precise, who are almost exclusively female, shown in various series. [2]

Some of the more prominent and recurring student librarians include Hisami Hishishii in multiple episodes of R.O.D. the TV, protagonist Hanamaru Kunikida in Love Live! Sunshine!!, Yamada and Kosuda in B Gata H Kei, Azusa Aoi in Whispered Words, Fumi Manjōme in Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers, Fumio Murakumi in Girl Friend Beta, Himeko Agari in Komi Can’t Communicate, Chiyo Tsukudate in Strawberry Panic!, Sumireko Sanshokunin a.k.a. “Pansy” in Oresuki, and Anne and Grea in Manaria Friends. Of these characters, they are often said to be quiet, shy, hardworking, diligent, lonely, sweet, socially awkward, or introverted. There are exceptions like the lustful and flirtatious Yamada, or Pansy who has strong charisma and observation skills. Many also have yuri subtext integral to their characters either directly or indirectly. [3]

A unique character is Rin Shima in Laid Back-Camp. She fits with the overall theme of iyashikei, a genre of anime which is “healing,” shying away from romance or action in favor of “meaningful connections with family and friends, and finding joy in the minutiae of life,” as Marley Crusch of Polygon put it. Shima is further described by Crusch as a girl who enjoys camping, quiet, reserved personality, and an introvert, although she becomes better at talking with others by the time of the 2nd season. [4]

This differs from more professional, yet unvoiced, ones in episodes of Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, Kin-iro Mosaic, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Maria Watches Over Us, Is the Order a Rabbit, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, and The Dangers in My Heart. Kanina Shizuka in Maria Watches Over Us, is another example, but she is a supporting character. This connects to what I wrote in August, noting that within workplaces, there are unspoken/spoken “common standards of professional appearance” which penalize those with “tattoos and piercings, connecting with societally-sanctioned standards of appearance, which can be harsher on women.

In anime, all the characters, with stated or presumed professional credentials, in this post would be called librarians and assistant librarians, according to the landmark Library Act in Japan. In any case, one must continually be critical of what Fobazi Ettarh has defined as vocational awe, a set of values, ideas, and assumptions that “librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in beliefs that libraries…are inherently good…sacred, and…beyond critique.” With that, my post comes to a close. Until next week, where my post will examine the profound lack of libraries in Tom Gauld’s Revenge of the Librarians and stronger fictional depictions.

© 2023-2024 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Notes

[1] “Literary Club” [Issue 1]; Literary Link, May 6, 2023; “What’s her name?” [Issue 2], Literary Link, May 12, 2023; “Ethically Questionable” [Issue 3], Literary Link, May 27, 2023; “Careful with your face” [Issue 4], Literary Link, Jun. 10, 2023; “Overthinking” [Issue 5], Literary Link, Jun. 24, 2023.

[2] I’m referring to, in part, Nagisa Yasaka in My Roommate is a Cat, Nagisa Yasaka (episode: “Ones Who Can’t Be Controlled” and “What Connects Us”), Aoi Uribe in Myself ; Yourself (episode “The Important Melody”), Hasegawa Sumika in Bernard-jou Iwaku a.k.a. Miss Bernard said, Kamiya in Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie (episode: “Cultural Festival I”), Sumireko Sanshokunin a.k.a. “Pansy” in Oresuki, Anne and Grea in Manaria Friends,  and Female Student B (librarian) in Azumanga Daioh (episode 19 segment “Springtime of Life”).

[3] “Hisami Hishiishii,” Read or Die Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023; “Hanamaru Kunikida,” Love Live Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023; “Yamada,” B Gata H Kei Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023; “Fumio Murakumi,” Yuri Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023; “Agari Himeko,” Komi-San Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023; “Chiyo Tsukudate,” Strawberry Panic! Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023; “Sumireko Sanshokunin,” Oresuki Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023; “Grea,” Yuri Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023; “Anne (Rage of Bagamut),” Yuri Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023.

[4] “Rin Shima,” Yuru Camp Wiki, accessed Jul. 4, 2023.

#AkebiSSailorUniform #AmityBlight #AoiHana #AzumangaDaioh #beautyStandards #ChiyoTsukudate #disabledPatrons #FobaziEttarh #FruitsBasket #groomingStandards #HanamaruKunikida #HaroldAndKumar #HisamiHishishii #IWantToEatYourPancreas #IsTheOrderARabbit #JapaneseLibrarians #JapanesePatrons #JapaneseWomen #KinIroMosaic #KuboWonTLetMeBeInvisible #LaidBackCamp #LesbianLibrarians #LGBTQ #libraryPatrons #libraryWorkers #LiteraryLink #LoveLiveSunshine #MariaWatchesOverUs #MissBernardSaid #MyNextLifeAsAVillainess #MyRoommateIsACat #MyselfYourself #professionals #RevengeOfTheLibrarians #RevolutionaryGirlUtena #ShikimoriSNotJustACutie #StrawberryPanic #students #SweetBlueFlowers #TheDangersInMyHeart #TheOwlHouse #TheTrumanShow #vocationalAwe #WhisperedWords

A question relevant to #LibraryWorkers and #ArchivalWorkers:

"[A] nonprofit will always draw people willing to take the same job for less, because they want to be part of the mission. Does that mean […] that to balance its budget a nonprofit _depends on discounted labor_? That the organization is essentially _underwritten by its own staff_?"

🔗 https://dadadrummer.substack.com/p/maggies-farm

#VocationalAwe #NonprofitLabor #Nonprofit