NY Times: “Librarians Face a Crisis of Violence and Abuse”

From The NY Times:

Like Mr. [Mychal] Threets, librarians around the country are struggling to reconcile their desire to serve their communities with their need for self-preservation, especially as libraries have become hubs for social services and battlegrounds for the culture wars. Staffers say that the job’s stressors are leading to burnout and psychological trauma, necessitating a fresh approach to protecting workers’ mental health.

The amount of angst in the country is “just incredible,” said Karen E. Fisher, a professor at the University of Washington Information School who has studied libraries and community resilience for decades. “And it’s playing out in public libraries.”

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Confrontations with library patrons have grown frequent and severe enough to prompt those in the field to study their effects on workers. In 2022 a study of more than 400 staff members at urban libraries across the country, nearly 70 percent of respondents said that they had experienced violent or aggressive behavior from patrons.

That same year, Dr. Fisher and one of her colleagues surveyed 1,300 U.S. library workers, who reported that they had experienced more than 8,000 incidents that the researchers labeled traumatic, such as threats, assault or harassment. The library workers also cited other stressors that made their jobs more difficult, including conflicts with library administrators, aging buildings and the fallout over book bans.

Learn More, Read the Complete Article (about 1170 words)

People Quoted in the Article:

• Christianna Barnard, Information Services Specialist, Columbus [OH] Metropolitan Library
• Lauren Comito, Executive Director, Urban Librarians Unite
• Dr. Karen E. Fisher, University of Washington Information School
• Misty Jones, San Diego Public Library Director
• Mychal Threets, Librarian
• Michael Zucchet, General Manager, San Diego Municipal Employees Association

Filed under: Jobs, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Preservation, Public Libraries