On how being a librarian taught me about life

Librarian Advice Booth, Denver Comic-Con, Denver, CO, by Cory Doctorow, CC BY SA 2.0

It's no secret that I love my job. I talk about it all the time. But did you know that it also taught me to be a better human being?

The thing about being a librarian is that you're never off the clock.

Every book you read, every movie you watch, every newspaper article you scan, every interaction you have with another human being contributes to what you do. It makes you do your job better.

But it's more than that.

Before I entered the bookbarn business, I could be what was charitably termed "an asshole". I would definitely give a Bernie Bro a run for his/her money. I was rather doctrinaire in my beliefs, unbending, unyielding. You can ask my wife how I would regularly mock her faith. (No, I'm not proud of that.) Only I was right, and everyone else needed to be like me.

Now, training for any kind of profession—one that requires an advanced degree—tends to change your outlook on things. You're not the same after you're done with law school as you were before you entered. The sheer fact of receiving the education alters how you look at life. The same is true for librarianship.

But, of course, the real change occurs once you start your career, once you start interacting with people.

I suppose that archivists, in their musty tombs, can get away with not learning anything new about social interactions. But public librarians? You're quickly disabused of your preconceived notions.

To be a really good librarian, you have to set aside judgment. You have to set aside the idea that your view of the world is the correct one. You may not agree with the patron you're helping; but that doesn't matter. That patron's needs are paramount, not yours. By hook or by crook, you develop empathy, you develop an ability to put yourself in another's shoes, to see the world as they see it. Your job isn't to impose your own views on the patron—although, of course, as a librarian, you're in the truth-telling business, so if a patron is looking for information which just isn't factual, you'd be remiss to continue abetting his false notions. Your job is to get your patron the information he or she is looking for. If they want to know if you have an Ann Coulter book, you tell them whether or not you have that book. If they want to confirm where the Bernie Sanders rally is, you look it up. Inwardly, of course, you may judge. You're human. But the outward act of being nonjudgmental eventually changes how you react inside. You start to accept what you may have always known, but your own biases prevented you from acknowledging: humanity is varied, and complex, and ambiguous, and will not bend to your will.

I had a patron at my former library. Joel was a mensch. Jewish, an academic, liberal. We always had great conversations.

He lived in a high-end yacht club, and his neighbors were all Trumpists. And yet, he would regularly tell me, "These are guys who, if you called them at 3 in the morning with a flat tire, would get in their cars and go to where you were." As I said, complex. Squaring such altruism with voting for outright evil has perplexed philosophers since the dawn of civilization. What training and practice as a librarian has taught me is to accept that people can't be categorized. They can be more than one thing at the same time. They can vote for an evil regime, and give you the shirt off their backs. And in their minds, they can easily reconcile both aspects of their personalities.

Being a librarian changed me. I hope I was always on this path of self-discovery. But it certainly accelerated it. It made me more human, more accepting. It made me less of an asshole. I am in no way saying I'm better than anyone. But I'd like to think that the past eleven years have made me a better person.

So, if you have a chance, sit down and talk to a librarian. Man, we have stories.