Thanks for the respect @clark.stinson! You are right, it is a great career field and it is often hard to find openings, especially in more populated areas. I certainly feel it is the best career field for me! I do want to push back a little on the idea of the field as ‘peaceful,’ though, if I may. I am sure your comment was casual and you meant nothing at all by it, it just hit on a stereotype that I find problematic in a lot of ways - a romanticization of libraries and library work as only peaceful and pleasurable.
It’s true, in general, libraries have a quieter and more peaceful atmosphere than amusement parks, for example. Public libraries are also one of the last public places where all are welcome with no admission fee required. I’m trying to avoid politics here, but the fact is that smaller government results in fewer services, and as social safety nets are reduced, it leaves those of us with some kind of funding to fill more and more roles that our agencies are perhaps not designed to fill or fill well, and certainly not with extra funding being attached to help fill those roles. Generally, public libraries and first responders are both being asked to (or in some cases volunteering to) fill roles we have not historically filled and may or my not have appropriate training to fulfill.
This means that all public libraries, and especially urban public libraries, are often filling roles that combine some elements of senior centers/after school programs/social work/day warming centers with intersections with mental health crisis and substance abuse crisis in addition to their traditional library work. As one example, many public libraries now have Narcan/Naloxone and staff trained to use it to prevent death from opiate overdose. As another, library staff on-boarding training generally includes how to appropriately wake a sleeping adult in such a manner as to remain both respectful and physically safe if the patron comes up swinging (because trauma). This is valuable work, but it is not always peaceful work.
Last week I had a library patron, someone I know to have a long history of mental health issues and the self-medication behaviors that lead to substance abuse struggles and who is in a high degree of pain from a recent injury, curse me out at a very high volume repeatedly and vociferously when I tried to explain the reason behind something that would ordinarily not have bothered him at all. It was done with such heat that I made sure I was on the phone with my partner as I was leaving the building alone later that night, just in case. This doesn’t happen often in my small town library, but it does happen from time to time. It happens more frequently to library staff the more densely packed the population.
This is all to say that behind the peaceful atmosphere is the understanding that things could escalate quickly at any moment and we have to be ready for that, too. And while the job certainly has pleasures, it also has its own struggles and areas of friction, too. So next time you’re in your local library send a little peace towards your library staff if you can. Chances are they would welcome it.