Public Librarian: A Literary Public Servant

My desire to work as a public librarian has been further reified in my coursework in

the MLIS program at URI, as well as in our class LSC530, Texts and E-Tools for Tots to

Teens. I also find many new discoveries find in the stacks and patrons daily, adding to

my own background in literature and poetics. Thus, it is marrying these ideas,

experiences and thought together that my understanding is heightened and

deepened. As a public librarian, I already value the importance of community and

social impact and how it plays a large role and hosts the many interconnections on a

local level. Whether this impact comes from something as simple as book

recommendations, to helping patrons connect with others in their community

through programming through the many devises and platforms that libraries now

offer, I see learning and teaching intrinsically intertwined in this quest. At many points

throughout the semester, I found the assignments super interesting and helpful in the

wider dialogue with the page and forum of what a public librarian can represent and

be in terms of literary representation. Whether that be in the task of doing an author

study or by understanding the larger concept of the danger of a single story or in the

talk by Chiamando Negoz Adichie in her Ted Talk, The Danger of a Single Story.

The intensity and level of intimacy I felt from my author study with Maurice

Sendack alone taught me so much about both his personal story, as well as the story
of many immigrants. His ethos as a childrens writer and his belief in the conveyance

and presentation of emotional complexity of the young still fascinates me. I chose to

study Sendak because he was a masterful illustrator and author. His message to

children was unique as it was authentic. He dealt with many themes previously left out

of childrens literature like fear and rage. Addressing these topics through his

storybooks speaks to children and normalizes these feelings as well as illustrates that

they are not alone in their struggles. Every great author and illustrator taps into

understanding of the young psyche on some level and Sendak was no different,

though he did it perhaps even more masterfully than most! There was an enormous

amount of take-away from this assignment and I see the value and importance to

learning about authors on such a deep and multifaceted level. The idea of

remediation and understanding as I first learned of it in Kimberly Reynolds book,

Childrens Literature, A Very Short Introduction. The term, coined by Jay David Bolter

and Richard Grusin in Remediation: Understanding New Media proffers a guide post

of sorts and I have found myself using it in discussions and certainly in the way I think

of stories and new devices and genres and re-use and rethinking of known storylines.

I have long thought there would be absolutely no way to translate Sendaks Where

the Wild Things Are into a coherent script and was super pleased when I watched it

with my daughter and both were absolutely delighted!

 Keeping an open mind is key and revisiting storylines and plots that are

reenacted and newly released is another way to connect to young patrons. As

materials and devices (just as ideal and social mores) are continually being updated

and renewed having an open mind is key to being a forward thinking and

understanding in the role of librarian. I havent read any of Chiamando Negoz

Adichies novels, but watching her Ted Talk was impressive. She has such an astute

eye and social commentary and she is a thinker and writer to continue to watch, I

have read her Ted Talk, We Should All Be Feminists. I think a non-US perspective

added a reality and understanding that we just do not get as Americans from our first-

world gaze. Adichie intelligently and compassionately dismantles the idea of

narrative in The Danger of a Single Story and cleverly also informed the audience

about herself as a girl growing up in Nigeria and her experience as an outsider in the

USA who was often told what an African experience should be. Not all Africans are

the clichs we grow up learning about or knowing and if we learn nothing other than

that it is to honor other narratives apart from our own.

I also intentionally challenged myself to attempt to use different programs for

assignments, like Weebly for my blog platform and Prezi for my slideshow. I learn

from doing, and often this is by utilizing whatever program it is. I have also recently

begun to use the familysearch.org site as I know that many people are fascinated with

ancestry programs. I decided to utilize the familysearch.org site because it is free and
less widely known than ancestry.com which I already had experience with. Every

different app or program learned is a step in the right direction as far a digital

learning and understanding which is very important skills for a public librarian.

Expanding my own repertoire whether it be reading more and more widely to

running a variety of programs, I believe, will all help me to be the best public librarian

and literary public servant I can be.

Works Cited

Adichie, Chiamando Negozi (2009). The Danger of a Single Story. TED

Talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg (Embedded below).

Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA, and London, MIT

Press, 1999).

Jonze, S. (Director). (2009). Where The Wild Things Are [streaming file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcBPzqxBnRU