"In the government, but for the community"

Jessamyn West, a library technologist and writer, is the community manager for the Flickr Foundation, which stewards a digital collection of millions of open-access photos. She also works in local libraries in her home state of Vermont. West previously led the Internet Archive’s Open Library Project, was a research fellow at Harvard’s Library Innovation Lab, and served as a councilor with the American Library Association. She has also run the librarian.net blog since 1999.

“There are people who want to control information in order to consolidate their own wealth and power, and we’re fighting them while trying to keep the lights on, the doors open, and give you something good to read.”

Libraries have been going through it lately—correct me if I’m wrong. But we have the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) being threatened with elimination, with being defunded, every year of Trump's presidency. I think through both of his administrations. And then we have libraries generally struggling to adapt to the digital age.

You know, some are better than others, actually.

Okay, interesting. Tell me more about that. What are libraries trying? And what kind of barriers are they facing?

Well, the digital divide is a general issue. It’s not just whether you have access to a computer or the internet, although those are still things people struggle with, it’s also whether people really understand what they’re doing when they interact online.

As someone who grew up before most of the public internet—we learned it as we got it. But when people have grown up with it their whole lives, it’s the [fish not being able to recognize that it lives in water] situation. It’s just all around you. So as a result, people have challenges differentiating doing stuff online from the companies that facilitate us doing stuff online. If you have a cell phone, you’re paying some company for that access, and they have certain control over that access, which you may or may not be aware is even happening. The internet at your home is also different from the internet on your device, for various reasons, including legal reasons that I think are really important. In libraries, we get that, and we often help people deal with that complicated situation. I help people use computers for a job at my library and love it, love it. I can teach your mom, your grandma, your whatever, to do anything on a computer. But that’s different from understanding the entire information ecosystem, which right now is under threat from a lot of different directions.

We’re seeing this administration go after E-Rate, which is one of the ways public libraries get discounted access to the internet, and can offer internet access to patrons. We're also seeing misinformation issues with people's use of AI, which is a bullshit generator at some level. [AI] can really be helpful for certain things, but there are also social and environmental costs that are huge. And a lot of people don’t understand how it works, because the LLM is not going to tell you how the LLM works. But it is going to tell you that whatever you think about it is totally correct, and then string a bunch of words together.

There are big, well-funded narratives being pushed that I think are not correct, and it feels weird to be the guy slaying the dragon. I don’t want that to be my whole job, I just want to teach people how to use computers. But in order to do that, you have to build the foundation and the infrastructure for it. And libraries are differently positioned, whether it's resources, or the population that they're working with, or the people from on high who are telling them what to do at their local library.

I work for my town's library. We get funded by our town, and my town loves reading, libraries, everything else, but it's been this six-month fight—our staff is underpaid, and there's a big fight about whether you should pay the staff the amount that they deserve to get paid with the amount of education they have, versus, the town is struggling financially (but they do wind up paying for the cops).

And one of the things that's been so challenging in the last year or two is certain states turning on their libraries in a way that I would not have expected. Some states are saying, “We don't trust you to do the job. We're gonna let legislators do your job of telling kids what's appropriate for them to read.” I'm in Vermont—we're pretty protected, at a state level, from some of the insults that have been sent against libraries in, say, cities in Idaho, or cities in Louisiana. It's state-by-state, and it's very hard for libraries to unite in some ways, because we're dealing with different challenges. And we've always dealt with challenges, but historically, the challenges have been pretty similar, just in different magnitudes, and now the challenges are absolutely different state-by-state in a way they didn't used to be.

But I think the bigger issue is having people understand the information and—How do we know things? What do we know about knowledge? Our institution is one of the better institutions for helping you out with that whole epistemology. But people need to understand that’s the case.

As a profession, we’re not always the ones who are going to get out in front of it and launch a big PR campaign. We just assume people will get it. I think that’s what we’ve been struggling with most. We’re like, “Of course everybody thinks the library’s a good idea.” Well, you know what? They don’t. They really don’t. Especially with big narratives being pushed from high levels of government, even against other levels of government. We saw Trump fire the Librarian of Congress. How dare he? She was a treasure. He also fired the Registrar of Copyrights, who fought for her job tooth and nail and still has it, which is amazing. Bureaucrats are incredible.

But that’s the real struggle. There are people who want to control information in order to consolidate their own wealth and power, and we’re fighting them while trying to keep the lights on, the doors open, and give you something good to read.

“Even in my little community, you can get a lot of books about the larger world… I think that gives you perspective that the people pushing these narratives would prefer you didn’t have access to.”

Why are libraries good places for fighting these narratives that people are trying to push on us?

I mean, it's weird, right? Because one of the things that’s very interesting about public libraries in the United States is that, in most cases, though not all, if you work at a library, you ostensibly work for the government. You’re a public servant at some level. That used to mean, “You can trust me; I work for the government,” in a weird way. But now there’s a little more of, “I might get paid by the government, but I’m actually here to help you understand what’s really happening, even if it sometimes means I have to talk against the government.”

Libraries are positioned as places where you get information to answer your own questions, and where we help you find access to good information. I don’t mean “good information” as in “the best books” (which used to be an American Library Association slogan). I mean: You have a question about your life, and knowing more would help you. We’re going to help you get the stuff you need and give you advice on what’s good information for that need. And nobody’s paying us to say it a certain way.

We’re not your special friend who’s going to say, “Every haircut you get looks amazing,” like ChatGPT is going to. We’re going to really try to help you figure it out. There are situations where the public librarian is not the best-positioned person to help you. Like with your health issues—“Does this look infected to you?” But there is somebody who can tell you that information from the National Institutes of Health, even still, is going to be more reliable than somebody trying to sell you anti-elbow-infection medicine.

We have the ability to help you with critical thinking without telling you what to believe. And I think that’s important. I really harp on this because I am aggressive about it: We’re for everyone.

And I think the other thing that people don't think about with libraries is: We're everywhere. Every place there are people, you'll find libraries. You'll find them in rich communities, you'll find them in poor communities. They're often very different libraries, definitely different kinds of resources, but the gist of what they're trying to do is the same.

What is your take on why certain states are being hostile, why the federal government is being hostile—why would you attack libraries?

I see it as being a sort of Christofascist way of consolidating control. That’s what makes me the most upset. For the people for whom this is a top-level issue, messing with libraries, messing with trans kids in sports—they don’t even care. They’ve never met a trans kid. They don’t care about getting along in small-town America. They don’t care about small-town America. They care about money. They care about power, finding issues that you can consolidate your base around, which is awful to even think about, that kids are getting stuck in the middle of this, as a way to consolidate control.

I think a lot of it is about voting, because that’s about consolidating control. I think a lot of it is about money, because a lot of people are very greedy about when they think they have enough and how they think other people should or should not have led their lives.

You can tell a story that’s a lie but is compelling. “People who are poor make bad choices,” as opposed to “People who are poor are trapped in an institutional poverty cycle.” Or people who are incarcerated: You can weave a lie that says they did something. But you can also say, “Marijuana is now legal in that state, but you did not let the people who were in jail for dealing out. Shame on you.” It’s terrible.

I see a lot of it as being a bastardization of Christianity (Jesus would never have done this, Jesus would have worked in the library!), and an absolute, flat-out white nationalist thing. People are afraid that America is becoming a very diverse, and interesting, and rich nation, despite the fact that one group of angry white people would really like it to be different.

Do you think [they’re attacking because libraries are a convenient scapegoat], or is it more like, “This is where people go to get information we don't want them to have?”

I think it’s both.

Like with trans kids in sports. Look at the numbers. There are so few kids that a lot of this really shitty legislation is going after, from people who don’t know the population they’re talking about at all. But if you go to my library, in my town of 4,500 people, you can read 100 books about transgender issues from a number of perspectives. You can read about body dysphoria. You can read about body euphoria. You can read about gay penguins. You can read about, “Hey, my brother is trans, and this was our journey.” You can read about trans teenagers just living their lives, not talking about it, just being who they are.

Even in my little community, you can get a lot of books about the larger world that you might not be able to inform yourself about if your TV was always turned on to Fox News (which I think just called us drug dens of sex orgies—we were all like, “Great, you make us look much cooler than we are,”). I think that gives you perspective that the people pushing these narratives would prefer you didn’t have access to. Shutting that off suddenly shuts off a bunch of people from information that they might not be able to get in other ways. Major media isn't saying it, they don't have a local newspaper anymore, the radio is all owned by a small amount of companies, YouTube is always trying to push [right-wing content].

And also with libraries, if you start making them afraid of having YA books on whatever topic, that reduces the market for people who are writing about those topics. The public library system is one of the biggest purchasers of books in this country. I mean, it's Disability Pride Month, and [a lot of people live with] various temporary or permanent disabilities, or a lot of people work with invisible disabilities. You can read more stories about people who are not like you, in whatever way that is, at the library. And I worry about the market for some of those very niche-y books. Every library would buy this book, but would every parent? Who knows?

So yes, I think it’s a control thing. And I also think putting libraries on the back foot means they’re not spending as much time doing cool stuff for the community.

“…some people do not feel safe telling their stories. But one of the things the library can be is a proxy for those stories.”

So you said something earlier about how we've become a more diverse nation. I'm wondering, do libraries help communities understand themselves? Can that be leaned into more as this white nationalist narrative is being pushed?

One of my favorite library stories is: This community is so much more diverse than you think.

Everybody talks about Vermont and says, “Oh, it’s so white.” Census-wise, that’s true, and it’s a problem. But that doesn’t mean the community isn’t more diverse than you think if you just read the “Vermont’s so white” narrative.

There’s more going on. There’s a lot of class diversity in Vermont that people don’t pay as much attention to. But if you talk about it, suddenly it’s a thing we can talk about. Americans are historically shitty at talking about money and mixed about talking about differences in general. One of the things about celebrating diversity is talking about diversity.

I’m the only Jewish librarian at my library. I’m not super Jewish, but you don’t have to be, which is what’s great about Judaism. Around holiday times, I’ll often pipe up a little bit more than I might normally because I think it’s important for people to see people in positions of power—or maybe influence and trust.

I don’t think of myself as a powerful person, but I work for the government. I’m talking to the media. I have a job working for the town in a way that can distribute information. When I say, “I don’t really celebrate Christmas,” maybe somebody who hates Christmas feels a little more permission to not do Christmas.

I’m not trying to say everybody needs to celebrate Hanukkah. It’s just that there are lots of ways to be a person, but you see the big ones all the time — on the street, on TV, in the media.

We have had one major ugly ICE situation in Vermont, only one, but we’ve got cops that are working with them and we've got people in Vermont who work for [Customs and Border Protection] because we've got a border with Canada. So it can be a little bit challenging to be like, “Let's tell the stories of everybody in the community,” when some people do not feel safe telling their stories. But one of the things the library can be is a proxy for those stories.

We can have Drag Story Hour at our library, and that doesn’t necessarily mean pointing to anybody in our immediate community. It’s people who feel safe with that part of themselves and who are thumbing their nose and saying, “Yes, everybody wants to be fabulous and play dress-up.” That’s the message. Even though it makes certain other people intensely aggravated. Well, tough shit. It’s always straight white man day at [other local institutions], but we’re having Drag Queen Hour at the library.

I think just talking in generalities—that there are a lot of different ways to be a person, and they’re mostly okay if they’re not oppressing other people—helps support people without necessarily having to talk about them specifically.

Having gender-neutral restrooms and being aggressive about it doesn’t say anything against anybody. It just says: This is how the bathrooms work. Who cares? We’re the library. We’re the government. Enjoy it.

We can support other people in our community, and the more we say it, the more we make it true.

Can you think of any specific stories or examples of libraries representing their communities?

There’s a library near me, over the mountain, called Orwell, which is funny with all the stuff we’re talking about. They did one of my favorite projects, called The Speakers Bureau. Anybody in town who had a thing they were good at could be on a list: who can talk about beekeeping, who can talk about geothermal engineering, who can talk about what it’s like to be the one older Black lady in town.

Whether it’s identity-based or “let me info-dump on you,” with my friends we talk about special interests. I’m really lucky that my special interest is also the thing I do for my job. We should all be so lucky.

Another project I loved was in Burlington, our biggest city, which is only 30,000 people. They were open on Thanksgiving one year and gave out meals to people who maybe didn’t have a Thanksgiving plan. They were saying, “We’re all in this community, and if anyone is hungry, none of us are fed.” Certain staff members sacrificed some of their own time for this—which is one of the tricky parts, because you don’t want it to turn into, “Oh God, we do so much,” it’s not that—but from an equity perspective, everyone should get dinner on Thanksgiving if that’s your thing.

The library stayed open, worked with a bunch of community organizations and boxed up meals. You could take stuff out. It let the community feel like even if they weren’t necessarily helping directly, they were helping because they supported the library and its funding. You don’t always have to be the person who goes to the thing. Sometimes you can just support that the institution exists and watch them do their good works and say, “I helped. I feel like I’m part of that.”

It's important to be aware of your own power, so that you can wield it in a way that's helpful, especially if you don't like how things are going.

Yeah, totally. So much time and energy is spent on making us feel helpless, so it's really important to remember there are things that you can do.

“That’s the great bridge between journalism and archives, museums, and libraries. We can have the events, we can generate the content. Journalists can… make it more real…”

I told you a little bit about the LA Public Library's oral history project. To me that's related to bringing in knowledge from the community and giving it a new channel. And in LA's case, it's creating more information, more history, that can be used for other research projects. That’s really exciting to me, especially as we see social science programs that used to be funded by the Federal Government be cut. I'm wondering if libraries can pick up some of the slack there. Is that something you're hearing about in library spaces?

That’s kind of what IMLS helps us do. The Institute of Museum and Library Services funds small projects that libraries can do that are theoretically reproducible. A lot of times, the toolkits are released under Creative Commons licenses so other libraries can see how it works and do it.

I do a lot of work on Wikipedia, and one of the things about oral-history projects, like the Los Angeles Public Library’s, or the Schlesinger Library at Harvard—which did the Black Women Oral History project, and Rosa Parks was their big get—is that they don’t just wind up in an archive somewhere. The thing that was so cool about it was that all of that content wound up available online, where it became source material that could become journalism. It can become Wikipedia articles. It can become our commonly held community knowledge and shape how we view ourselves in the larger picture of humanity, as well as helping the Los Angeles community know more Los Angelenos [for example].

Generating primary source documentation is one of the things libraries are really poised to do if they decide to. My library is terribly under-resourced and not really the kind of place that could do that, but bigger libraries can.

The New York Public Library has a huge digital image archive. A lot of their material from before the late 1920s is public domain, and they make that clear when you search it so you know you can share it and get access to it.

At the Flickr Commons, we have millions of photographs, some of which are put online by tiny historical societies or tiny public libraries. They put an open license on it, and suddenly it’s available to the world, searchable on Flickr, Google—and maybe ChatGPT. I don’t know if they [have access] or not. I’m hoping to understand that and fight it at the same time, but right now I’m still mostly fighting.

That’s the great bridge between journalism and archives, museums, and libraries. We can have the events, we can generate the content. Journalists can write about it.

I can almost look out my window and see the home of my newspaper editor, because we still have a local newspaper in my town. It covers 12 towns, and comes out once a week. It’s amazing. If we do something at the library, it can make the paper. That then becomes a thing that is real according to Wikipedia, and it becomes a true fact, not just a neat thing about our community. I don’t mean to say that if you don’t have a local paper, you don’t exist. But finding any kind of local journalism that can take what’s going on in libraries, even the small stuff, and make it more real helps everybody see that we’re all part of [the fight].

We're absolutely stronger together. And I feel that that's true with people in a workplace, but it's also absolutely true with these knowledge institutions, as you call them, in the information ecosystem that is a country.

Absolutely. I really like that—local papers can help their libraries get onto the record, in a way, and become part of the public consciousness. That's a really cool idea.

It doesn't even have to be print newspaper, right? Like, we're seeing ProPublica absolutely just kill it every day with their original reporting, and there's tons of smaller projects that are great. The trick becomes getting good enough to wind up on Wikipedia's list of reliable sources.

When you talk about, “What is the work?,” I see that as sort of part of it—figuring out how to help people talk about what's reliable, and how to know things, and whether you've looked something up and gotten good information. Journalism is part of that, as well as librarianship, in a really kind of day-to-day way.

“…in the government, but for the community…”

You were talking about how a lot of these library services and programs makes [civic participation] accessible to people, which I think is huge. That's part of why things like libraries, museums, zoos are really intriguing to me right now, because they are accessibility-first.

I feel like the reason that it has been so easy for the administration to turn people against universities or whatever is because they're much more elite and non-accessible. So, that accessibility thing is really important. And my theory is that leaning more into that angle of it, and especially through these institutions (I've been calling them bridge institutions), is the way to get that sense of — knowledge is for everyone, you are not limited to scrolling on your phone. There's other ways that you can learn things.

Yeah, and I think learning things through your phone is also important. There’s a sneering tone toward [social media users]. But large groups of online people actually can affect social change. People talk about slacktivism, where you can feel like you’re participating and helping, but all you’re doing is sending memes around. That’s a little bit of a problem. But I try to be positive about any effort people want to put into literally anything, because everyone is struggling, especially now. Even people who support this administration aren’t doing that great, for the most part.

There are climate issues, and international issues ,and things going on in countries we care about personally, or because of our identity groups. I think encouraging people that they can make a difference is important, but so is being specific about what difference is.

Sometimes it’s supporting trans kids in sports on social media. Cool. Trans kids need support. You can’t give them too much support, for Pete’s sake. But if you’re involved in a global community, or an internet community, you should also be familiar with your local community. Local institutions still affect aspects of your life that are geographically bounded, and they’re responsible to you the same way you’re responsible to them.

Like, I think about my water system. We've got a local water department, and that's where our water comes from. It's important to sort of understand that as we're thinking about microplastics, or whatever the thing is, some of that starts with our local water department giving a shit about certain things, and the way to do [make sure they do] is to talk to freaking Chris, who runs it!

Right, we need to know who Chris is.

Yeah, I think that's true for a lot of stuff.

And I think, as a bridge institution, being like, “Let's talk about what your capacity is. Let’s not think about what you can't do, but what you can do.”

Like I said, it's Disability Pride Month. I'm spending a little bit of time finding places where disability and libraries overlap, and finding interesting things that people can learn about, posting them to social media.

Think about taking 5 or 10 minutes out of your social media diet and do a thing that might help raise visibility, raise awareness, help somebody in your neighborhood, talk to Chris, help the library, whatever it is. It has a multiplier effect, and that can be really cool.

You talked earlier about celebrating community in a literal way. And I think that is really important, and something that gets kind of ignored in knowledge spaces—inviting the public in and making it fun, which I think is what zoos and museums do really well. So are there libraries that are throwing actual celebrations, and maybe using that as fundraising, or have you seen anything like that going on?

I mean, a lot of what's happening against libraries isn't about the funding. It's a little bit about the funding, but it's a lot about what kind of books you're allowed to have. And the threat is later funding.

In rural Vermont libraries, each library is individually funded by each town. And that funding happens once a year at a town meeting. People vote 'like, “Yeah, we're gonna fund it,” or “No, we're not gonna.” Along with a lot of other things in town, like the cops and road crew, that kind of thing. But in most states, the state itself funds the libraries.

It's hard to say without sounding like I'm being negative, but I find that libraries are often better at having stuff go on for the people who are already in the building. This is definitely not true across the board, but outreach is often more challenging because, historically, the library's been more about the building. So it's hard to kind of get out from that.

But one of my favorite libraries that has celebrated its community in a way that has always seemed fun to me from a distance is Ann Arbor Public Library in Michigan. Their summer reading program is for everybody in the community, it's not just kids. Ann Arbor turned it into a whole summer reading extravaganza. They’ve had games (both online games and offline games), they have scavenger hunts, they have lots and lots and lots of big events. It's just a whole thing that goes the whole summer, and everything is sort of part of it.

The idea of celebrating the community, you see a lot in Vermont with local libraries, but also local historical societies. The town over from me, Brookfield. 900 people. They've got the Brookfield Old Town Hall, which is basically just what it sounds like. It's right by the floating bridge in one of the most beautiful places in the state. And again, in the summertime, they're doing something there every weekend, or it feels like every weekend.

But you don't just want to hang a sign out that says, “This is an excuse for the community to get together,” but honestly, it is an excuse for the community to get together. The more we see our neighbors as part of the same ecosystem that sustains us, the more we want to help them the way we would want to help ourselves. It's weird, because you almost have to not say it in order to be able to do it effectively. That's part of the interesting subtlety about working in the government, but for the community, that makes the work so interesting. To me, at least.

Yeah, that is really interesting. “Working in the government, but for the community.” I feel like I've heard that sentiment a lot, just not expressed like that.

I mean, I think about the people that work for the National Parks, right? They love those jobs, and yet they have to struggle with the fact that their paycheck comes from people who really would prefer less access to the parks. It's tricky.

I think in general, a lot of government mostly works. But what we've been seeing, especially in the last 10 years, is the way people who don't care about the rules can make it work for them at the expense of other people. It is weird—a lot of people who work in government are well-meaning bureaucrats who just want to help people.

My partner has an adult son who deals with serious mental health challenges. And the Department of Mental Health, who is the government, and Social Security, who is the government, and the people who do food stamps, who is the government, have been incredibly helpful, and kind, and giving of themselves and their time. I want to see more of them—more of these people, less of these idiots. And I think the question a lot of people have is, “Well, how do we do that, and where do we start?”

Yeah, what would be your answer to that?

I mean, getting to know your neighbors, getting to know your community, figuring out what your capacity is, figuring out what you can give.

This guy in my town who we're trying to have become a local representative to the state legislature, he doesn't have a lot of time to do it, but he has more time than me. So he's the guy to suck it up and go to meetings with people. But there are a lot of ways to work the ground game, right? Get on your school board, get on your library board. We are seeing small bits of incremental change in a positive way in smaller areas.

And no rest for bad politicians who are supporting unsupportable ideas, but not in a way where you're just angry on the internet. Let's say, we've got a local guy running for a local office who holds some really bad opinions, and when it's time to vote, we're gonna talk about those bad opinions. Not being a jerk about it, being tactical, so that you can be like, “So-and-so supports this bad opinion, he should probably have to answer for that. Maybe you don't agree with that anymore? Fine! Now's your chance to let us know.”

I like that. It can feel like there's nothing we can really do on the national level, at this particular moment. But like you said, it's time to work the ground game, then, because there are things you can do locally.

“We could run with less—a lot less. We would prefer not to, we shouldn’t have to. But we did it before, without you.”

You were saying IMLS is what funded a lot of the extra record-creating projects. Do you think this reliance on centralized government, on stuff like the IMLS, is that ultimately a weakness?

We didn’t have IMLS for a long time, and we found ways to make it work.

I have friends who work for IMLS, and I hope they continue to exist and fund stuff. I mean, it's a little awkward watching them pushing propaganda machine kind of stuff—not my friends, but the larger organization.

What IMLS does is allow for focus. In general, libraries are generalists. We try to get information to people in the ways we always have. IMLS can allow groups of people, either within libraries or museums or whatever, to focus on a thing. The Library Freedom Project, for example, can focus on privacy and helping people take control of their digital lives in a way that might not happen if people didn’t have the time, resources or ability to get together. That has been a great strength of IMLS, and I’m a huge supporter of IMLS.

But my other feeling is: What else you got? Libraries have always been mutual aid societies. We could run with less—a lot less. We would prefer not to, we shouldn’t have to. But we did it before, without you. If you take that away, we’ll still be able to do what we’re doing.

The digital information sphere makes that more difficult, because we have to rent and not own as much of the content as we used to. But I don’t think there has been reliance on IMLS as much as its addition to the ecosystem allowed us to do more and do it better. I think it's necessary for me, in the world that I want to live in, but I don't think it's keeping the lights on.

My concerns are stuff like E-rate, because, if a library has to suddenly start paying full price for its internet to serve a community dealing with institutionalized poverty, that's gonna be a bigger blow than [losing IMLS funding].

I do think libraries have always been mutual aid machines, and that's not changing, it's just gonna be a lot more of a hassle. I mean, American Library Association is seeing some of these struggles. State library associations are being forced to not align with the American Library Association because of a couple really damaging narratives that really terrible people have pushed about what kind of an organization the American Library Association is, which are completely false. But it's hard to combat those narratives.

So I think the bigger concern is not so much the centralized money and support of programs that IMLS has, but the centralized idea of knowledge and information. We’re seeing fewer and fewer media outlets. We’re seeing more and more people take lockstep ideas from terrible people. And we’re seeing consolidation in how we do other things.

There’s the Amazonification of commerce. I’m lucky I can go to a local hardware store. I’ve got local stores I can interact with, or a small bank. But I used to have a small department store where I could buy a pair of socks in town, and I don’t have that anymore. The consolidation of where I can get my stuff, where the people who sell the stuff can get their stuff, and who’s getting squeezed in order to make more money for whom—I think that is even more dangerous than some of the library support ecosystem.

I haven’t talked about this much, but capitalism run amok is one of the overarching problems. Capitalism run amok, Christofascists running amok, and white nationalists running amok. It’s all the same group of people. They’re getting us mad about the wrong things so that we don’t focus on the fact that they’re just people, and people can either change or not be in power anymore.

In your dream scenario, what does the future of libraries look like?

Libraries get funded like the important social infrastructure that they are. They are not interfered with by other people who think they know how to do our jobs better than we do.

They are a huge distributed network of information, helping everyone get access to all the information they want. They have clean, gender-neutral bathrooms, Wi-Fi, heat in the winter and coolness in the summer. We’re powerful and appreciated for doing the good work that we’ve been doing in this country, since this country was a country.