Name: Overdue
ISBN: 9781641605311

Amanda Oliver

Who are libraries for, how have they evolved, and why do they fill so many roles in our society today? A librarian for most of her adulthood, Amanda Oliver saw firsthand how libraries across a single city can differ. Librarians in one could be administering Narcan to an overdosing patron while across town a couple meets for a first date at a renovated library rooftop café. Overdue explores the questions of how libraries are currently used and how they serve our communities. Based on firsthand experiences from six years of professional work as a public librarian in high-poverty neighborhoods of Washington, DC, as well as interviews and research, Overdue begins with Oliver's first day at an "unusual" branch: Northwest One. Using her experience at this branch allows Oliver to highlight the national problems that have existed in libraries since they were founded: racism, segregation, and class inequalities. These age-old problems have evolved into police violence, the opioid epidemic, rampant homelessness, and lack of mental health care. Can public librarians continue to play the many roles they are tasked with? Can American society sustain one of its most noble institutions?

Reckoning with the Public Library

Overdue

I’m conflicted by this book. On one hand, it’s supremely good at showing what burnout in librarianship can look like, particularly in large cities. Libraries are being asked to shoulder an enormous burden that’s only getting larger, without getting the support it needs to do so. It’s no wonder that librarians everywhere are experiencing a great deal of burnout and disillusionment with the field they started in, and it’s unfair of other librarians to shame them for doing so. I thought a lot of points the author brings up about the unhoused and the constant struggle between helping them where they need it most and being unable to do so from a lack of funding, training, or general inability were great points. I remember this topic coming up oh-so-briefly during my own MLIS experience, and I think it gets glossed over entirely too much for up-and-coming graduates to get a real sense of the full picture. 

On the other hand, though, as a book and a narrative carrying a cohesive thread, this book falls flat. The thought thread from one chapter rarely carried over into the next, and so I had a hard time figuring out where this book hangs out. It talks about the history of librarianship–is it a history book? It talks about the author’s personal experiences at Northwest One in DC–is it a memoir? It segues into the lack of support for the unhoused, drug abuse, violence within the community, and general crime within libraries–is it a social sciences thought piece? It meanders into the evils of social media, the lack of information literacy, the unaddressed racial issues everywhere–is it an op ed? I don’t know, and I can’t tell you either. There’s good points everywhere in this book, but I don’t think the author carried any one of them very far before hopping to the next. It gave the book kind of a disorganized feel. I also felt like the author, with her nine months spent in an actual library setting at Northwest One, maybe isn’t the best voice for speaking about how it is everywhere. She undoubtedly experienced more than any one of us can say, as I know I haven’t gotten PTSD from working at my library for six years, but I hate when people paint issues like these with broad strokes. It’s rarely accurate for anywhere outside of your own experience. 

All that said, it’s clear the author cares deeply about these issues, and they’re real topics that need to be addressed for libraries to continue doing what they do for the public, for free. Resources are not infinite, and libraries need support from the community in order to keep their doors open. 

Vote local, support your local libraries.

altlovesbooks

I’m conflicted by this book. On one hand, it’s supremely good at showing what burnout in librarianship can look like, particularly in large cities. Libraries are being asked to shoulder an enormous burden that’s only getting larger, without getting the support it needs to do so. It’s no wonder that librarians everywhere are experiencing a great deal of burnout and disillusionment with the field they started in, and it’s unfair of other librarians to shame them for doing so. I thought a lot of points the author brings up about the unhoused and the constant struggle between helping them where they need it most and being unable to do so from a lack of funding, training, or general inability were great points. I remember this topic coming up oh-so-briefly during my own MLIS experience, and I think it gets glossed over entirely too much for up-and-coming graduates to get a real sense of the full picture. 

On the other hand, though, as a book and a narrative carrying a cohesive thread, this book falls flat. The thought thread from one chapter rarely carried over into the next, and so I had a hard time figuring out where this book hangs out. It talks about the history of librarianship–is it a history book? It talks about the author’s personal experiences at Northwest One in DC–is it a memoir? It segues into the lack of support for the unhoused, drug abuse, violence within the community, and general crime within libraries–is it a social sciences thought piece? It meanders into the evils of social media, the lack of information literacy, the unaddressed racial issues everywhere–is it an op ed? I don’t know, and I can’t tell you either. There’s good points everywhere in this book, but I don’t think the author carried any one of them very far before hopping to the next. It gave the book kind of a disorganized feel. I also felt like the author, with her nine months spent in an actual library setting at Northwest One, maybe isn’t the best voice for speaking about how it is everywhere. She undoubtedly experienced more than any one of us can say, as I know I haven’t gotten PTSD from working at my library for six years, but I hate when people paint issues like these with broad strokes. It’s rarely accurate for anywhere outside of your own experience. 

All that said, it’s clear the author cares deeply about these issues, and they’re real topics that need to be addressed for libraries to continue doing what they do for the public, for free. Resources are not infinite, and libraries need support from the community in order to keep their doors open. 

Vote local, support your local libraries.

I remember when I realized that systemic bias existed and how it operated. I was 18. I didn’t write a book about it. This isn’t a book about libraries. It’s one person’s memoir of briefly working as a librarian. How brief isn’t entirely clear; nine months in a DC public library branch (which makes up the largest part of the book), some time as an elementary school librarian, at one point a claim of “almost a decade,” but it’s all pretty fuzzy. Much of what she says about being a librarian boils down to “this isn’t what I was trained to do and not the part of the job I wanted to be doing.” The same could be said by school teachers, clergy, lawyers, therapists, and many many more professional identities. Rather than explore the idea of a library and what a library could/should be, the book boils down to one person’s experience. She alternates wildly between hope and despair, between libraries good and libraries are doomed. I was most struck by the absence of the voices closest to her experience. She tells some of the stories of her colleagues, but does not include them directly. She does the same with library patrons. I can appreciate not making claim to being a voice for the voiceless, as she does, but be a damn megaphone. None of them are writing books, so interview them, quote them, get their side of things. Forget being a book about libraries, this isn’t even a book about a library branch, just one person who worked in it with her very limited and suddenly-less-naive perspective. 

Sophia Geron

Amanda Oliver thoughtfully examines the way public libraries are used in America and how we romanticize them. Based on her real life experience working in DC Public Libraries and thorough research, she shares how libraries are spaces unhoused and marginalized groups depend on. While she has since left library work, Amanda realized she was in a place to share her research and experiences to bring awareness to how public libraries are not just places for people to find books and use the printer, but also places people depend on for basic care, day shelters, and other resources. There are times where librarians and library staff feel unsafe, where they have to document incidents with patrons, and be empathetic to the many, many patrons they encounter but can only help so much. I found this book thought-provoking and will return to it again and again, to examine how we might move forward in a public library setting.

Overdue Reckoning with the Public Library

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