It’s both fascinating and frustrating to see the differences between 2021 and 2022 and how the topic of needs are mostly the same; the pandemic and censorship.  In a ‘logical’ way, one would think that censorship wouldn’t even be an issue and that the deadly pandemic would be at the forefront of all library concerns, but instead all eyes are on censorship.  We see battles being waged in libraries on two fronts:  health and censorship.  One more physical, the other more existential, but both incredibly important.

In our rural system there was never as much of a ‘rush’ about the pandemic, not as much as I felt there should have been.  Our library was closed for a time, and we pivoted to online activities and curbside services, but the main reason that our libraries were closed was because of staffing.  During the pandemic, our Emergency Operations Center was active, and the library staff was behind the citizen information call lines so there wasn’t as much staff to run the libraries.  Because of this, as soon as the EOC was closed, all libraries were open.  We pushed for some common-sense safety protocols, but in the end many of our staff faced harassment from patrons for things like constant cleaning or wearing face coverings.

On the other hand, censorship is something our small libraries haven’t have much issue with.  Occasionally a book is picked out here or there to be questioned, but there are very few formal challenges or complaints.  Often our complaints are more about decorations; concern about sugar skulls for Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations, complaints about displays of LGBT books, someone drawing an infamous anti-Semitic moustache on a Women’s History Month picture of Ruth Ginsberg.  In some ways I find it worse, because banning a book is bad but banning an entire population is damaging beyond words.