Overdue 2x6l1w

ebook ∣ Reckoning with the Public Library 127d

By Amanda Oliver x6e5u

cover image of Overdue

Sign up to save your library 5u2t15

With an OverDrive , you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive s.

   Not today

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

 Libby on the App Store  Libby on Google Play

Search for a digital library with this title 3t1nj

Title found at these libraries: 5x1614

Library Name Distance
Loading...
"One part love letter, one part eulogy, Overdue tells the story of America's public library system . . . Amanda Oliver proves herself a vibrant new literary voice . . . This is a book for all book lovers." —Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
When Amanda Oliver began work as a school librarian, fueled by a lifelong love of books and a desire to help, she felt qualified for the job. What she learned was that librarians are expected to serve as mediators and mental-health-crisis professionals, customer service reps and s of overdose treatment, fierce loyalists to institutionalized mythology and enforced silence, and arms of state surveillance.
Based on firsthand experiences from six years of professional work as a librarian in high-poverty neighborhoods of Washington, DC, as well as interviews and research, Overdue begins with Oliver's first day at Northwest One, the DC Public Library branch where she would ultimately end her library career.
Through her experience at this branch, Oliver highlights the national problems that have existed in libraries since they were founded, troublingly at odds with the common romanticization of the library as a shining beacon of equality: racism, segregation, and economic oppression. These fundamental American problems manifest today as police violence, the opioid epidemic, widespread inaccessibility of affordable housing, and a lack of mental health care nationwide—all of which come to a head in public library spaces.
Can public librarians continue to play the many roles they are tasked with? Can American society sustain one of its most noble institutions?
Libraries will not save us, but Oliver helps us imagine what might be possible if we stop expecting them to.
Overdue