01909cam a2200313 4500 574967907 TxAuBib 20220707120000.0 210618s2022||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2021948373 9781641605311 1641605316 TxAuBib Oliver, Amanda. Overdue : reckoning with the public library / Amanda Oliver. Reckoning with the public library. Chicago : Chicago Review Press, [2022] ©2022. xiv, 210 pages ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Becoming. Northwest one ; Omnium lux civium ; So, what do you do? ; The library from "l" -- Empathy. Can you help me? ; Cold mercy ; For whom ; Burning out -- Reckoning. An education ; Libraries will (not) save us ; Multiphrenia ; The future of the American public library. When Oliver began work as a school librarian she felt qualified for the job. What she learned was that librarians are expected to serve as mediators and mental-health-crisis-support professionals, customer service reps and administrators of overdose treatment, fierce loyalists to institutionalized mythology and enforced silence, and arms of state surveillance. Here she highlights the national problems that have existed in library since they were founded: racism, segregation, and economic oppression. Libraries may not save us, but Oliver helps us imaging what might be possible if we stop expecting them to. -- adapted from jacket. 20220707. Oliver, Amanda (Librarian.) Public librarians Biography. Public libraries Political aspects. Public libraries Social aspects. Public libraries United States.