THANKS | 13- Thank you Lord, for librarians

I have shared here my appreciation for books/reading/and literacy. And I have been grateful here for teachers. But someone all of us really ought to thank God for are truly unsung heroes. People we often think of as quiet, meek, maybe eve superfluous. Some of whom we might judge as petty tyrants for shhushing us to be quiet or stereotype as unassuming spinsters. But these are people who are the bulwarks of democracy. No one has been too worried about the demise of their profession as we have for print newspapers- but between the advent of the digital age and the resurgence of the anti-intellectual, anti-government, rugged-individualism movement, their time is surely limited.

I am talking of course of librarians.

"I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their strength, their powerful political connections or great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."

~Kurt Vonnegut

Thank you God for public libraries and for librarians, long may they shush us.