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Will probably delete this, and speak only (as ever) for myself, but: Dear cherished academic colleagues: could you please stop using "love" and the "love letter" when you talk about the work of librarians and libraries?
This just reinforces the stereotype of library work as the labor of love, not financially or politically valued, not essential, difficult or contested work. In a historically "pink" profession, this is just one more marker of devaluation.
Fobazi Ettarh discusses the political shackles of vocational awe within the library profession: http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/. The economy of love seems to me to be just as debilitating in our relationship with colleagues outside the library.
As one example: when you say "love," I hear: invisible labor. Or: handmaiden. Or: why would I co-credit you. Or: if you say no to me I'll be outraged and/or complain about you to your supervisor.
And it's frankly a little weird to be writing this bc you're all fantastic critical readers--and let's face it, the love letter is just a strange, even creepy genre to use with colleagues. Among other things, that's bc it describes an uncomfortable imbalance of power, which you
would almost certainly notice and point out in other circumstances. Also, while we're speaking frankly, the insufferable egotism of it: are your library colleagues seriously meant to value their work on the strength of your love, taken in whatever weird sense it's intended?
But let me get to my point: the problem (beyond the power imbalance, injustice, and egotistical disrespect) is that we all (academics and librarians) actually really care about the political work of libraries. Framing libraries as "labors of love" distracts from the pressing
political issues of how and by whom collections are owned, described, accessed, published from, and preserved. We may or may not all love each other, but we're all in the same catastrophic hive collapse of the humanities, and I can guarantee you that while you
talk about love, and loving (or being disappointed by) your library or librarian, the librarians you work with are doing the same gritty behind-the-scenes work that you are to try to correct the political structures of the institutions we've all inherited--and they're doing this
in the terms of institutional power, which have eff all to do with love: funding, staffing, contracts, hiring, procedures, oversight, and administrative reporting lines. So, no: I'm not asking you to do the work of the library as well as your own, because frankly there's a lot
you'll never know about library work--and that goes both ways, of course. But: before you get up and talk about loving your library, ask yourself if you're thinking about libraries in the same way as all those
men who credit their wives as typists did in their acknowledgements. And then ask yourself what you think they should have done instead, to correct or at least not participate in that political system. My hunch is that
you'll have at least a few ideas--I know I do--and that many of those could also be applied to our common work, librarians and academics, as stewards of the humanities. Yours respectfully, &c.
