Jessica Zellers: Hi everyone! One *extremely meaningful* thing you can do to fight back is to join library boards. Usually this is an appointed position, not elected. The time commitment for most public library board members is 1-2 hours monthly. I'm a former library director. Ask me anything.

This is one of the most dystopian signs I've ever seen. Republicans are quickly turning this country into an unrecognizable freakshow.

Hi everyone! One *extremely meaningful* thing you can do to fight back is to join library boards. Usually this is an appointed position, not elected. The time commitment for most public library board members is 1-2 hours monthly. I'm a former library director. Ask me anything.

And to tag on to this: For the People is a great group looking to help get left-wing people involved with their local library via joining boards or other meaningful supports! www.librariesforthepeople.org (full disclosure, I volunteer w/them)

For The Peoplewww.librariesforthepeople.org

Thank you for the link! and thank you for volunteering with them ❤️

I LOVE being on my local library board! I get to stay in touch with what is going on in my county, help set policy, and work with others to keep our library spaces fun and engaging! My appointment is a 3 year term (I'm just over halfway through). I was appointed my my county commissioner.

Thank you for doing that work. ❤️

Absolutely! I am honored! If people have questions, I am also happy to answer to the best of my ability.

What are some of your suggestions for getting appointed? (Deleted my previous reply because it was too specific and negative)

If you mean the mechanics of it, that's probably on the County website. If you mean the politics of it, that's harder. If I were you, I'd contact a county commissioner, explaining that I wanted to serve the community by joining the library board. Often they struggle to find willing volunteers.

Didn’t even realize libraries had boards. Thanks! I assume you can only volunteer for your town, not any library in the county?

There are residency requirements, but often (not always!) the different libraries in a city or county are all branches of a larger library. One board serves the whole system, not each individual branch. Friends of the Library (less politically active but important) are commonly branch specific

Oh thank you! I’ll look into it! We’re a small dense county with lots of towns and libraries sometimes within 3-4mi of one another, so that would make sense for us!

Heck yeah! I'm delighted you're going to look into it!

Next election I am running for Library Board. They rarely have enough candidates to fill the open seats. My local library is essentially rural, covering a few towns.

Thank you, thank you, thank you ❤️

What skills or interests are most useful for someone in this role?

Professional skills are always in demand. Leadership/management; math and accounting; editing and writing; project management; administration; communication; art and design... Anything that will help you set policy and goals for a cultural institution. Though 1/

People who want to volunteer at the library because they love books and helping others -- they have a role too, and that's with the Friends of the Library. That's still important to helping libraries meet their goal. But that's a less direct path to stopping right-wing takeovers

Very useful thank you! I'm a professor who does some of that for a living but I was never quite sure if I had the necessary skills to be useful in this type of role. I may start with friends of the library work.

If you have gone through the academic rigor necessary to become a professor, I *promise* you have skills and perspectives that will benefit any library board. Plus also I just stalked your profile and I think you should join one if you can. Friends of the Library is a great to start with though.

Lol it's because of all my love for romance books isn't it? Ok! I'll look into what the process is in my area.

What steps can the average person take to become an active participant in library education and the dissemination of written material, especially things like banned books?

Start here!

Unite Against Book Bansuniteagainstbookbans.org We should trust individuals to make their own decisions. Raise your voice for everyone's freedom to read. #UniteAgainstBookBans

Praxis. ✊

Who do I contact to get involved? Is there a position/director (Im in Toronto Canada)

The info might be on the website of your municipality. If not, ask at the library.

City Council makes citizen appointments to agencies, boards and commissions, including Toronto Public Library Board. www.toronto.ca/community-pe....

Public Appointmentswww.toronto.ca Local residents are needed to sit on a range of City boards, committees and tribunals. Bring your skills and experience to the table and make a difference in your community. View the Opportunities Upc...

Thank you!!!

what does being on a library board entail,... and what's the most common negative experience? 👀

Setting policy is the big one. Approving library expenses and budget. Supervising the director. Negative experiences might include an under-performing director; deciding what to do after the library basement floods; setting mask policies. *Usually* there's not much drama. Usually.

wait, whst does "supervising the director" mean?

Performance review, hiring, discipline, firing. In a public library, you *do not* want the director reporting to one individual in the government. Freedom of information, freedom to read: you don't want that under the control of one dude at city hall. Hence reporting to a representational board.

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