I´ve always gravitated to the public sector: libraries, museums, non-profit organizations. In other words, I seem to be inexplicably drawn to groups that don´t have much money, that struggle to bring their information or services to the public, and that stay open by sheer grit and determination.

There´s something exhilarating about it. These places are here because a core group of dedicated individuals believes whole-heartedly in the importance of what they´re doing. These are people who feel that civilization itself is in jeopardy, should their collections and stories and mandates not be protected. People who work in museums and libraries don´t do it for the money – they do it because they´re passionate about words, stories and history. God knows, no one ever entered Library Studies for the millions.

I´ve often wondered if the general public knows how difficult it is to fund these repositories of history and words. I once had a library patron demand to know why we bothered to charge fines for late books. "I mean, what do you need money for, anyways?!?!" she screamed.

"Well," I replied, very calmly, because shhh! This is a library! "The money goes towards replacing books and fixing books. Also, the lights, the electricity, repairing broken equipment, that sort of thing. Bills. Rent. Children´s reading programs."

Once I clarified for her that, yes, libraries do have to pay for things and do not exist in a magical wonderland where items are free, she handed over her 25 cents. It never ceased to amazed me, how people with tiny late fines would fight like cornered badgers, but people with staggeringly huge late fines – the largest I ever saw was over $650.00 – would pay without complaint. In fact, the guy who paid that big fine even paid happily, exuberantly, with a smile on his face.

Now, I don´t mean to say that everyone fought their fines, but it has been my experience that that the ones who fought the hardest owed less than a dollar. One woman screamed at me that I would suffer in the fires of Hell because she owed 35 cents; yeah, I´m still trying to figure out her logic. She howled and howled, her eyes wild, jabbing her finger at me and telling everyone in the library that I was an unreasonable demon and would burn burn burn for my greed and avarice ... and I, standing behind the desk, a copy of Captain Underpants in hand, thought, "Who, me?"

Yes, I suppose, I am unreasonable. I want everyone to love libraries and museums as much as I do. I want everyone to see how their value to our communities transcends money, and that they’re worth more than any amount of gold. And when a patron starts to fight their fine, I console myself with the fact that I can fight just as hard – maybe even harder. Librarians and curators are tenacious and steel-spined; they have to be, if they want their organization to survive. Okay, granted, it would be nice for libraries and museums to have unlimited resources at their disposal to complete projects, to update the archives, to buy books and to ... dare I imagine?... have a coffeemaker that actually works, but it wouldn´t be the same. It would make us complacent. It would make us soft. Like so many cornerstone organizations of literacy and learning, those of us who work in libraries and museums will just have to devise creative ways to thrive.

– K. Bannerman, British Columbia

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