Hi all. I'm having some big feels today and I thought, who better to commiserate with than Boundlings?

I work for a small public library in the US. We have been fighting our governing body on a monthly basis, begging them not to cut our funding, but last night our luck finally ran out. We will be losing roughly 1/3 of our total budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

As is the case in many other libraries worldwide, we're already operating on the thinnest margin possible, so bearing the brunt of such a sweeping reduction is going to HURT. Our staff members are underpaid and don't have benefits, our building hasn't been renovated in something like 60 years, and we don't have nearly enough space or money to consistently serve our patrons/community in the ways they deserve.

I'm not really going anywhere important with this thread - I just feel extremely disheartened, scared, and annoyed. An alarming percentage of the general public is functionally illiterate and you're eliminating LIBRARY FUNDING as your first line of defense?! What a world.......................

I'm a public librarian and soooo much of my life outside of libraries is being surprised and disappointed with how bad libraries are at promoting themselves to both non-users and even regular patrons! I thought it could be fun to have a little post where I could try to answer any questions you've had about public libraries or librarianship (other librarians please pipe in! I don't know everything!)

Ask away! No stupid questions!

I’ve really got into literary fiction (I think that’s the genre) this year and I’m wanting to explore it more.

My latest examples are The Lion Women of Tehran (Thankyou readalong) Deviants — Santanu Bhattacharya Wild Swans - Jung Chang (not a lit fic but this memoir vibe I’ll also take) Sunburn - Chloe Michelle-Howarth A Tale for the Time Being (again Thankyou PB)

And obviously A Thousand Splendid Suns & The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (the OGs for me that got me into this rabbit hole)

Essentially I’m after books that feel life changing because of how rooted they are in human connection. Just books that break you and heal you at the same time?

My three faves out of the above are Deviants that as a queer person was just unlike anything I’ve read and truly felt so honest.

A Tale for the Time Being - for any other weirdo girls (or other!) that have had a long battle with MH this truly spoke to me and at the end my age aligns up with one of the characters, truly had me sobbing in comfort that actually maybe I am okay now and happy!

A Thousand Splendid suns - to me a classic for a reason and made me feels closer to women in general (which I love), I’ll talk about it till I’m dead!

I'm a public librarian and soooo much of my life outside of libraries is being surprised and disappointed with how bad libraries are at promoting themselves to both non-users and even regular patrons! I thought it could be fun to have a little post where I could try to answer any questions you've had about public libraries or librarianship (other librarians please pipe in! I don't know everything!)

Ask away! No stupid questions!

I have only ever sobbed over one book - 'The Book Thief'. I'm not even too sure why it destroyed me that much but I sat on the public bus and cried my little heart out. I wish to feel this again. Did anyone react the same way to this book and any recs for more books to do the same ?