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Self-indulgent kvetching
Oct. 21st, 2009 10:01 amI am procrastinating my job hunt this morning and made the mistake of reading my latest yalsa-bk listserv email. For the last year I've mostly been deleting these emails unread.
It astonishes me to think back to library school and recall that I praised yalsa-bk and criticized pubyac because of how much philosophical conversation there was on yalsa-bk and how restricted to the practical as opposed to the ideological pubyac was.
Now, after working in public libraries for three years, I have actually gained benefit for myself and patrons through the pubyac community more often than the yalsa-bk one, though I suspect that yalsa-bk has more value to non-librarian book people.
But reading yalsa-bk always depresses me, and was one of the factors that began to convince me I could not have a future as a young adult librarian. The most vocal, frequent posters on that email list have ideological values vastly different than mine. The reification of "young adult" as a concept and category is disturbing to me. The many posters who feel that teens should only read books published specifically for teens dismay me. The spirit of Margaret Edwards, who saw service to young adults as a way to support them in their transition from restricted children's reading to unrestricted adult reading, seems to me to be honored in the breach more than in the observance.
Young adult library work seems to be in many ways a lightning rod for both external and self-created censorship. Luminaries in the field often seem to note that such and such a work is inappropriate for children, teens, or young adults, while others constantly want to extend the boundaries of young adult service upward - to people in their mid 20s! Pfah, pfeh, ptui.
It astonishes me to think back to library school and recall that I praised yalsa-bk and criticized pubyac because of how much philosophical conversation there was on yalsa-bk and how restricted to the practical as opposed to the ideological pubyac was.
Now, after working in public libraries for three years, I have actually gained benefit for myself and patrons through the pubyac community more often than the yalsa-bk one, though I suspect that yalsa-bk has more value to non-librarian book people.
But reading yalsa-bk always depresses me, and was one of the factors that began to convince me I could not have a future as a young adult librarian. The most vocal, frequent posters on that email list have ideological values vastly different than mine. The reification of "young adult" as a concept and category is disturbing to me. The many posters who feel that teens should only read books published specifically for teens dismay me. The spirit of Margaret Edwards, who saw service to young adults as a way to support them in their transition from restricted children's reading to unrestricted adult reading, seems to me to be honored in the breach more than in the observance.
Young adult library work seems to be in many ways a lightning rod for both external and self-created censorship. Luminaries in the field often seem to note that such and such a work is inappropriate for children, teens, or young adults, while others constantly want to extend the boundaries of young adult service upward - to people in their mid 20s! Pfah, pfeh, ptui.
