Overdue: reckoning with the public library

When Oliver began work as a school librarian she felt qualified for the job. What she learned was that librarians are expected to serve as mediators and mental-health-crisis-support professionals, customer service reps and administrators of overdose treatment, fierce loyalists to institutionalized mythology and enforced silence, and arms of state surveillance. Here she highlights the national problems that have existed in library since they were founded: racism, segregation, and economic oppression. Libraries may not save us, but Oliver helps us imaging what might be possible if we stop expecting them to. -- adapted from jacket