Philosophy 

     My philosophy of librarianship is simple. I believe in every child having a safe place, and a place to fall in love with reading. I want every child I teach to have a place to relax, to escape from their troubles, and to explore their own fantasy worlds. Or their science-fiction worlds! I believe that everyone should have a safe place, be it in the library, in a classroom, or even an amusement park! I have found my safe places, in all three of those places! In Emily Ford’s article, “What Do We Do, and Why Do We Do It?”, she goes into detail about how important it is for a librarian to have a concrete philosophy. She speaks on many things, including value vs philosophy. She questioned philosophy, saying “Naturally, questions of philosophy delve deeper into meaning than the question of what value libraries bring to communities and what are librarianship’s shared principles.” (Ford, 2012) Naturally, I found myself contemplating this question as I was thinking about my own philosophy, and I found my answer. Despite what value I have as an elementary school librarian, or a high school librarian, I haven’t decided yet, my philosophy as a librarian is very important to decide upon! 

      In my library, all children will be as safe as they can be in my care. They will always have the choice to read whatever they want. Sure, I may give strange looks to teenagers checking out IT, by Stephen King, a book I’ve never been able to finish because it gave me nightmares; but I’ll never tell them that they cannot read a book. The only way I might tell a student ‘no’, is if they choose a book that would be way out of their reading level, and they couldn’t physically read it yet! I would most likely tell them to save the book for a later date, and I wouldn’t get rid of it until they read it! In “The Top Ten Reasons to Be a Librarian, by Martha J. Spear, she tells us ten reasons why she became a librarian. The last one, the tenth, I felt was the most important reason of all: The Freedom to Read. Ms. Spear says this, “As librarians, we support the freedom to read. We champion the right to access information for all people, regardless of race, creed, religion, or economic disposition.” (Spear, 2002)

      In conclusion, I have no idea what I’m doing. YET! I’m learning so much in these classes, and I’m so excited to see what comes of this! I’m so excited to be a librarian one day, and to grow my philosophy as I learn more! 

​

References

Ford, E. (n.d.). What do we do, and Why do we do it? In The Library With The Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2012/what-do-we-do-and-why-do-we-do-it/

Spear, M. J. (n.d.). The Top 10 Reasons to Be a Librarian. American Library Association. Retrieved August 13, 2026, from https://www.ala.org/educationcareers/careers/paths/top10reasons