Three Faces of E

Reading the identity articles this week reminded me of an earlier dialogue our class had about our function and identity as librarians. It was the week we discussed V for Vendetta. Myself and a few other students were appalled by the violence and questioned the book’s suitability for teen readers. Keri-Ann and I realized we felt especially repulsed because we are parents of young children. I can only paraphrase what Linda said at the time, but it was something along the lines of: “It shouldn’t matter that you are a parent when providing library services to teens. At that point you are a librarian.” And I can see this comment in the context of the all the multiple identities that we all have throughout the day as described in the "Face in the Mirror, the Person on the Page"piece:

“When I turn from a conversation with a faculty colleague and open the door of my classroom, I reconstruct my identity as a teacher. (The people in the classroom are, in turn, performing for me their identities as my students.) Consequently, I have not a single identity but multiple shifting identities determined by culture and context, and they are sometimes in conflict with one another.”

I like so much in this passage. The first two sentences comfort me, because I realize that being a librarian, having that identity will be in part shaped by the patrons I interact with. Me, the parent/wife/mayor of happy town (my three main identities) will shift into the librarian identity and create a wholly new persona/subset of myself.

I’ve been troubled by thinking I need to marginalize or negate parts of who I am in order to be a good librarian. I cannot change the parts of myself that do not seem to correspond to being a librarian. Reading the last sentence in this passage, realizing that identities will conflict comforts me. It’s better to have them conflict than be forced to disappear – because I don’t think that’s possible.