Helpful Self-Help

Remember when you became a "tween" it was suddenly "uncool" to hang around in the children's section of the library? You wanted to show everyone you were grownup, so you went to the teen or adult sections but you secretly yearned for Clifford the Big Red Dog or the tales of Beatrix Potter's animals.

Okay, maybe I was among the few who went through such an experience, but a number of adults today feel a little uncool going to the self-help section of the library. I can spot those patrons: walking around other sections first, then casually, nonchalantly making their way to the self-help books, trying to peek discreetly about them to make sure that no one is paying attention to what they're looking at.

I say there is no stigma about reading self-help books.  Once again, THERE IS NO STIGMA ABOUT SELF-HELP BOOKS.  Libraries are places to obtain all kinds of information and resources. 

Those of us working at libraries are non-judgmental about the materials you seek and check out.  Really.  As a librarian, my job is to help you find whatever information you want; I'm not here to judge or ask you what you're going to do with that information.  That's none of my business.  And as a librarian, it's part of my job to keep your questions and your checkouts private.  That means I'm not going to go babbling to your neighbors, co-workers, or whoever else about what you were looking up in the library.

So come on down to the library and unabashedly look up and check out those self-help books!  Some of my pics: Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement along with Sharon Salzberg's Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation.

Breathing in...breathing out...from the perch.