Examining and analyzing the librarians in The Simpsons

An elderly librarian asks Homer Simpson to leave the library in “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace”, questioning whether he is a “valid” patron

As I wrote about back February 2021, libraries appear repeatedly in The Simpsons, time and again. Instead of covering the episodes I mentioned in that post, [1] I’d like to focus on the librarians within the series, then later about the libraries in the series. There are at least fourteen librarians shown in the course of the series, and even more if some librarians are counted as different characters.

In “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace”, Homer reads about Thomas Edison at the Springfield Elementary School library because they won’t let him in the “big people library” in downtown Springfield because of some “unpleasantness.” The school librarian, an elderly White lady, asks him if he is a student at the school, and he says yes. She undoubtedly kicks him out after that. She questions whether he is a valid patron, which is understandable, but it would have made more sense to have him go about his business in the library instead.

The same librarian appears again in “Brother’s Little Helper”, where she almost gets run over by Bart’s tank. In another episode, “Sweets and Sour Marge” there is a book sale at the Old Springfield Library, the main library in Springfield which apparently has a “serious bat problem in the filing cabinets,” and has old books like calendars and diaries. It is often visited by Lisa. In that episode, Homer mocks the library selling books, asking why he would want to buy books from the library. Comic Book Guy buys books on Spock and Scotty, Nick Rivera reads a book about human anatomy entitled Grey’s Anatomy, and Lisa buys a cart full of books, saying she has to “save” them after Marge tells her she can’t buy more than her weight in books. There is even a scene after this of the aforementioned librarian feeding chopping up books and feeding them to pigs, ha. No books are sacred here.

The episode also features another unnamed librarian who is working at the cash register and looks much more formal and proper than the above librarian. Marge convinces Homer to get a book entitled the Duff Book of World Records which has photographs of deformities, making him laugh. After Lisa says tavern, he drives to Moe’s because she said the word, with Marge yelling she never agreed to that rule. He later uses the book throughout the episode.

In another episode, “Eeny Teeny Maya, Moe”, Moe tells the story of surfing the web at the local public library with occasional drinking fountain breaks, where he is going back and forth with another woman, Maya. He then calls the “Crazy Cat Lady” a man, and she throws cats on him. He says he would do anything to chat with Maya apart from buying an actual computer. Maya calls him cute and he dances a little with the elderly librarian, who is confused by the whole ordeal, before he leaves the library.

She finally appears in “No Good Read Goes Unpunished”. In that episode, in which she closes the library with reduced hours of operation, because after a certain point in the day the silverfish take over the library. Milhouse is trapped inside while covered with silverfish, just wanting to renew his library card. After that, the Simpsons family goes to a book-themed department store, then a bookstore with old books, some of which Bart is interested in. Unlike her other episodes, she is voiced by Tress MacNeille rather than Maggie Roswell, who had voiced her in previous episodes.

The librarian says that the library has reduced hours because of the silverfish

Apart from her, there is another librarian (voiced by Tress MacNeille) who briefly appears in the episode “Bart the Mother”. She looks even more of a spinster librarian than any of the others shown so far. This is after Bart watches a film about taking care of birds from Troy McClure (voiced by Phil Hartman). This episode marks Hartman’s last speaking appearance. This librarian tells Reverend Lovejoy that he has checked out the bible every weekend for the last nine years and asks him if it would be easier to just buy a Bible instead. He says he could do that on a “librarian’s salary,” implying that librarians make a lot of money, even though they do not. Although BLS statistics say that Librarians and Library Media Specialists earn an average of $60,820 per year, equivalent to $29.24 per hour, the more common Library Technicians and Assistants only earn, on average, $31,840 per year, equivalent to $15.31 per hour. That’s barely living wage! Disgusting if you ask me. That pay should definitely be higher, without a doubt.

There are two librarians that appear in the season 6 episode “Lisa’s Wedding”: a human librarian and a robot librarian. Lisa, in this future vision, goes to the reference desk where the librarian is and she types on her calculator and says that the book she needs was checked out by Hugh Parkfield. They both try to compete with each other in reading the book, then end up kissing one another. The one librarian quips that at one point Hugh and Lisa hated each other, then love each other, with the other librarian saying it doesn’t make sense to her because she is a robot, then her head melts. The voice actors of both librarians are sadly not known at this current time.

We also see other librarians in the series. This includes the library clerk in “Bart’s Girlfriend” voiced by Hank Azaria. He runs the young adult section at a library in Springfield and Lisa has a crush on him, while he also dates Jessica Lovejoy at one point. Lisa thinks she can “tame” him, even though she calls him “well-read and just a little wild.” There’s is, additionally, an unnamed prison librarian (voiced by Tress MacNeille)  in “Dial “N” for Nerder”. Lisa imagines herself as an older prisoner, with this librarian passing her jail cell with a trolley of books, asking whether she had Joyce Carol Oates. The librarian said she only had Danielle Steel, causing Lisa to scream in terror. This is significant because this librarian is perhaps the only prison librarian that I’ve ever seen in animation. Hopefully I see more in the future.

Prison libraries can be restricted, even though what they do can lead to empowerment of inmates. Such libraries, situated within prisons, can arguably be described as what Jeff Hirschy calls prison institutions, or those institutions in which a librarian or archivist “serves an oppressive higher power.” There is also an endless information void in prisons. In addition, grim prison life can eclipse the potential of prison library, and the service provided is not even. Some prison libraries are better than others. Furthermore, the case of Lisa, she is in a prison, rather than a jail, as a prison is operated at the state or federal level, housing inmates with long-term convictions while jails are run by a county or city, housing inmates who are awaiting trial or with short-term convictions. It makes sense there are library services in the prison she is in, because longer conviction terms of prisoners means that it is more likely there would be a library, while in jails, such libraries are less common. [2]

Lisa reacts in terror when she realizes that the prison librarian doesn’t have the book she wanted to read.

There are three other librarians I’d like to mention. The first two, an unnamed librarian voiced by Pamela Hayden and another named Martha voiced by Tress MacNeille are in the episode “The Color Yellow” and are hinted as lesbians, working at the Old Springfield Library. Martha tells Lisa that there are no books about Eliza Simpson, but she did find a cookbook by Eliza’s mother.

She calls Martha “the best” for finding this as Lisa and Marge read the book with a story about one of Lisa’s ancestors. Later, Lisa returns to the library and tells her about the film vault, giving her the key to it. The unnamed librarian asks Martha about the film vault and says that they hooked up there during the Christmas Party. Lisa then watched a documentary which interviews Eliza Simpson and continues to be disappointed. The unnamed librarian appears in the episode “Grift of the Magi” as well. In that episode, she is teaching a class in which they are trying to come with a name for a toy and Lisa gets in trouble for doing math in class, having to write on a chalkboard.

Then there’s Ms. Norton (voiced by Maggie Roswell), a librarian at Springfield Public Library, who “is on friendly terms with Lisa.” In the episode “Dead Putting Society”, Lisa says hello to her, as does a man named Ralph and a group of old men and women reading books. She helps Bart by showing him the card catalogs, finding him a book on golf putting. Bart is shown next carrying a stack of books, including a book by Lao-Tzu, The Tao-Te Ching. She even tells Bart they are borrowing the books, after he wonders if they can afford them.

Homer and the unnamed librarian in the Springfield University Library

Then in “Lisa the Greek”, Lisa goes to the very quiet public library, which has some new signs and banners up. Ms. Norton claims it has been a “madhouse” after Lisa says the signs are working, with Lisa then checking the card catalog, looking for books on football. Following this, in the episode “Homer Goes to College”, presumably the same librarian is shown with dark skin and hair. Homer, in one scene, wheels a stack of books out of the Springfield University Library, as she looks in, part of his cramming for a college test. Even in that episode, Maggie Roswell appears, although the librarian has no lines. [3]

Other than this, there is a brief scene in “Sideshow Bob Roberts” where Lisa and Bart go into the Old Springfield Library and bats come flying out of the card catalog. Then, in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge”, Marge sneaks into the public library to find out about who Becky really is, and comes across a stories, while looking through the microfilm, which she thinks prove Becky as a bad person, but believes she has been unfair to Becky.

Then, in “Margical History Tour”, Lisa talks to an elderly librarian who says they don’t have books, but they are a multimedia learning center for those of all ages, but mostly bums. Lisa complains that there are hardly any books at all. Marge agrees to help them, saying she knows a little about history. Nelson later trips Milhouse and takes his book, hilariously declaring “the library, really is a great resource!,” adding that he only came in to trip nerds. Lisa later complains she can’t find anything on Sacagawea, beginning another story from Marge. She later tells Bart another story, this one about Mozart. Liza later criticizes Marge’s story, saying it sounds a lot like the movie Amadeus.

In many ways, this episode connects with technocratic themes which I wrote about this past August, noting an article about the technocratic library “of the future.” Such a library is possible with all the data collection today, even with datasets of certain people not collected at all, a date divide between those who are data-rich and data-poor. Some have argued that libraries need to encourage and help library patrons analyze and contribute knowledge which is created with this data, and called on libraries to create an inclusive climate so patrons can engage with this data. However, there continue to be data quality issues which plague researchers, even as there is push for open data, data literacy, critical skills by librarians despite the limits of data. [4]

An unnamed librarian dressed formally in a blazer and tie shown in the episode “Sweets and Sour Marge”, shown here operating a cash register

The main library in Springfield is more than than the one-story building which comprises the Springfield Public Library. [5] This library make an appearance in the episode “Like Father, Like Clown” when Lisa looks through the card catalog, looking for books on Judaism and takes notes on what she found. Bart comes with her and looks at pop-up books. He attempts to convince Krusty’s father to make up with him, using the knowledge that Lisa is finding. His attempts fail and Lisa gives him one last paper, hoping it will work, even though she calls it a long-shot to convince him, apart from learning Ancient Hebrew. At long last, they get through to him after Bart quotes from a book by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Then in the episode in “HOMЯ”, after the crayon is taken out of Homer’s brain, he becomes smart, and reading lots of books, just like Lisa. This also ends up changing his personality too. This is followed by a flashback in the episode “The Kids Are All Fight” in which six years prior, after a librarian read a book during storytime, Bart and Lisa fought, hitting each other with books, while Marge looks on, worried. Following this, A security guard then escorts them out, telling them in a quiet voice to leave, shouting as he opens the door to let them outside, not wanting such violence in the library. Finally, in “Looking for Mr. Goodbart”, Bart goes to the library to ask the librarian, possibly voiced by Valerie Harper who has voiced various characters over the years, how he looks up a word. He hands her his phone and asks how much he owes her. At first she hesitates, then asks him for five dollars, and pockets the money. BOO! Bad librarian!

On the whole, the librarians in The Simpsons episodes all have different styles. Some have a more relaxed style, while others are more formal. The episodes themselves consistently show libraries as places of information, learning, and knowledge, used especially by Lisa. The episodes also highlight information deficits. This includes silverfish causing a library to be closed certain hours, or another when a library is extremely scaled back (having no books on the shelves), justified by turning it into a multimedia center. The latter could almost be considered a criticism of efforts to undermine librarians and libraries across the U.S. It is equivalent to Philip J. Fry’s speech at the end of a Futurama episode which talks about the value of local libraries.

At the same time, some of the librarians can fall into existing stereotypes with spinster librarians, although others easily buck that, like the two lesbian librarians in “The Color Yellow.” Sadly, the librarians in the series are not very diverse. They are almost all White except for the one in “Homer Goes to College” and she is only shown briefly. Other series, like We Bare Bears, Welcome to the Wayne, What If…?, Elena of Avalor, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, to name a few, have done better than The Simpsons when it comes to showing librarians who are not White. Hopefully, this changes in future episodes as the show goes forward, but I’m not going to hold my breath for that, as the show has become a bit of a zombie series.

The two lesbian librarians making eyes at one another at one point during the episode “The Color Yellow”

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] I’m talking about “Bart the General,” and “Cape Feare,” or the library jokes in “Marge the Lam” and “Last Tap Dance in Springfield” or the mentions in “Much Apu About Nothing,” “Bart After Dark,” “I Love Lisa,” “Lisa’s Substitute,” “Lady Bouvier’s Lover,” “Homerpalooza,” “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish,” “Homer vs. Patty and Selma,” “You Only Move Twice,” “Treehouse of Horror VI,” “Krusty Gets Busted,” and “Some Enchanted Evening.”

[2] Jeff Hirschy, “Social Justice and Birmingham Collecting Institutions: Education, Research, and Reference Librarianship” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 90 and also discussed briefly on page 91; Kate Adler, “Towards a Critical (Affective) Reference Practice: Emotional, Intellectual and Social Justice” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 107; Emily Jacobson, “Reference by Mail to Incarcerated People” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 157; Erin Rivero, Marisa Hernandez, Stephanie Osorio, and Vanessa Villareal,  “Dispatches from the Field of Prison Librarianship” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 165, 167; Joshua Finnell, “2596 Girl School Road: The Indiana Women’s Prison Far-Away Reference Desk” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 114.

[3] She also appears in “Marge On The Lam” with brown hair, at the very beginning of the episode, sitting at a table, as part of a pledge drive, by a phone. She is not shown in a library during the episode.

[4] Julia Marden, “The Case for Critical Data Reference in Public Libraries” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 189-193, 195-7.

[5] The Springfield Public Library is also mentioned in the episode “Much Apu About Nothing”. It also apparently appears in The Simpsons Movie, the comic book “A Chair of One’s Own” and the video games Virtual Springfield, and The Simpsons: Hit and Run. The library is also shown briefly in the beginning of the episode “Lost Verizon” when Nelson is holding Martin Prince. As for the Old Springfield Library  also appears in The Simpsons: Tapped Out and is pictured in “Separate Vocations”. I believe the same is the case in the episodes “Dog of Death”, and “In Marge We Trust”.

School idol or librarian?: Examining Hanamaru Kunikida in “Love Live! Sunshine!!”

Hanamaru behind the library desk, smiling after the school idol group comes to the library to drop off some books. Ruby stands behind her.

When I began watching Love Live! Sunshine!!, an anime about girls who try to become school idols and is filled with music, I didn’t expect to come across a character who is a librarian, who is relatively popular among fans of the show. For this post, and on my blog in general, I use librarian broadly to mean anyone who works in a library, specifically those who care for the contents of the library, selecting and processing materials, engaging in information delivery, library instruction, or loaning out materials to meet user needs. Librarians may have a MLIS or MLS, but not having a professional degree does not disqualify someone from being a librarian despite what some snobbish people in the library field say. [1] This definition is apt for Hanamaru Kunikida, whose journey from being a librarian to a school idol fits into existing stereotypes in some ways, as I’ll explain.

Hanamaru is a first-year student who lives in a temple with her her family, as noted on the Wikipedia page for the series, voiced by Kanako Takatsuki in Japanese and Megan Shipman voices her in the English dub. She refers to herself as “ora” or “Mura” and ends many sentences with “Zur” due to her specific dialect. She is more than an “avid reader” at the library at Uranohoshi Girls’ Academy or a person who “loves to read” as a press release for the series put it. [2] Instead, she is a student assistant who volunteers at the school library as she is shown behind the information desk during the fourth episode, “Their Feelings”. In that episode, in a narration, she describes that the library has become her quiet place, her retreat, and that Ruby Kurosawa is her dear friend, who she says she will marry one day, [3] coming to the library with her often to read idol magazines.

In that episode, she returns to her world of books, as a librarian, rather than become a school idol, after she feels that her “trial” as a school idol was a “failure.” Later Ruby and the other school idol members, Chika Takami (who created the group), You Watanabe, and Riko Sakurauchi (a transfer student), convince her to join a group they call Aqours. She becomes a liberated female librarian in some ways as a result. Even though she is not a trapped or naïve woman who discovers who she is and what she is capable of with the help of a man, as Jennifer Snoek-Brown defines as a “liberated librarian” on her Reel Librarians blog, she is pushed by her friend Ruby and the other members of the school idol club to realize her passion to become a school idol. This “liberation” is a net positive for her as she is no longer suppressing a part of herself. On the other hand, this “liberation” is not part of the plot.

Like other “liberated” librarians she is young but isn’t wearing conservative or reserved clothing. When she practices as an idol her appearance does change but into clothes that are more casual. As such she doesn’t become attractive or more feminine but not less attractive. She is just as attractive as before. She is undoubtedly intelligent and seems committed to libraries in terms of it being an escape for her, and seems to stop volunteering as a librarian. She also has a lack of exposure to modern technology, whether it comes to laptops, hair dryers, or motion-activated water fountains. [4] In some ways she is similar to Swampy in Phineas and Ferb as I’ll explain later.

Hanamaru bucks the librarian stereotype, as she is on screen more than a “short period of time” in order to advance the story, and is not a stock character in the slightest. Although librarians may not need to take these stereotypes completely “to heart,” such stereotypes can be damaging if it is the main plot of an episode, as is the case in many animated series. Her fashion goes against the “common” style of librarians which cab be shown in “dowdy suits in muted tones,” and is completely blown out of the water as the series continues.

As the series goes forward, her talent for singing, as a member of the local choir, shines through. This is especially the case when she works alongside Chika Takami and many other friends as part of a school idol group called Aqours which tries to prevent her school from shutting down. Basically, she goes from “a shy and un-athletic bookworm” [5] to a school idol after Ruby tells her of Rin’s journey to self-confidence. In becoming a school idol, she is not a librarian as failure, nor a spinster, spirited young girl, naughty librarian, comic relief, or information provider. In later episodes of the series, as now a school idol, she remains “fascinated by the modernity” in a larger city, comes dressed in a silly outfit, id distracted by candy and sweets, works on songs with her fellow school idols, and puts together a fortune-telling booth with another group member. [6]

Hanamaru looking sad, while she looks up, taking a break before she reads more in the school library during the episode “Their Feelings”

Unlike Swampy, Hanamaru is not a failure and her presence in the library is not “suggestive of flaws in library” although she can be “uncomfortable in social/outside world situations.” Like him, she does not return to the library and her portrayal is not completely stereotypical as she never shushes anyone. Rather, the library is an escape of sorts for her, a refuge. It is a safe place for her, a places of calmness which seems removed from the pressures of the outside world, although she isn’t escaping any evil spirits like those in other series who flee to libraries for safety. In this way, the school library is doing exactly what physical library spaces often do, according to librarian Fobazi Ettarh, serving as sacred spaces, while being treated as sanctuaries by keeping people and sacred things, and becoming places of refuge or shelter. [7] This is true even though, apart from her saying that books dropped off by the school idol club will be shelved, she is never shown engaging in any typical librarian tasks.

While becoming a school idol allowed Hanamaru to not suppress a part of herself which and to not remove herself from everything else, quietly reading, and staying in her own world of sorts, the series series seems to be saying that you shouldn’t hold back yourself and that you can do anything. In the process, it gives the perception that quietly reading, and being a librarian who oversees a librarian by extension, is “bad” while becoming a school idol is “good.” This is just as problematic as Phineas and Ferb basically saying that libraries are outdated and outmoded, especially through Swampy going being a rockstar to a librarian, then back to a rockstar again, when pushed by the show’s two persistent protagonists. It is never answered what happens to the library after she leaves. The series portrays her time in the library as depressing and drab, apart from her interactions with her friend Ruby. However, after she becomes a school idol she is shown as happy and joyful. Does this mean that libraries can’t be joyful or happy places? I sure hope not, because that is definitely not true.

It is a big change for Hanamaru, a Brazilian-raised do-gooder and classic country girl, to go from being a librarian in her quiet place, the seaside Uranohoshi Girls’ Academy, to Tokyo and the back to Uchiura, Numazu, Shizuoka when they are not successful the first time when entering the Love Live! competition. [8] This setting has reportedly led tourists to come to Numazu, while various things in the city have special Love Live! designs. Currently, Uchiura is a village within Numazu. According to official websites, there are libraries in the area, like the Heda, Numazu City, and Shiritsu (Municipal) libraries. [9] In that way, while it could be a loss for students for her no longer to be a librarian, there would likely be someone who would take her place, perhaps another student, and anyone at the school could still go to local libraries as well, if they needed additional information.

The idol industry in Japan has horrific working conditions. There are strict rules imposed on Japanese and South Korean pop stars known as “idols” including bans on dating and getting married requiring permission, with such idols having little control over their personal lives. Some have described them as “corporate slaves” who cannot disobey their employers, with the industry pulling in 60 billion yen annually. Even those as young as two are billed as “junior idols,” with people interested in underage girls, with the innocence they have being sold as a “major commodity.” At the same time, there is a trend of preteen girls “striking provocative poses in slinky bathing suits” which has become big business. All the while idols are assaulted, bullied, intimidated, and harassed, even as they have the legal right to “happiness” and dates not under the control of managers, although it is not known how much this is enforced, as there have been strict measure imposed on idols in the past. After all, as one critic put it, “idols are universally acknowledged as manufactured—even by their fans,” meant to provide a “vision of accessible femininity to girls” and a celebrity girlfriend for boys. Another person argued that in Japan, an idol is in “the business of selling dreams…[an] illusion of a cute, slightly idealized person who is there for…the fan” while music is secondary since many idols can barely sing, with producers not putting in work to making them look or sound perfect. At the same time, idols have been popular in Japanese anime, including franchises like Love Live! of which Love Live! Sunshine!! is a part of, as has their fictional music. [10]

Hanamaru (left) performing as a school idol, with her friend Ruby (right)

As for this anime, Hanamaru is a school idol. While there are idol anime about male idols, like Starmyu, Uta no Prince Sama, and B-Project, with a focus on the idea of performance, Love Live! is unique in that it seems to exist in a world without men, even though it is, like other idol shows, targeted at men. The idea is to “emphasize the female characters’ relationships and moe appeal,” with everyone on screen seen as a “potential object of desire” whether through romantic yearning, a yearning for that character to have romance with their friends, or anything in-between. There is some evidence of the school idol trope, as TV Tropes calls it, in reality, with some idols who are high school classmates, and variations of these schools existing, but not many of them, with such schools having strict dating, personal presentation, and uniform rules. This is bolstered by the fact that some idols wear school uniforms during their performances. [11]

Despite all their efforts, Aquors is unsuccessful in saving their school, as shown in the season 2 episode “The Time Left.” In that episode, in fact, we see Hanamaru in the library, working as a library assistant. This is short lived se agrees with the leader of Aquors, Chika, and the other group members that they can perform and win at the Love Live! contest in order to immortalize the school’s name. All the while, she tries to make sure the group stays inspired. This is significant for her because she reveals on another episode, “Awaken the power”, that she doesn’t like to be other people (i.e. she is socially awkward) and before she joined Aquors she enjoyed her time in the library with her friend Ruby, something which their fellow school idol, Leah, sympathizes with. In episodes that follow, she works together with her friends Yohane, Ruby, and Leah on a song, and participates in a closing ceremony for the Uranohoshi Girls’ High School, in the episode of the same name, even helping Yohane draw a summoning circle.

In the show’s final episode, “Our Own Shine,” she works with Ruby to pack up everything in the library, with the books read at a new school. She admits that she is afraid of going to a new school, something which Ruby agrees with. She, Yohane and Ruby, touch the library door together and close it, symbolically closing a chapter of their lives. Later in the episode, Chika visits the empty library in the now-abandoned school building. As one reviewer put it, it is hard watching these girls say goodbye to their school, especially affected by the scene when Hanamaru, Ruby, and Yohane closed the door to the library. [12]

By the end of the series, there are open questions about the future of Aquors with the departure of Kanan, Dia, and Mari, and whether their efforts were worthwhile since the school would be closed anyway. In some ways, Hanamaru somewhat addresses that in the episode “Sea of Light. She notes that while reading books in the library with her friend Ruby was “always enough” to make her happy, that her time in Aquors allowed her to venture into the world outside of the library, and realize things about herself. Basically, she gained self-confidence from the experience and became a better person.

In the series proper she is clearly identifiable, but is not stereotypical, nor does she wear frumpy clothes. She does not have her hair in a bun, and she does not have glasses in a chain around her neck. She is, arguably, a regular person who happens to be a librarian, specifically a student library assistant who is likely volunteering at the school library. She is arguably “sexy” but likely not in the way that straight men tend to see librarians as noted by David Austin who notes the stereotype of librarians as “sexually repressed.” At the same time, she is not, in any way, a person whose primary job is to keep “order and quiet.” Rather, the library itself is a sanctuary for her, a place away from the outside world, a place where she can access its “storehouse of knowledge.”

Hanamaru packing up the library’s books in boxes in the show’s final episode, asssited by her friend, Ruby

This is self-confidence is further bolstered in the Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow film, which serves as the series capstone. She sings and dances in the film and trains for live shows, but also comforts her friends. She even travels to Italy with them to find Kanan, Dia, and Mari, the former three members of Aquors. She later assists Mari in her desire to have independence from her seemingly strict mother and cajoles Yohane to connect with the members of their new school. During the film, she also assists Ruby in choosing outfits for their performance, and is part of a performance win a mock Love Live! competition meant to buoy the spirits of one member of Saint Snow, a fellow school idol group.

Unlike in the series, she is shown wearing glasses multiple times in the film, alluding to a “shy bookworm” stereotype often associated with librarians, who are shown wearing glasses. Famously this was used for the alternative Mary Bailey in the film It’s a Wonderful Life. As Marie wrote, people who wear corrective glasses are “often stereotyped as bookish, intelligent, and socially inept” with those glasses as a barrier or shield, but can also be removed to “let a dormant attractiveness and sensuality shine through.” And there is no doubt that many librarians are well-educated and smart, and many undoubtedly wear eyeglasses. It is a symbol, a stereotype, that Marie says should would fully embody, while rejecting the trope that librarians are smart, but weird and unapproachable. For Hanamaru, she is similar in some ways to Kanon Shibuya, the protagonist of Love Live! Superstar who ties up her hair and wears glasses at home but in public does not wear glasses. Kanon fulfills what Marie wrote about librarians. Unlike her, Hanamaru doesn’t mind wearing glasses in public. It fits with her warm personality, including a love of chocolate and eating a lot, and support for her friends. She could care less whether she is “attractive.”

Toward the end of the film she performs a song and dance number together as a part of Aquors. The school library is also shown, in a short scene, empty in the still-standing school, which Chika declares will stay. This is despite the fact that is seems strange that a school building would be left abandoned with no apparent use and not be torn down a la the Gama Gama Aquarium in The Aquatope on the White Sand. Perhaps they wanted to keep the show upbeat so a similar scene was not included in the film.

The film serves as an end to Hanamaru’s story within the franchise. However, her future beyond the film is uncertain. Will her future include her pushing her friend Ruby on a book cart, working in a library, study Japanese language, operate a library, and be a writer as some fan art and fans have guessed? [13] Or will it be a combination of all of the above or none of these? Its hard to know. It is likely she will continue to be a school idol, which puts into question if she would still work within the library as she might be too busy.

No matter whether she returns to the library or not, there is no doubt that her experience in the library shaped her as a person. If she does return to being a library assistant, or pursues being a librarian, the self-confidence she gained from being a school idol could bolster her ability to help patrons and be a great person. She could even put on shows either by herself or with her friends to promote the library. The possibilities ahead for her are endless. She is not someone who neatly falls into a librarian character type, but is a fully-fledged character who is unique in her own way, with her own hopes and desires.

Hanamaru perks up in the film when Chika mentions that the library of their former school will still be there.

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] For this I am using definitions from Merriam-Webster, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the now-defunct LISWiki, and Librarian Avengers. More specific terms include reference librarian, bibliographers, reader’s advisors, interns, library technicians (formerly a BLS category), and those with a practicum. It is different from other roles  such as, archivists, scribes (defunct profession), and superintendents of documents. Some of these librarians may be what some call “paraprofessionals“. Another example of a librarian like Hanamaru, who is a school assistant, is Rin Shima in Laid-Back Camp, who appears to work in the library. Like Hanamaru, she appears to be a student assistant, and is also not shown doing any actual library tasks (although Hanamaru does accept books), and is shown reading in the library. However, the number of scenes and times in the library are so short, and the library is just another place she hangs out, reading, relaxing as she camps during the winter, sometimes with Nadeshiko. In another episode, however, she kicks Nadeshiko, to wake her up when she is sleeping on the floor of the library, and shelves books in the library.

[2] Crystalyn Hodgkins, “Love Live! Sunshine!! Idol Group’s Name, 1st Single Date Revealed,” Anime News Network, Jun. 27, 2015. A fandom page also describes her as a “fan of reading” who has “a deep fondness for Japanese literature” or another image which describes her as lover of books.

[3] Apart from RubyMaru (a ship of Ruby and Hanamaru), there is YoshiMaru (a ship of Yoshiko Tsushima and Hanamaru), ChikaMaru (Chika Takami and Hanamaru), DiaMaru (Dia Kurosawa and Hanamaru), LeahMaru (Leah Kazuno and Hanamaru), RinMaru (Rin Hoshizora and Hanamaru), YouMaru (You Watanabe and Hanamaru), AZALEA  (Kanan Matsuura, Dia Kurosawa, and Hanamaru), and ChikaMariMaru (Chika Takami, Mari Ohara, and Hanamaru). The same page also notes Chika Takami, You Watanabe, Riko Sakurauchi, Ruby Kurosawa, Yoshiko Tsushima, Hanamura, Mari Ohara, Kanan Matsuura, and Dia Kurosawa as Aqours [friends]. There is a lot of wonderful yuri fan art of Hanamuru on /r/wholesomeyuri and a few on /r/lovelivefanart, along with fan art, fan videos, cosplays, news, and more about Hanamaru on /r/lovelive, along with other posts on /r/SIFallstars.

[4] “Kunikida Hanamaru,” Fandom of Pretty Cure Wiki, Feb. 11, 2020. As one reviewer put it, she somehow has “never seen a computer before” which seems strange, leading to a “couple of great scenes” like seeing windows for the first time, accidentally turning off a laptop, and recognizing Yoshiko’s chuuni tendencies in order to “distinguish herself” so she isn’t just “normal.” One post on /r/lovelive pointed out that in “Their Feelings” she is “seated at the librarian’s desk and there was a very clear computer monitor on the desk.” Some commenters responded that the library computer doesn’t have internet access or is “locked to some library system,” said the computer is small and “made specifically for a library management system,” common for rural Japan. Others theorized that the “librarian taught Hanamaru how to use the computer and how to do her work” and since Hanamaru doesn’t know about the internet, she “doesn’t venture far and only goes on whatever program the librarian told her to” or that she was confused when she saw the laptop in the next episode. Some said the scene in that next episode is “explaining Hanamaru’s fascination with technology” more than anything else, said that the computer in the library could be “strictly for books,” that the writing might be sloppy, or that there are “tiny plotholes and inconsistencies” in the series.

[5] Bamboo Dong, “Love Live! Sunshine!!: Episode 4 [Review],” Anime News Network, Jul. 23, 2016. Another WordPress site also noted that she “helps out at the school library, and her ambition is to become a writer some day,” one of the first places calling her a librarian. A page for the doll of her calls her a “daughter of a temple and a freshman of the library committee.”

[6] Bamboo Dong, “Love Live! Sunshine!!: Episode 6 [Review],” Anime News Network, Aug. 7, 2016; Bamboo Dong, “Love Live! Sunshine!!: Episode 7 [Review],” Anime News Network, Aug. 14, 2016; Bamboo Dong, “Love Live! Sunshine!!: Episode 15 [Review],” Anime News Network, Oct. 15, 2017; Bamboo Dong, “Love Live! Sunshine!!: Episode 22 [Review],” Anime News Network, Dec. 3, 2017; Bamboo Dong, “Love Live! Sunshine!!: Episode 24 [Review],” Anime News Network, Dec. 18, 2017.

[7] Fobazi Ettarh, “Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves,” In the Library with the Lead Pipe, Jan. 20, 2018. This similar to one of the one of the seven reasons that libraries are essential according to freelance writer and book reviewer Sadie Trombetta: “Libraries are safe refuges for the homeless and underserved populations.” Her other other reasons are self-explanatory and seem like non-brainers, although they can have political implications: “[Libraries] offer free educational resources to everyone…help boost local economies…play an important role in English language learning…make communities healthier…preserve history, and more importantly, truth…[and] help connect communities.”

[8] “ABOUT Love Live! Project,” PROJECT Lovelive! Sunshine!!, 2017; “Hanamaru Kunikida,” Bleach: The King of Fighters Wiki, 2022; “Hanamaru Kunikida,” Heroes Wiki, 2021; “Hanamaru Kunikida,” Love Live! School Festival Wiki, Aug. 10, 2020;

[9] “Temporary Closure of Libraries,” Numazu Newsletter [English Edition], Koho Numazu, Mar. 2018, p. 1; “City Library’s Summer Program,” Numazu Newsletter [English Edition], No. 330, Koho Numazu, Jul. 15, 2016, p. 2-3; Various articles, Numazu Newsletter [English Edition], No. 319, Koho Numazu, Feb. 1, 2016, p. 2;“Japanese Classes for Foreign Residents,” Numazu City Official Website, Apr. 1, 2020; Various articles, Numazu Newsletter [English Edition], No. 335, Koho Numazu, Oct. 1, 2016, p. 1-3.

[10] Mariko Oi, “The dark side of Asia’s pop music industry,” BBC News, Jan. 26, 2016; Patrick W. Galbraith, “Innocence lost: the dark side of Akihabara,” Japan Today, Jul. 8, 2009; Jun Hongo, “Photos of preteen girls in thongs now big business,” Japan Times, May 3, 2007; Emiko Jozuka and Yoko Wakatsuki, “Why a pop idol’s stand against her assault sparked outrage in Japan,” CNN, Jan. 16, 2019; “Court rules pop idol has right to pursue happiness, can date,” Japan Times, Jan. 19, 2016; Eric Stimson, “Idol Fined 650,000 Yen for Dating Contract Violation,” Anime News Network, Sept. 20, 2015; Catherine Komuro, “Sacrificial idols: In J-pop, Teen Dreams Become Nightmares,” Bitch media, Jan. 9, 2018; Patrick St. Michael, “Rino Sashihara: Can one ‘idol’ beat the system?,” Japan Times, May 30, 2019; Patrick St. Michael, “For Japan’s Justin Biebers, No Selena Gomezes Allowed,” The Atlantic, Aug. 15, 2012; “Japanese pop star sacked over sex scandal,” AsiaOne, Aug. 9, 2011; “Ex-Morning Musume star Ai Kago blazing a trail back to top (using a cigarette lighter),” Mainchi Daily News, 2008; Jason Sevakis, “Why Can’t Idol Singers Have Lives Of Their Own?,” Anime News Network, Jul. 24, 2015; Rafael Antonio Pineda, “pixiv Representative Director Resigns From Company Amidst Lawsuits,” Anime News Network, Jun. 6, 2018; Karen Ressler, “Former Niji No Conquistador Idol Sues pixiv Representative Director for Sexual Harassment,” Anime News Network, Jun. 1, 2018; Brian Ashcraft, “After Idol’s Death, Bullying And Intimidation Allegations Surface,” Kotaku, Oct. 15, 2018; “Suicide of teen draws attention to poor working conditions, harassment of idols,” The Mainichi, Nov. 18, 2018; Misa Hirabayashi, “The dark side of Japan’s underground idols: Little pay, long hours and unbreakable contracts,” Japan Times, Dec. 21, 2018; Mari Yamamoto and Jake Adelstein, “Inside the Weird, Dangerous World of Japan’s Girl ‘Idols’,” The Daily Beast, Jan. 21, 2019; Satetsu Takeda, “No More Objectification of Me!” [in Japanese], GQ Japan, Mar. 5, 2019; “AKB48 member’s ‘penance’ shows flaws in idol culture,” Japan Times, Mar. 1, 2013; Fraser McAlpine, “The Japanese obsession with girl bands – explained,” BBC News, Jun. 30, 2017; Kara Dennison, “Creamy Mami Character Goods Prove Showa Idols Are Forever,” Crunchyroll, Jul. 11, 2019; Richard Eisenbeis, “The Fictional (Yet Amazingly Popular) Singers of Japan,” Kotaku, Sept. 7, 2012; “Animated pop star Hatsune Miku is only 10, but she has had a huge impact on music,” Japan Times, Aug. 24, 2017; “New Market Scale Estimation for Otaku: Population of 1.72 Million with Market Scale of ¥411 Billion— NRI classifies 5 types of otaku group, proposing a “New 3Cs” marketing frame —,” Nomura Research Institute, Ltd., Oct. 6, 2005. The latter article says “The archetype for the “takes it seriously otaku” is the “single male in his 20s and 30s with an interest in mechanical and idol fields.”

[11] Lauren Orsini, “What is a Fujoshi?,” Anime News Network, Dec. 21, 2016; Jordan, “The Idol Phenomenon in Japan and Anime,” The Artifice, Dec. 30, 2015; Guest mihsayam, “Horikoshi High School (a Real-life High School For Idols),” soompi, Feb. 20, 2009; “So “school idols” do they actually exist?,” Gamefaqs, Jan. 2000, also see page 2;     “アイドルの衣装のスタンダード“制服ふう”衣装、いつから始まった！?” [Translation: When did the standard “uniform fuu” costumes for idols begin! ??], VIP Times, Aug. 8, 2017; “AKB48 (pictured 2010) popularized stylized school uniforms as costumes,” Wikimedia, 2010. This is also the case in South Korea, per an article entitled “Idols who were high school classmates.” In Catherine Komuro’s article, “Sacrificial idols: In J-pop, Teen Dreams Become Nightmares” in Bitch media, she says that “due to the manufactured nature of idols, their image of accessibility may do more harm than good” with fans often unable to “respect boundaries between an idol’s public character and private life.” This is manifested in the 2020 anime series If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die, where the protagonist in some ways did not respect the boundaries between the idol’s public and private life.

[12] Bamboo Dong, “Love Live! Sunshine!!: Episode 26 [Review],” Anime News Network, Dec. 31, 2017. . Closing doors happens a lot in episode, equivalent of closing chapters in their life and moving on. She later stands with her fellow students as they say one last goodbye to the school, then closing the school gate with them. Hanamaru is part of those who greet Chika for one last song together. Chika realizes she has been searching for her own shine the whole time.

[13] Baserdc, “What jobs do you think μ’s is doing and the future jobs the girls of Aqours would go for?,” /r/LoveLive, Dec. 27, 2017; isaactanyien1234, “Happy Birthday Hanamaru,” /r/LoveLive, Mar. 4, 2020; Offlinelol, “Librarian Hanamaru ~,” /r/LoveLive, Dec. 6, 2017. There are also a few fan fics which seem to have Hanamaru as a librarian. There is even a cargo ship, in which fans jokily ship a character with an inanimate object, or crack! ship of Hanamaru×Books, i.e. “the ship between Hanamaru Kunikida and books” as this page explains.

Revisiting Clara Rhone: A fictional Black librarian who heads “The Stanza”

Clara talks to Ansi in a friendly manner in the first episode of Welcome to the Wayne, giving off a lasting impression.

In April 2021, I gushed about my guest post reviewing Welcome to the Wayne for the ALA’s side publication, I Love Libraries, to the then-Content Strategy Manager at the ALA, Lindsey Simon, saying it was amazing “how many times libraries appear in this series” and described the article as “really exciting and fun to write about.” Simon called the series “awesome.” It would be the last post I would ever write while she was there. And while I did, later, publish posts about Milo Murphy’s Law and The Owl House, it would not be the same. Since that time, I considered that I had closed a chapter after finishing Welcome to the Wayne and didn’t consider re-watching it, especially with all the anime I began watching. However, for this last post of Black History Month in 2023, I took a deep dive into the series once more. This post will connect Clara Rhone (voiced by Harriet D. Foy), the chief librarian of the secret (and magical) library, The Stanza, in the series, to issues that Black people, especially Black women, experience as librarians.

In my post earlier this month, I described her as an “oft supporting character who runs the Stanza,” which is hidden within the Wayne apartment building. I further noted that she doesn’t do the library work all by herself but is helped by non-human library workers and that she becomes a central part of the story. There’s a lot more going on than that. She is fundamentally different from the other Black librarians I have highlighted on this blog. She is not a historian like George and Lance in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Nor is she a sorcerer like Cagliostro in an episode of What If…?

All in all, there is no doubt that her character, as I described it in July of last year, steals the show. This is amazing considering that Clara’s voice actor, Foy, is well-known for film, TV, Broadway, and musical roles, but this is her first animated role! She does a great job in that respect. However, her character is likely “drawn and conceptualized by White people” as I theorized in a previous post. Even so, the library she manages is a place of knowledge, and is meticulously organized. She is more than a librarian too, meaning that her portrayal passes the Librarian Portrayal Test or LPT, and has a daughter, Goodness, who helps her, while she remains the chief librarian. She gets plaudits from me for not being a scary woman, which is too common in Western animation, sad to say. Her role gives me “hope yet for Western animation series” as I put it in March 2021.

This brings me to what I wrote about in April 2021. I noted that Clara is shown shelving books, encouraging the protagonist, Ansi, to become a member of the library, and giving them vital information for their adventures, all in the first episode! Then, in a later episode, episode 12, she even sends a library ninja, Goodness, to try and drive the protagonists from the library, with the role of role of librarians as gatekeepers is emphasized when she warns them that if the leave with the vampire they can never return. This threat is never fulfilled because in a later episode, episode 19, Goodness and Saraline break into the library, catch a creature, and spot Clara shelving books. Then, in the finale of season one, she offers her help to the protagonists.

She reappears in the seventh episode of the show’s second season, shushing her granddaughter, Goodness, telling her to use her “Stanza voice.” Although this corresponds to the stereotype of librarians shushing patrons, she makes up for it by showing the a book that shows them all that ever happened in the Wayne. Later, in the show’s final episode, she is briefly possessed by a weird gas and is shown, in the episode’s ending, doing exercises on her room’s balcony. She has all the time in the world, because the library is outside of time.

Clara motions to John Keats, a squidjit, while she holds Ansi there with her cane

Her fandom page, of a fandom site for the show that is barely updated, doesn’t provide much more information. It notes her appearance, wearing a pearl necklace, a brown blouse, and light red scarf, and describes her as “gentle and soothing, and is very kind to those who stumble upon the Stanza.” She only appears in one fan fic, where she doesn’t even appear to be mentioned by name! Even worse is the fact that in the reviews, apart from my own, she isn’t even mentioned, despite the fact that some mention the Stanza or just call her “the librarian”. [1] These reviewers and others erased her from existence, deeming her non-important. It is disgusting and disturbing, although not surprising considering that the show remains a bit obscure, despite the fact that it aired on Nickeloedon from 2017 to 2019 and was nominated for two Daytime Emmys in 2018 and 2019.

This erasure is nothing new. There has been a long-standing erasure of Black history, including art history, and culture, in favor of White narratives. It is something, as Brittany Spranos, now a staff writer for Rolling Stone, described as something which oppression and systemic racism feed off, saying it is everywhere from the (in)justice system to “art and popular culture” where being a Black creator has meant you are “only valuable if appetizing to a white consumer market, and…able to be reimagined as a form of art without non-white origins.” [2]

When it comes to Black librarians, they face more challenges than just erasure. Across work environments, Black people engage in code-switching, meaning that they can’t be “themselves or express themselves freely without suffering severe repercussions,” keeping their personal and work lives separate.  They further have to deal with  the norm of the white dominant culture with silly questions about people’s weekends, not sharing anything too personal, and with the idea that any time a Black woman objects they are manifesting the angry Black woman stereotype, with their thoughts ignored. [3] Clara does not experience any of this in Welcome to the Wayne, as she is the head librarian and manager of the library. She doesn’t have to experience discrimination, microaggressions (either microassaults, microinsults, or microinvalidations), or stereotypical thoughts directed toward her. She just can do her job without being disturbed. All the show’s characters respect her for that, even if they have their own ideas for how librarians are “supposed” to behave. Sadly, due to the characters who come into the library, she doesn’t have the opportunity to connect to other Black people. That is something real-life Black librarians experience, even if they are not valued for their work and contributions, despite the fact they should be, but continue to keep trying no matter what. [4]

Due to the fact that she is the head of the Stanza, she likely has the power to collecting materials for and by Black people, like many other librarians out there. But, how many of her patrons are Black? If we base it on the characters in the show, very few of them would be Black, with Ansi Molina as mixed-race or the Arcsine. This is reflected in Ansi’s voice actor, Alanna Ubach, who is part Mexican and Puerto Rican, while Katie DiCicco, who voices the Arcsine appears to be a person of color and this is one of her only roles over the years. Even so, for Clara the job may be a “calling” to her, a form of vocational awe, like with some librarians, or realize what a vital role she plays as a librarian, like other Black people in the library profession. Clara may even know about other Black librarians in the past, who have paved the way for her to be in her role. [5] That’s all up to speculation at this point, unfortunately, due to a lack of reviews of the show.

Beyond this, I’d hope that Clara has used her clear dedication and persistence to make contributions to her library, and librarianship as a whole. If she did so, she would be following in the footsteps of many Black librarians before her. This includes those like librarian Dorothy B. Porter who smashes the racist and sexist Dewey Decimal System (DDC) to pieces and built her own cataloging system which actually helped people find what they were looking for rather than maintaining the White status quo that DDC keeps in place. She may even have the time to create research collections documenting people in the Wayne itself, like Miriam Matthews in Los Angeles where she began as a librarian in 1927, or the first Black librarian employed by New York City, Nella Larson Imes, among many others. [6]

In the beginning of the second episode of this series, Clara talks to Tony Stanza, keeper of the Stanza Archives, while she holds an information file on Ansi, saying she will try to retrieve him.

Much of what I am saying is supposition, however. In the series itself,  Clara only appears in eight episodes, seven of which she is voiced by Foy, who lists Clara in her resume along with other characters, and elsewhere as “Miss Clara.” [7] Some day, I’d love to interview her about the role, and if that comes to pass, then I’ll be sure to post about it here. That’s all for this post. Until next week!

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] See, for example, Walden, Jennifer. “Audio: Nick.com’s ‘Welcome to the Wayne’.” Post Magazine, Apr. 1, 2015; Ashby, Emily. “Welcome to the Wayne TV Review.” Common Sense Media, Apr. 1, 2022; Damon Cap. “Welcome To The Wayne Review.” BSCKids, Jun. 30, 2017; “Show of the week: Welcome to the Wayne.” Television Business International, accessed May 29, 2022; Jurado, Peter. “Why We Love Welcome To The Wayne.” ComicsVerse, Aug. 7, 2017.

[2] Wabi-Sabi, Mirna and Fabio Teixeira, “Erasure of Black History in Favor of White Narratives Isn’t Limited to the US.” Truthout, Aug. 23, 2020; Eye Candy. “addressing black erasure in the arts: artists fight back.” AfroPunk, Aug. 16, 2018; Enamorado, Gabriella. “Taking a Look at the Erasure of Black History.” PantherNow, Feb. 16, 2021; Saulson, Sumiko. “Diversity talk highlights anti-Blackness and Black erasure within the LGBTQIA+ community.” San Francisco Bay View, Nov. 7, 2019; Kelly, Kayla. “Black allyship or Black erasure?” The Eagle, Feb. 9, 2022; Sehgal, Parul. “Fighting ‘Erasure’.” New York Times Magazine, Feb. 7, 2016; Spanos, Brittney. “The Year in Black Erasure.” Pitchfork, Dec. 22, 2014.

[3] Konata, La Loria. “Looking Through a Colored Lens: A Black Librarian’s Narrative,” Georgia State University, 2017, pp. 116-121

[4] Ibid, 123-4, 126.

[5] Patrick, Diane. “Developing Collections ‘By Any Means Necessary’“. Publisher’s Weekly, Jun. 30, 2013; Parker, Haillie and Allie Barton. “Invisible Chapters: Writing Tucson’s Black community into the stories of libraries, bookstores and publishing.” Tuscon Weekly, Dec. 14, 2020, Keeton, kYmberly. “A Personal Assessment: The African-American Librarian in the 21st Century“. University of Houston African American Studies, accessed May 29, 2022; Cooke, Nicole A. “Black Librarians Project.” LHRT News and Notes, accessed May 29, 2022; “Augusta Baker, Librarian, and Educator born,” AAREG, 1993.

[6] Dawson, Alma. “Celebrating African-Americans and Librarianship.” Library Trends Vol. 49, No. 1, Summer 2000, pp. 49-87; Hunt, Rebecca D. “African American Leaders in the Library Profession: Little Known History.” Black History Bulletin Vol. 76, No. 1, pp. 14-19; Helton, Laura. “On Decimals, Catalogs, and Racial Imaginaries of Reading.” Humanities Commons, 2019; Kindig, Jessie. “Miriam Matthews (1905–2003).” BlackPast, Dec. 16, 2007; “Minnie Fisher (1896-1990), Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Interviewed by: Dorothy R. Robinson, December 29, 1979.” HOLLIS for Archival Discovery, Harvard University. Dec. 29, 1979; Johnson, Doris Richardson. “Nella Larsen (1891-1963).” BlackPast, Jan. 19, 2007; “Black Women Oral History Project Interviews, 1976–1981,” Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, accessed May 29, 2022; Reft, Ryan. “Fighting for Leisure: African Americans, Beaches, and Civil Rights in Early 20th Century L.A.” KCET, May 16, 2014; Hochman, Rebecca. “Investing in Literature: Ernestine Rose and the Harlem Branch Public Library of the 1920s“. Legacy, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2014), pp. 93.

[7] Foy, Harriet D. “Resume.” Accessed May 29, 2022; Foy, Harriet D. “Bio.” Accessed May 29, 2022. Foy’s IMDB page lists her as voicing Rhone in seven episodes: “Rise and Shine Sleepyhead” (s1ep1); “Like a Happy, Happy Bird” (s1ep2); “Wall-to-Wall Ping-Pong Ball” (s1ep12), “Keep an Eye on the Nose” (s1ep19), “So This is Glamsterdam” (s1ep20), “Wiles Styles Your Over” (s2ep7); “Some Sort of Bad Luck Curse” (s2ep9). She also appears briefly in  “Whoever Controls the Wayne, Controls the World” (s2ep10) but is not voiced.

Black History Month special: Examining ten Black fictional librarians

Clara doing exercises on the balcony of her apartment at the end of the final episode of Welcome to the Wayne

On this blog, I’ve occasionally written about Black librarians in fiction and am trying to write about it more, as long as I can find characters to write about. In fact, in The Public, a film by Emilio Estevez, which I reviewed in one of this blog’s first posts, appears a Black man named Mr. Anderson. Voiced by Jeffrey Wright, he is unique as he is a Black library administrator, something which is sadly seen too little in pop culture. In this first post for Black History Month, I’d like to highlight librarians I’ve written about on this blog and beyond.

With White librarians as the norm, so-called “diverse librarians”, which is code for non-white, are said to be “in demand”. Some have even said in response that their librarianship is not for White people and they are not the folks they are trying to reach or center in their work. [1] However, fictional Black librarians often can’t choose which patrons they are serving. In fact, the unnamed Black male librarian in a We Bare Bears episode (“Our Stuff”) and a Black woman named Lydia Lovely in Horrid Henry episode (“Horrid Henry: Computer Whizz”) serve multiracial and multiethnic patrons.

Furthermore, in keeping with past practices in animation, which have seemingly been retired, for the most part, some Black fictional librarians were voiced by White people. One example of this is Ms. Lovely, voiced by Joanna Ruiz, a White woman. Kimberly Brooks turned this paradigm around, however, when she voiced a strict White female librarian in an episode of DC Super Hero Girls.

There are a few Black fictional librarians who shine through, however. Most prominent is Clara Rhone in Welcome to the Wayne. She is a Black woman and is voiced by Harriet B. Foy. Although she is not a main character, she is an oft supporting character who runs the Stanza, a magical library hidden within the Wayne apartment building. She does not do all the work on her own, but is, instead, helped by non-human library workers who fetch books for her, and help her to ensure that the library remains organized for anyone who can use it. She becomes a central part of the story as Ansi Molina, Olly, and Saraline Timbers work together uncover the Wayne’s mysteries before it is too late.

Just as prominent is O’Bengh / Cagliostro in an episode of What If…? (“What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?”). He is a Nigerian man and is voiced by Ike Amadi. He tries to help Doctor Strange harness his powers and attempts to tell him to not go to the side of evil. Although he is unsuccessful, he remains an important part of the episode. Unfortunately, his character carries with it the implication that librarians are magicians and that what they do is “magic.” This can’t be further from the truth. In some ways, however, this is inevitable as his character is a sorcerer, so there was no way they could have gotten around this when depicting him in the episode. It is further disappointing that he will likely never appear again in the series, meaning this episode is his one and only episode, becoming one-episode-wonder, nothing more, nothing less.

Then there’s George and Lance in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. They are gay Black men who are voiced by Regi Davis and Chris Jai Alex respectfully. Although both are technically historians, they are de facto librarians as they run, and live-in, a library in the Whispering Woods. Although they only appear very infrequently in the series, the episodes they do appear in they have an impact. They help the protagonists solve a riddle which leads them to a barren desert, and uncover the clues needed to uncover the biggest mystery of all about the planet of Etheria. On top of all of that, they are supportive of their son, Bow, who reveals he is a fighter for the rebellion. Even though they are opposed to joining in as part of the fight by themselves, which led him to come up with an elaborate story that he was going to a boarding school, they don’t want to hold Bow back.

Marienne Bellamy (left) and Amarie Treadeau (right)

Now, there are many other Black fictional librarians out there, with those in major film roles described by Jennifer Snoek-Brown on her Reel Librarians blog. I haven’t seen the psychological thriller series, You, but there is a smart, non-nonsense librarian named Marienne Bellamy (played by Tati Gabrielle) who observes the citizens of the neighborhood but does not get taken in by the entitlement and privilege of the patrons. While she holds in her own personal struggles, she is helped by another librarian, Dante Ferguson, a White male family man with damaged eyesight who wants to expand his family. [2]

Then, there’s Amarie Treadeau, otherwise known as “Amma”, who is voiced by Viola Davis, in Beautiful Creatures, a 2013 romantic fantasy film. She is the combination of two characters from the 2009 novel of the same name by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. She is wicked smart, skilled with magic, brave, and well-read. Davis described her character as more than what is on the surface, a person with “different secrets to be discovered,” including a tribal scarification on her back, channeling spirits, and serving as a “keeper of a library that’s the gateway to different worlds.” Davis further said she liked that, saying she likes “when there are different layers to peel away,” adding that “it was just subtle enough to play and to craft” and saying that this is what appealed to her about the role.” [3]

These are not the only Black librarians in fiction, however. One of the most prominent is Valerie the Librarian, who appears in multiple issues of Spidey Super Stories. She also appears in episodes of The Electric Company, where she is voiced by Hattie Winston. In her role, she often bucks stereotypes of Black women and of librarians, sometimes at the same time! She is clearly a groundbreaking character, even though she doesn’t appear as much in the comics as she should.

As for this blog, it has come a long way from August 2020, when I said that George and Lance where “the only non-white (and Black) librarians in animation” I could think of off hand. Then in March 2021, I wrote about them in a guest post for Reel Librarians. Since then, I’ve written about Clara Rhone in Welcome to the Wayne, Black librarians in stock footage and GIFs, Black voice actors, depictions of librarians of color (including Black characters) and the micoaggressions they face, and more. Although I hope to come across more Black librarians in fiction, I have a sinking suspicion that come next year and I’ll have the same number of Black librarians listed on this blog as before. Here’s to hoping that I come across Black librarians in the future!

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] David James Hudson, “The Whiteness of Practicality” in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 218, 220; Jorge R. Lopez-McKnight, “My Librarianship is Not For You” in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 268.

[2] Petski, Denise. “‘You’ Season 3: Saffron Burrows Upped To Series Regular, Dylan Arnold, Tati Gabrielle Among 12 Cast In Netflix Series.” Deadline, Nov. 18, 2020. Also see the You (TV series) Wikipedia page. Bellamy appears in multiple episodes and becomes the titular deuteragonist in the second half of the show’s third season.

[3] Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “A reel librarian’s multi-faceted role in ‘Beautiful Creatures’ (2013).” Reel Librarians, Feb. 10, 2021; Wood, Rachel Noelle. “The Best Fictional Librarians from Popular Culture.” KQED, Apr. 11, 2017; The Caster Chronicles Wiki. “Marian Ashcroft.” Last modified Jan. 16, 2020, see “Appearance and Personality” section; Kroll, Justin. “Viola Davis books two feature roles.” Variety, Feb. 2, 2012; Anderton, “Viola Davis Lands Roles in ‘Ender’s Game’ and ‘Beautiful Creatures’,” FirstShowing.Net, Feb. 3, 2012; “Viola Davis: The Beautiful Creatures Interview,” aalbc.com, Sept. 18, 2017

Countering the norm: Fictional librarians who sleep at the information desk

As anyone knows, sleep is important for everyone. When it comes to libraries, like the New York Public Library, and across society, there is a tendency to crack down on anyone who is sleeping, with illustrator Steve Teare describing it as a criminalization of a basic human need which targets “the poor, vulnerable, and homeless.” In contrast, there is a residential library in the UK, Gladstone, which doubles as a hotel, and a hotel in Tokyo which allows people to “sleep between bookshelves” to give two examples. [1]

Some librarians say that anyone who is sleeping has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Others state that it doesn’t “cause any trouble” or say that it must be stopped because is a “public space” or “public shared spaces” and that can lead to other problems, declaring that “public libraries do not provide basic needs.” While the latter is true in a limited sense, it also comes off as elitist. It is less understanding than those who explain why homeless patrons can’t stay in a library overnight. Anti-sleeping policies come down on students, who some describe rightly as sleep-deprived, wanting a designated place to study, as working on one’s bed can “subconsciously affect” your sleep! [2]

Policies across libraries, however, vary. Some include bans on “excessive sleeping” or camping, allowing non-disruptive naps, or are discouraged for “security” and “safety”, wanting to avoid becoming shelters for the homeless no matter what, or even incorporating anti-homeless designs to prevent people from loitering and sleeping. This is despite the stories of homeless students who slept nights in library basements or students in Papua New Guinea who slept in a library after a fire razed their dorms. Such sleeping policies need to be, as one article put it, enforced against all patrons, not just the homeless, because they aren’t equal enforcement otherwise. [3]

Two fictional characters challenge this general paradigm, specifically in Laid-Back Camp and As Miss Beelzebub Likes, as they are librarians and they sleep while on the job! Being nothing like the Asian people sleeping in libraries focused on by undoubtedly racist Tumblr users, [4] it makes sense to analyze how these characters challenge existing perceptions of librarians in fiction and what it means for representation of librarians, and the library profession as a whole.

Saitou prepares to put a mountain in Rin’s hair in an episode of Laid-Back Camp

Rin Shima (voiced by Nao Tōyama) in the adventure iyashikei anime, Laid-Back Camp a.k.a. Yuru Camp, fits how librarians are oft-portrayed as she is a generally quiet girl. She’s probably socially awkward too, like other anime characters. With this, it comes at no surprise that she likes camping by herself, something which slowly changes over the course of the series. Rin is a student librarian who likely volunteers at her school and might even be receiving student credit for her library work.

During one episode, “Meat and Fall Colors and the Mystery Lake”, Rin puts down the book she is reading and is about to close the library, even opening up a portable grill she got. She chats with her friend, Saitou, who convinces her to give an energetic girl named Nadeshiko Kagamihara, a person who recently showed an interest in camping, a gift. Later, while shelving books, she finds Nadeshiko sleeping in the library and kicks her to wake her up. Despite this rude awakening, she happily accepts the gift from Rin, and even proposes barbecue camp to her which Rin accepts. Some librarians may wag their finger and say that you never kick patrons. I agree with that sentiment, even though Rin only very lightly kicked Nadeshiko to wake her up, but it is even richer based on what happens in other episodes.

Although in the episode “Cape Ohmama in Winter” and “The Izu Camp Trip Begins!” she is either awake, reading, and talking with someone about camping (either Nadeshiko or Ena) or just chilling in the library, like in “Winter’s End and the Day of Departure”, two episodes are different. Tired from her long day, in the episode “A Night of Navigator Nadeshiko and Hot Spring Steam”, Rin sleeps at the information desk. I can’t think of one library in the U.S. which would allow a librarian to fall asleep at the desk. Anyway, in a practical joke on her, Saitou plays with Rin’s hair, turning it into a mountain of some type. Later, she walks out of the school, not realizing what Saitou did to her hair, while other are shocked her hair is like that without thinking about it a second time. Its pretty hilarious.

That isn’t the last time she falls asleep in the library, either. At the end of the episode “Caribou-kun and Lake Yamanaka”, she also falls asleep at the information desk. Then she has a dream where she can hear the thoughts of every living thing. In short, it is somewhat hypocritical for her to kick Nadeshiko to wake up when she sleeps in the library herself! While some may say that Rin is wrong for this, she is more of a camper than anything else, and she likes to ride her moped. So, you could say she is a moped-riding student librarian. I can’t think of anyone else who fits that description.

Dantalion sleeping, with his eyes barely open

Rin is not the only librarian who sleeps on the job. One recurring character in the supernatural comedy anime, As Miss Beelzebub Likes, is plagued with sleepiness. Dantalion (voiced by Aoi Yūki), is part rabbit, and is the librarian of the Pandemonium Library. He apparently is so dedicated to his job that he reads but sometimes doesn’t eat, loving the smell of paper and ink. He is very knowledgeable about what is in the library’s stacks, filled with millions of books, and is hundreds of years old. He works alongside over 10 possible library assistants, and serves many patrons, as I counted at least 30 of them in “A Bit Bitter, Bibliomania”, the debut episode of Dantalion.

This isn’t the only time he is sleeping in the library. Although he has an annoying and loud friend, he remains attentive to the patrons. Unfortunately, has to deal with someone (Eurynome) having a crush on him because they weirdly see him as a little boy, which is known as shotacon. He is even helped by one of the recurring characters, Mullin, a young male demon who is an assistant of Beezlebub, current ruler of Pandemonium who secretly loves fluffy things, in the episode “They Pass Each Other by Sometimes / I had a Dream”.

Despite being frozen in ice in part 2 of the episode “Your Scent on a Cold Day”, he remains self-conscious and awake in his final episode appearance, “Her Assistant Knows Not Her Highness’s Heart / The Name of That Feeling Is…”. In those episodes he also continues to deal with his loud and annoying friend, while recommending to Beezelbub that she have a flower-viewing party. Then in the episode, “The Pandemonium Baths Are Great. You Should Visit”, he is lounging in the pool, reading a book, and is not in the library.

I do think it is interesting that Dantalion’s voice actor is a woman. I’m not exactly sure of the significance of his blue eyes, hair, and eyes, but I’m guessing it is symbolic somehow. He description of his character on Wikipedia says that he likes to read books at night, often falling asleep at the desk, even falling asleep while talking to others or even standing up! In some ways, he exhibits some librarians stereotypes, as he experiences Bibliomania and Bibliophilia.

Ratura “Rara” sees Lynette sleeping at the academy library in an episode of Lapis Re:Lights, who awakens her so they can perform in an orchestra together

It seems like a normal thing for people to get sleepy while they are at work. Often characters get sleepy in anime, but I don’t see it happening as much in Western animation. It especially doesn’t happen with librarian characters, as they are often portrayed as either stuck-up, curmudegonly, strict, or spinsters. While Dantalion is closer to information provider character type outlined by Jennifer Snoek-Brown, I’d say that Rin is an atypical character, in that her portrayal goes “beyond stereotypical constraints.”

Rin in Laid-Back Camp fits with the overall theme of iyashikei, a genre of anime which is “healing,” shying away from romance or action in favor of “meaningful connections with family and friends, and finding joy in the minutiae of life” as Marley Crusch of Polygon put it. [5] This contrasts with Miss Beezlebub Likes. In that series, Dantalion is a bit of a strange and odd character, who has much less depth than Rin. I would go as far as to say that Rin gives a better message of libraries and librarians than Dantalion by any measure.

The only series I can think of off hand which includes people directly sleeping in a library is We Bare Bears, with the librarian letting Chloe and her friends sleep in the library overnight! There isn’t any other Western animation to my knowledge which has such a plotline, apart from a sleep-deprived Blake in RWBY or Blinky in Trollhunters. Hopefully, this changes in the future with portrayals which are based more on reality, noting the hardships that librarians have to endure. Sadly, I am more confident that this is a possibility in anime than Western animation. [6] The latter too easily falls into the land of stereotypes, with their use as a result of hap-dash writing which would be better if the portrayals reflected reality, at least to the extent of what librarians experience.

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] “Sleeping with Books,” Gladstone Library, accessed May 25, 2022; Ahmad Al Shirawi, “Book and Bed Hotel in Tokyo allows bookworms to sleep between bookshelves and live in the library,” Twitter, May 19, 2022.

[2] See responses by Valetta Cannon, James Taber, Peter Bartholoew, Becky Coleman, Kerry Hamlett Fountain, and Eric Erickson to the question “Should they allow sleeping in the library?” on Quora, along with pages on Quora entitled “Why aren’t you allowed to sleep in the library?“, “Why can’t citizens sleep at a public library? Isn’t sleeping your basic need?“, “Why can’t homeless patrons stay in the library overnight?“, “Is it ok to nap in a public library?“; and “Studying in the Library or at Home – What is Better for You?“, University of the People, 2022.

[3] “Library Sleeping / Camping Policy,” Indiana University, accessed May 25, 2022; “Can I take a nap or sleep in the Library?,” University Library, California State University San Marcos, accessed May 25, 2022; “Sleeping Policy,” Arizona State University, accessed May 25, 2022; Karen W. Arenson, “Yes, Some Students Live in the Library (But Not Like This),” New York Times, Apr. 27, 2004; Cailynn Klingbeil, “No-sleeping rule at public libraries unwelcome change for Edmonton’s homeless,” Edmonton Journal, Apr. 13, 2015; Amy Mars, “Library Service to the Homeless,” Public Libraries Online, Apr. 26, 2013; Gloria Bauai, “Students sleeping in library after fire razed dorms,” The National, Mar. 18, 2022.

[4] Angry Asian Man, “asians sleeping in the library,” Angry Asian Man, Dec. 22, 2010.

[5]Marley Cursch, “Anime girls can finally chill,” Polygon, Aug. 17, 2021. The same article says that Iyashikei anime is seeing an increase in popularity, thanks to its “much-needed soothing effect on viewers,” and has a focus on the “smaller and more mundane, and…a heavy emphasis on visually stunning settings.” It also says that Laid-Back Camp takes “the chill vibes to the next level.” The article cites examples such as Flying Witch, Non Non Biyori (and all seasons on HIDIVE), Tamayura Hitotose, The Helpful Fox Senko-san, and Adachi and Shimamura all of which are on Crunchyroll, Yokohama Shopping Log which is an OVA, My Neighbor Totoro on the Internet Archive, Azumanga Daioh in HIDIVE, and Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear in Hulu.

[6] For instance, Myne is sleeping in a final scene of an episode of Ascendance of A Bookworm, or there is Operation Sleeping Books which is meant to transfer knowledge to the villain in R.O.D. the TV. There’s also Midori sleeping in a library basement in My-HIME and Aru sleeping in Kokoro Library, to give further examples.

Librarians of Color on “Pop Culture Library Review”: A 2022 Assessment

Left to right for top row: Mateo in Elena of Avalor, Myne in Ascendance of A Bookworm, Valerie the Librarian in Spidey Super Stories, Kokoro and Aru in Kokoro Library, Lilith and the woman she loves (Hazuki) in Yamibou, Fumi Manjōme in Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers, and Chiyo Tsukudate in Strawberry Panic!. Left to right for bottom row: Fumio Murakumi in Girl Friend Beta, Azusa Aoi in Whispered Words, George and Lance in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Anne and Grea in Manaria Friends, Sophie Twilight in Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood, unnamed librarians in We Bare Bears, and Mr. Anderson in The Public. I also wrote about Clara Rhone in Welcome to the Wayne, Cagliostro in What If…?, and Mira and Sahil in Mira, Royal Detective this year. All are librarians of color. Another possible candidate is Isomura in Let’s Make a Mug Too!, a librarian-curator.

Since the early days of this blog, I’ve written about librarians of color, whether those in anime like Revolutionary Girl Utena and Gargantia, in animation such as She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (de facto librarians) or Mira, Royal Detective. Currently, there are over 40 posts with the “Librarians of Color” tag, along with various other posts under the “Latine librarians”, “Japanese librarians”, “Mexican librarians”, “Thai librarians”, “Vietnamese librarians”, “Cuban librarians”, “Indian librarians”, and corresponding terms for patrons of color. [1] Recently, I have also penned posts about Black, Asian, Latin American, Indian, and Japanese voice actors who voice librarians I have listed on this blog, along with other Japanese and English voices..

There is more to say about librarians of color beyond those I wrote about back in September 2021. Currently, I have 92 librarians of color listed on my “List of fictional librarians”. They break down into:

• 67 Japanese people (at least 41 are Japanese women)
• 12 Black people
• 4 Asian people
• 3 Latine people
• 6 other people of color

And this isn’t counting the 27 non-human librarians. This compares to the 84 White people on the list, who are primarily White women. I’ll focus on this topic later in the year. I added the appropriate tags after reading posts from Jennifer Snoek-Brown about portrayals of librarians of color, noting it is a sensitive issue considering the racist history and present of U.S. society, and addressing the “lack of diversity in librarianship”. She also noted that are very few “cinematic representations of librarians of color,” and even fewer who are protagonists. [2] In highlighting librarians of color, I tend to agree with the argument by Snoek-Brown about exposing stereotypes and single stories which echo “throughout every part of our lives” since stories matter. The same is the case for the argument by Chris Bourg that there is continued lack of diversity in the library field, or the fact that poor representation of some ethnic or racial groups among libraries might lead to speculation that something about librarianship is “inherently unwelcoming or unattractive” to such groups. [3]

I plan to expand this further in the coming year with posts about ten fictional Black librarians, two Black reel librarians, real-life Black librarians who should be in fiction, Hanamaru Kunikida in Love Live! Sunshine!!, Arab and Muslim librarians in fiction, six fictional librarians of Asian descent, and fictional librarians of color and their counterstories. I hope that in the future I come across more Black librarians in fiction, especially Black women like those in Lovecraft Country, except ones that are credited, and connect this to the historical role of Black librarians. Alma Dawson of Louisiana State University wrote about this in a Summer 2000 issue of Library Trends:

Throughout their history, African-American librarians have been pioneers, visionaries, risk-takers, hard-workers, innovators, organizers, and achievers. Through dedication and persistence, they have developed library collections and archives in spite of limited resources. They have provided reference and information services, and their libraries have served as cultural centers for many blacks in all types of communities…They have served as mentors and role models for many individuals and have contributed to the scholarly record of librarianship. These achievements are an inspiration worthy of continued emulation and cause for celebration.” [4]

The article also notes documentation of the Black library experience, general studies and monographs such as the Handbook of Black Librarianship in 1977, What Black Librarians are Saying in 1972, in Black Librarian in American Revisited in 1994, Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries, and Black Librarianship in 1998, and various dissertations on related topics. Furthermore, key Black librarians in the 20th century are noted, such as: Regina M. Anderson, Augusta Baker, Hannah Diggs Atkin, Thomas Fountain Blue, Virgia Brocks-Shedd, Doris Hargett Clack, and Jean Ellen Coleman. There is additional information about roles of Black librarians in professional organizations, like the Black Caucus of the ALA (BCALA), and many others, along with information about library development and services, library education, recurring themes, and other resources. [5]

I would add that highlighting librarians of color on this blog helps ensure, in some way that people of color need to be represented in the profession, inspiring people of color to become librarians, to be part of initiatives (either started by them or by others), and engage in related tasks to counter the unbearable Whiteness of the profession. That’s my hope at least. I further believe that the focus on librarians of color on this blog can provide inspiration or even support, in some way, to break down institutionalized inequity, either in academic librarianship or elsewhere, where librarians of color are given hidden workloads. The latter manifests itself when such librarians are told to take on or lead diversity special projects, even if they don’t necessarily have experience in area, leading to a vicious cycle. [6]

A focus on Japanese librarians can also help to counter Whiteness within pop culture depictions of librarians and even within the profession. It could even be used to support changes within librarianship for more librarians of Asian descent, especially within the U.S., where there is a myth of the Asian community as “model citizens”, which leads to social and psychological costs. At the same time, this blog’s focus on librarians of color may support existing progress for an increased number of real-life librarians of color, and hint at the role of institutions in diversifying the workforce. [7]

However, this could all be hogwash. I’m not sure how influential, or not influential this blog is to make those changes. In any case, I remain committed to continuing to write about and list librarians of color on this site, as I continue to learn more about the library field every day.

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] This includes tags such as “Japanese patrons”, “Black patrons”, “Indian patrons”, “Afro-Latine patrons”, “Mexican patrons”, “Korean patrons”, “Egyptian patrons”, “Taiwanese patrons”, and “Argentinian patrons”.

[2] Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “Revisiting reel librarian totals,” Reel Librarians, Aug. 2, 2017; Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “Reel librarians of color, 2021 update,” Reel Librarians, Jan. 27, 2021. In the first post, for those who are Black or or African decent, she lists Jaye Loft-Lyn as Microfilm Library Clerk in Pickup on South Street (1953), Jaye Stewart as Male Librarian in All the President’s Men (1976), Paul Benjamin as English in Escape from Alcatraz (1979), Tim Reid as Michael Hanlon in Stephen King’s It (TV, 1990), C. Francis Blackchild as Wanda & L. B. Williams as Howard in Party Girl (1995), Aunjanue Ellis as Jo & Demene E. Hall as Mrs. Biddle in Men of Honor (2000), Orlando Jones as Vox in The Time Machine (2002), Merrina Millsapp as Hall of Records Attendant in Ella Enchanted (2004), Zarrin Darnell-Martin as Intern Wanda in Oscar-winning Spotlight (2015), Ronald William Lawrence as Library Clerk in The Ring (2002), Octavia Spencer as Hildy in Follow the Stars Home (TV, 2001), Noreen Walker as Librarian in Somewhere in Time (1980), Jeff Feringa as Librarian #1 in Dangerous Minds (1995), Mary Alice as Alice, a children’s librarian, in Bed of Roses (1996), Lynette DuPree as Librarian in Back When We Were Grownups (TV, 2004), Delores Mitchell as Librarian in Autumn in New York (2000), and an uncredited book cart shelver in City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold (1994). For those who are Asian or South Asian, lists Shakti as Kala in The Golden Child (1986), Alfred Ono as Mr. Fong in Elephant (2003), Sophia Wu as Librarian as Finding Forrester (2000), Anjali Jay and Hiro Kanagawa in Age of Adaline (2015), Tony Azito as Librarian and Juan Fernández as Attendant in Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993). Also four are listed as Latine: Liz Torres as Delores Rodriguez in Just Cause (1995), Javier Bardem as Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls (2000), Damian Chapa as Miklo in Bound by Honor (aka Blood In, Blood Out… Bound by Honor, 1993), and Rose Bianco as Bella in The Ultimate Gift (2006). Additionally, one is listed as Arab + Middle Eastern (1): Erick Avari as Dr. Terrence Bey in The Mummy (1999), and one as indigenous: Jane Lind as Noayak in Salmonberries (1991). These racial designations apply to the characters NOT those who voice them. Elsewhere, she notes, Duana Butler who plays the “Library Clerk” role in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), unnamed Black male law librarian in Fatal Attraction, along with other librarians of color like the unnamed librarian in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018) (also see here), Wong in Doctor Strange (also see here, and here) and Avengers: Infinity War,

[3] Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “‘The danger of a single story’ for reel librarians,” Reel Librarians, Nov. 2, 2016; Bourg, Chris. “The Unbearable Whiteness of Librarianship,” Mar. 3, 2014; Lance, Keith Curry (May 2005). “Racial and Ethnic Diversity of U.S. Library Workers,” American Libraries, p. 42.

[4] Dawson, Alma (Summer 2000). “Celebrating African-American Librarians and Librarianship,” Library Trends 49(1): 49-50. On page 77, Dawson adds: “there is still ample evidence from the literature to indicate that civil rights, discrimination, and racism are still concerns of African-American librarians”.

[5] Ibid, 52-78. Others include Gwendolyn Cruzat, Sadie Peterson Delaney, Virginia Proctor Florence, George W. Forbes, Nicholas Edward Gaymon, Eliza Gleason, Vivian Harsh, Jean Blackwell Huston, Mollie Lee Huston, Althea Jenkins, Clara Stanton Jones, Virginia Lacy Jones, Casper Leroy Jordan, E. J. Josey, Catherine A. Latimer, Mary F. Lenox, Ruby Stutts Lyles, Albert P. Marshall, Emily Moble, Daniel Murray, Major R. Owens, Annette L. Phinazee, Joseph Harry Reason, Charlemae Rollins, Henrietta M. Smith, Jessie Carney Smith, Lucille C. Thomas, Robert E. Wedgeworth, Dorothy Porter Wesley, John F. N. Wilkerson, Edward Christopher Williams, and Monroe Nathan Work.

[6] Agnes K. Bradshaw, “Strengthening the Pipeline-Talent Management for Libraries: A Human Resources Perspective” in Where Are All The Librarians of Color?: The Experiences of People of Color (ed. Rebecca Hankins and Miguel Juarez, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA, 2015), 123-4; Shaundra Walker, “Critical Race Theory and the Recruitment, Retention and Promotion of a Librarian of Color: A Counterstory” in Where Are All The Librarians of Color?: The Experiences of People of Color (ed. Rebecca Hankins and Miguel Juarez, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA, 2015), 146-7.

[7] Vince Lee, “Like a Fish Out of Water, But Forging My Own Path” in Where Are All The Librarians of Color?: The Experiences of People of Color (ed. Rebecca Hankins and Miguel Juarez, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA, 2015), 187-189; Roland Barksdale-Hall, “Building Dialogic Bridges to Diversity: Are We There Yet?” in Where Are All The Librarians of Color?: The Experiences of People of Color (ed. Rebecca Hankins and Miguel Juarez, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA, 2015), 267; Miguel Juarez, “Making Diversity Work in Academic Libraries” in Where Are All The Librarians of Color?: The Experiences of People of Color (ed. Rebecca Hankins and Miguel Juarez, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA, 2015), 313.

End of the year wrap-up and looking forward to 2023

Views and visitors to this website as shown in the stats for Dec. 21, 2022. The numbers have undoubtedly gone up since then.

Hey everyone! This is my last post of 2022. I’d like to talk about what I’ve accomplished this year on this blog and look forward to the coming year. [1] I have continued to write about library classification, librarians of color, library stereotypes, library users, LGBTQ librarians, and much more, even more than I did in 2021.

I began the year with the recently added titles from December 2021, along with a post on Sarah, the book jail and the “sanctity of library property” in Too Loud. I followed that with posts on Mateo in Elena of Avalor, and the church library in Ascendance of a Bookworm. Posts in later months focused on Amity Blight in The Owl House, the fictional library in LoliRock, reprinted my review of libraries/librarians in The Owl House for I Love Libraries, Twilight Sparkle in My Little Pony, the Library of the Eternal Equinox in Mysticons, and reprinting yet another post from I Love Libraries, this one about libraries in Milo Murphy’s Law. One of my favorites, from those first three months of this year was on the unnamed buff librarian in Totally Spies! (expanding from a post on the same subject I had written in May 2021), a post which garnered attention on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Reddit. In that post, I wrote:

…The episode clearly is setting the expectation that librarians aren’t “supposed” to be this strong. Rather they supposed to be “wimps,” as the librarian herself remarks, and “mild-mannered” as Jerry, the head of WHOOP, head of the spy agency…put it. Without a doubt, it is wrong for a librarian to assault patrons. Her reaction is understandable…when it comes down to it, I would even venture that Sam, and maybe even Alex, are fine with this librarian being buff, as long as the librarian isn’t decking patrons of course…By the episode end, there is an open question as to whether those whose personalities have been switched are switched back. This is because the spies don’t have time to switch back the personalities of anyone, apart from Jerry and Clover. Did they switch the personalities of the librarian and wrestler? Or did they leave them intact? That is open to viewer interpretation…I would argue that by being buff, this librarian is going against usual depictions of librarians, often as those who are strict, elderly, and uptight, as Snoek-Brown explains…I still think it is possible she was voiced by Janice Kawaye, an actress of Japanese descent who has voiced characters since 1983…Although this librarian in Totally Spies! is the only fictional librarian that I am aware of who lifts weights, jumps rope, and does other exercises, there are actual librarians who are also weightlifters…In writing this post, I really got into it and found that there are two wrestlers out there who compete using a librarian gimmick…there is an inaccurate image of a librarian in popular culture, a ‘petite, humorless woman…dressed in dowdy clothes, spectacles on her face, [and] hair knotted in a bun.’ A weightlifting librarian, or a wrestler-librarian…blows that completely out of the water, without question.

In April, I reprinted a post I wrote about Kaisa for Jennifer Snoek-Brown’s Reel Librarians, arguing that she is one of the best depictions of fictional librarians to date. That same month, I posted on the librarian, Barebones, in Brownie and Barebones, and the High Guardian Academy library in High Guardian Spice. This was followed by posts in May on Blinky’s library in Tales of Arcadia, and Gabrielle in the animated film, I Lost My Body. Some of my other favorite posts that I wrote which were published in May, and in later months, are as follows:

• Smashing Stereotypes: Valerie the Librarian in “Spidey Super Stories” [May 24]
• “Accosting Mary”: George Bailey and Real-Life Sexual Harassment of Librarians [May 31]
• A Lack of Imagination: Fictional Acceptance of Dewey Decimal System Without Question [June 28]
• More than “frilly outfits”: librarian work, weeding, and library marketing in Kokoro Library [July 12]
• Examining Isomura, a librarian-curator in “Let’s Make a Mug Too” [July 19]
• Kaisa’s defense: Are patrons who borrow books, liable to return them? [August 9]
• Miss Hatchet, Kim Possible, the complexity of library classification, and technocratic libraries [August 16]
• From Lilith to Amity: LGBTQ librarians Shine Through [October 11]
• “Shh!”: Examining the skeleton librarian Eztli in “Victor and Valentino” [October 25]
• Fictional trans librarians and the reality of trans library users [November 20]
• Beauty, dress codes, and fashion: Examining twenty fictional White female librarians [November 29]
• “Uncomfortable” interactions in the library: Librarians of color and their fictional depictions [December 20]

I also began my Behind the Screen series, profiling Black voice actors, Asian and Latin American voice actors, Indian voice actors, Japanese voice actors, and Japanese and English voices, who bring fictional librarians to life. Other posts were about The Stanza in Welcome to the Wayne, Mo Testa in Dykes to Watch Out For, Cleopatra in Space and information deficits in libraries, Page Turner in the Arthur TV series, the Roubai Academy Library in Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, and intersex characters and libraries.

I am proud this year that I finally added a page on librarians and libraries in film and another on watching pop culture media which I watch on this blog, showing where you can find the shows / films I’m writing about on this blog, making it accessible to the readers.  I additionally did a huge update to the Bibliography page, so it now lists articles cited in each post and makes that available to users, while gutting the pages I had on Jennifer Snoek-Brown, who is often cited on this blog, and “Higgins o-rama.”

Upcoming next year will be a continuation of the Behind the Screen series with posts on White female and White male voice actors who bring fictional librarians to life, and revisiting the fictional librarians in Archie’s Weird Mysteries, which I had written about a while back. There will also be a post examining Hanamaru Kunikida in “Love Live! Sunshine!!”, a librarian and a school idol all in one!

Onward to 2023!

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] Other than I ones I note in the main part of this post, I also posted recently added titles for January 2022, February 2022, March 2022, April 2022, May 2022, June 2022, July 2022, August 2022, September 2022, October 2022, and November 2022. There is an upcoming post in January which lists recently added titles for December 2022.

“Uncomfortable” interactions in the library: Librarians of color and their fictional depictions

April Hathcock, a Scholarly Communications Librarian and a lawyer, and former Library Journal editor Stephanie Sendaula, argued that Whiteness can take the form an ingrained belief that “only white people can hold positions of authority, and an assumption that people of color solely hold support positions.” This can lead to uncomfortable interactions between librarians of color and White patrons, especially at the reference desk. Some patrons declare they want to speak to a “real” librarian, which implies that such librarians of color aren’t real, that their knowledge isn’t recognized by those with positions of privilege, and more crucially that many White patrons still expect and prefer to be assisted by a person who “looks like them…to see someone who looks like them” sitting behind the reference desk. [1]

Putting aside the Japanese librarians in anime, as they would take up too much space in this post and deserve to have a whole post just about them, there are many other librarians of color for whom what Hathcock and Sendaula say is applicable. This likely includes the unnamed Black male librarian in We Bare Bears episode (“Our Stuff”), the unnamed Thai female librarian in We Bare Bears episode (“The Library”) who is presumably voiced by Ashly Burch, and the unnamed librarian voiced by Mindy Cohn in a Dexter’s Laboratory episode (“The Blonde Leading the Blonde”), and a Black man voiced by Jeffrey Wright named Mr. Anderson in The Public.

The unnamed Black male librarian in the first episode episode of We Bare Bears shushes bears as they enter library, while patrons at the local library, are annoyed. Later the librarian stares in quiet rage, while patrons are surprised to see him take off his shirt in front of them. He is wearing a tie and a green sweater vest. As a person who has given away all my sweater vests because I didn’t like how they looked on me, and general dislike of vests, I’ve never completely understood the appeal. His fashion is not part of a “resistant imaginings of fashion…pleasure, expression and embodiment” by library workers (or library users) by some library workers of color, including those who are gender nonbinary and women of color, as Vani Natarajan wrote in 2017 on the topic of library fashion. [2]

Instead, his style is in line with dress codes of hospitals, universities, colleges, courtrooms, and libraries which encourage or require more formal attire of their employees. Some even mandate that employees model “professional behavior,” adhere to “good professional norms,” and have “appropriate hygiene.” Others simply say there are standards on one’s “personal appearance,” require “proper attire” or necessitate natural hair color, neat/clean hair, and “acceptable” personal grooming. This is despite the fact that there are legal limits to such codes and these codes can (and do) discriminate. Unfortunately, any complaints about such dress codes can only be tie to either a category protected by Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, or the Americans with Disabilities Act, even though such laws likely do not “provide adequate relief for employees who have experienced appearance-based discrimination.” [3]

The Black male unnamed librarian in the left two images, and the presumed Thai female librarian in the right three images. Their looks show two different types of styles when it comes to librarians

The same can be said about the overworked, burned-out, and exhausted librarian in the We Bare Bears episode “The Library.” This librarian is Thai woman, a determination based on her likely voice actress (Ashly Burch). She does not shush the protagonists. Rather she gets tired of them after they won’t pay the overdue fines, even walking away from the information desk at one point, likely because she can’t deal with them. When it comes to her appearance, she looks a bit like a spinster, as she has a hair bun, and a conservative yet business casual look. She later helps another of the protagonists by getting a book they need, even mentioning the call number of a book, and even lets them stay over at the library for the night. That part is pretty unusual when it comes to libraries, as most usher people out so they don’t stay.  I suppose she saw them working so hard, she let them do an all-nighter. While saying this, possible that one of the other librarians may have allowed this instead, but she likely had a role in allowing it. Compare this to Rin Shima in Laid-Back Camp, which is also known a Yuru Camp, who, in one episode, kicks Nadeshiko and wakes her up when she is sleeping on the floor of the library.

For this librarian, her managers may have been like the psychology raters who favored women groomed “according to a managerial style,” preferring simpler, shorter hairstyles, hair removed from the face, tailored jackets and blouses, or even simple gold jewelry. It is significant that the male librarian wears glasses, in line with those who say that people wearing glasses are successful, hardworking, and “relatively intelligent,” but not outgoing, popular, athletic, or attractive. The latter is countered by the protagonist of Love Live! Superstar!!, Kanon Shibuya, who is attractive, intelligent, skilled with the guitar and singing, despite her stage fright, but ties up her hair and wears glasses at home. In public, she falls in line with this perception, but in private she bucks it.

The female librarian is the opposite of the male librarian. She likely uses some cosmetics, with makeup associated with “traditionally feminine jobs” and is affected by what John Kang called the “ideology of White aesthetics.” This means the belief that physical features of White people are objectively appealing to everyone while physical features of people of color are “deviant” and “subjective.” This affects how people express themselves and dress, meaning that those who aren’t White have to conform, or “suffer the consequences.” Dress codes that are based on those aesthetics communicate the message that people of color and their appearances don’t “belong” in the workplace. Furthermore, such codes suggest that men and women behave, and dress, in a specific way. Some have even said that appearance-based decisions in a workplace can sustain a social order founded on the domination of women and that judgments on appearance reflect those members of society who are “valued and entitled to control.” [4]

Both of these librarians, and the unnamed librarian in Dexter’s Laboratory episode (“The Blonde Leading the Blonde”), who also appears to be a person of color, are affected measures of appearance, especially when it comes to cosmetic user, dress, and grooming. How they dress is undoubtedly influenced by the perception that those who are more attractive are competent, honest, and likeable, while those are are less attractive are said to be unproductive and “lazy.” What is perceived as “attractive” is shaped by the culture, specifically by White attributes. This is reinforced in workplaces themselves as employees conform to organizational culture which have policies for grooming and dressing, sometimes wanting to maintain a specific image, boost morale, instill safety, or be productive. This is despite the fact that such policies can be troubling as they can lead employees to be judged on qualities not related to their job performance and “reflect certain prejudices.” For women especially, these policies weigh heavier on them, leading women to spent endless energy and time to measure up to an “ideal form” of female beauty. Those policies which are based on White male norms undermine the value of people of color and their appearance choices, and can be harmful when enforced against such people, not surprisingly. [5]

Mr. Anderson in his usual attire during one point in the film, looking very dressy with his bow-tie and suit-coat, along with a lanyard with his badge, indicating he is an employee at the library.

Compare this to Mr. Anderson in The Public. He is the head librarian of a Cincinnati Public Library branch in the film, and is arguably a “hero” who defends the library’s importance against “villains”. As Wright described his character, he is torn between institutional and personal pressures, and “has to make a choice as to which he will be beholden to,” and called this division something common for those in similar workplaces. He is a supervisor, the boss of the White protagonist, has responsibilities to his patrons and the library administrators, and even declares at one point that “the public library is the last bastion of true democracy that we have in this country.” He says this after he changes his mind and sides with the protesters, while a poster of Frederick Douglass hands on the wall next to him. Before this point, his orders are peacefully defied by 70 homeless people,after the library is sued by a homeless man who the head librarian and another threw out because of his body odor. He goes from a “serious-looking administrator” who stands against the library’s security team calling the police. All the while, through the film, he remains courteous and unhurried, loosens the bow tie on his shirt, and takes a seat among the homeless. [6]

While Rolling Stone and Oleg Kagan point to the film highlight issues of homelessness, human rights, race, class, addiction, mental illness and income inequality, neither expands on how race plays out in the film, or even mentions the word “Black” for some reason. Adding onto what I’ve pointed out so far, some argued that Mr. Anderson makes a “strong impression” in the film, despite only being a few scenes, as a “vivid, emotionally direct performer,” and later even rejects his “fellow authority figures,” and some saying the movie would have been different if he had been the lead rather than Estevez. Others say that Anderson is trapped in an ugly/escalating situation and call him a “criminally underutilized character actor.” [7]

As a supervisor, Anderson has coercive power when it comes to enforcing appearance regulations. However, those regulations, or policies to be more exact, undoubtedly cause him to internalize norms based on White aesthetics about how to dress and present one’s self. In fact, he tries to speak in a defined way and not deviate from his fellow administrators until he ends up joining the other homeless people at the end of the film. At that point, while is rejecting those norms and standards, throwing off his jacket and sitting among the homeless people, he is also still following them, even though he is not being rewarded for his conformity to the standards at that point. Unlike women who work at the library, he is not under pressure to engage in plastic surgery, excessively diet, or have eating disorders in order to meet the standards for attractiveness. These same standards, when it comes to women’s appearance and dress, tend to objectify women since they are based upon faulty presumptions of women’s “inferiority and incompetence.” [8]

Clara Rhone (voiced by Harriet B. Foy), a Black woman and head of the Stanza in Welcome to the Wayne, the two gay Black men named George and Lance (Regi Davis as George and Chris Jai Alex as Lance) in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and a Nigerian man named O’Bengh / Cagliostro in a What If…? episode (“What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?”), along with Mira (voiced by Leela Ladnier) and her father Sahil (voiced by Aasif Mandvi) in the Mira, Royal Detective episode (“The Case of the Missing Library Book”) likely do not experience uncomfortable interactions with White patrons, including those who de-legitimize such librarians as not being “real” and referring White librarians help them. More specifically, Rhone likely does not experience any racial microaggressions or discrimination as her staff are non-human beings, and her assistant is her granddaughter. This is further supported by the fact that very few people come into the library, apart from the protagonists, so she has very few interactions with patrons. The same can be said about George and Lance as there is no homophobia, as “in Etheria, when women thrive, queerness thrives.” There is likely no racism either, although a land without homophobia is not necessarily an anti-racist one. Furthermore, O’Bengh / Cagliostro he seems to work mostly alone in the huge and impractical library-temple where very few come to visit, while Mira and Sahil live in 19th century Indian city of Jalpur. In that city there is no racism or discrimination among the populace and it isn’t shown in the series from what I remember.

From left to right: Clara Rhone, George, Lance, Cagliostro, Mira, and Sahil

At the same time, Rhone, George, Lance, O’Bengh / Cagliostro, Mira, and Sahil all have their own style. Rhone has perhaps the most relaxed style of the six, with a scarf, and clothes which make it easy to be a librarian without much interruption. As she is the head of the library, she doesn’t have to deal with any rules on appearance and can wear what she wants. George and Lance have looks which are more stylized, even if a bit relaxed, trying to look more scholarly. Cagliostro looks like a priest (or monk) of some kind. Mira and Sahil have the most colorful outfits of the bunch, in line with colorful outfits of those in the show itself, which is filled with color and life.

Due to the fact that very few people come into the Stanza, Rhone likely isn’t internalizing Western beauty ideals like other Black women, or even White women. However, there is a “significant relationship between skin tone and perceived levels of trustworthiness” as one 2017 Masters Thesis by Connor Key Birdsong noted, with those with lighter skin seen as more trustworthy than those with darker skin. Birdsong, writing about how disparities between Blacks and Whites in criminal sentencing containing the “presence of colorism,” i.e. discrimination and prejudice which happens because of darkness or lightness of a person’s skin,with those people with lighter skin given preferential treatment over those with darker skin. He further argues that color is an “important component” of individual appearance which could “activvate attitudes about one’s demeanor, values, remorse, honesty, and even guilt.” [9] This doesn’t necessarily affect how people perceive Rhone, George, Lance, O’Bengh / Cagliostro, Mira, and Sahil in their environments, however. It likely doesn’t affect a Latine man named Mateo voiced by Joey Haro in Elena of Avalor  who is a wizard but also a librarian of sorts, or even the Hong Kong librarian named Wong (voiced by voiced by Benedict Wong) in the same What If…?. In the latter case, however, he may experience racism. Although he is a priest-librarian who often stays in the sanctum, but also sings at karaoke at a nightclub in San Francisco, making him open to racism from those from outside his usual world.

At the same time, Rhone, George, Lance, O’Bengh / Cagliostro, Mira, Sahil, Mateo, or Wong realize the ability to act in a space where “silence can be transformed into language and action” like Audre Lorde while taking into account limitations and opportunities in our workplaces. Lorde, as scholar Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz recalls, became a librarian in order to “effect social change” but left the library when it wasn’t enough for her, not feeling a sense of joy anymore. This led her to  become a poet, revolutionary, and lesbian all at the same time. Using arguments from Lorde, Smith-Cruz argues that the library will not “shield us from social death,” that the library is an apparatus which upholds the nation-state, that silence itself can feed the “tools of whiteness,” and notes Lorde’s survival formula of resource sharing, stretching, and acknowledgement. She further argues that librarians should locate themselves as marginal (i.e. as an identity) before being able to make changes to remedy implications of “capitalist collusion” at the core of library service, even as librarians are seen as support or administrative workers rather than scholars or professionals. [10]

Most of what Smith-Cruz talks about isn’t directly applicable to Rhone, George, Lance, O’Bengh / Cagliostro, Mira, Sahil, Mateo, or Wong, as all of them are in fictional worlds or barely affected by the outside world (in the case of Rhone) although Cagliostro and Wong probably prefer quieter environments, as does Mateo. As such, these aforementioned librarians are spared from the unofficial redistricting which keeping few patrons of color in libraries within majority-White communities, while librarians of color face Whiteness at the reference desk, manifested in racialized judgments and bias. However, the two unnamed librarians in We Bare Bears, or even the one in Dexter’s Laboratory, who I mentioned earlier in this post undoubtedly are affected by these societal pressures. There have likely been patrons who have questioned their qualifications, intellect, and authority, forcing them to perform above and beyond their White colleagues, or even those who have engaged in racial microaggressions against them by White patrons and patrons of color. Not surprisingly, we see none of this in the episodes, perhaps because those who wrote the episodes did not want to display this, and wanted a “simpler” story instead. The librarians in We Bare Bears and Dexter’s Laboratory undoubtedly faced barriers, especially if they were the sole librarians of color even when support staff has a “balanced racial distribution.” I hope one day we see White librarians engaging in bystander intervention by standing up and getting involved to stop “microaggressions and other forms of racist action” as they happen, or engaging in micro-affirmations. The latter means mostly public (and small) behavioral and vernal acts of confidence, support, and encouragement to make clear to colleagues of color that they are an integral and valued part of the team. [11]

Four different styles of Black librarians. Images via the Dillard University Library Blog, Colorlines, toronto.com, and nowthisnews. The second librarian here is Carla Hayden, the head librarian of the Library of Congress, while the third is Ashley Buckley, a library assistant for the Blackstone Foundation Library. The fourth is Ola Ronke, founder of The Free Black Women’s Library (TFBWL)

Putting aside other librarians of color I either haven’t read or written about, [12] future fictional librarians will undoubtedly continue to have   unique styles, maybe even with afro-punk, afro-retro, or hip-hop styles. On the other hand, perhaps these librarians will be more plain. In any case, I hope to see more librarians of color in animation, comics, anime, and anywhere else, in the days, weeks, months, and years to come, as there are far too many White librarians, many of which I’ve written about on this blog, as they often fall into the character types outlined by Jennifer Snoek-Brown. I hope to find more librarians of color, regardless of their fashion styles, [13] so I can insure that the librarians I write about on here are more diverse than the library field itself! With that, my post comes to a close.

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] April M. Hathcock and Stephanie Sendaula, “Mapping Whiteness at the Reference Desk” in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 251-2.

[2] Vani Natarajan, “Nostalgia, Cuteness, and Geek Chic: Whiteness in Orla Kiely’s Library” in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 137. She also writes that “we could work to undo the white supremacist structures that control and police library space and the people who move through them.”

[3] “Dress Code and Professional Appearance,” UC Health, accessed Mar. 29, 2022; “Professional Appearance Standards,” UMMC Health Care, accessed Mar. 29, 2022; “Personal Appearance and Dress,” New Jersey City University, Jan. 1, 2019; “Appearance & Dress Code,” University of Puget Sound, accessed Mar. 29, 2022; “Professional Dress Code and Personal Appearance,” Delta State University, Apr. 29, 2019; “Minimum Appearance Standards,” Central Arkansas Library System, Jul. 25, 2019; “Standards of Dress and Appearance Policy,” Garner-Webb University, accessed Mar. 29, 2022; “Employee Conduct – Standards of Dress and Personal Appearance,” Randolph Community College, Jul. 17, 2008; “Standards of Personal Appearance and Dress,” Purdue University, accessed Mar. 29, 2022; “Personal Appearance Standards,” Villanova University, accessed Mar. 29, 2022; “Standards of Dress and Appearance,” Emory University School of Medicine, Jul. 8, 2021; Barbara Bevis, “What Do I Wear to Court?: Courtroom Appearance and Decorum Standards,” Library of Congress, Sept. 23, 2014; “Illegal Workplace Policies: Appearance, Dress Codes, and Grooming Policies,” EmploymentLawFirms, Mar. 29, 2022; Beeta Lashkari, “On the Basis of Personal Appearance,” HospitalityLawyer.com, Aug. 15, 2019; Kira Barrett, “When School Dress Codes Discriminate,” National Education Association, Jul. 24, 2018; Harry F. Corey, “Dress Codes,” The First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009; Ritu Mahajan, “The Naked Truth: Appearance Discrimination, Employment, and the Law,” Asian American Law Journal, Vol. 14, p. 165-166, 177-183, 187-188, 194-196, 201-203, noted here and here.

[4] Mahajan, “The Naked Truth,” 168, 171-173.

[5] Ibid, 166-7, 169-70, 173.

[6] Gary Duff, “Actor Jeffrey Wright on Growing Up In D.C., the 2016 Election & Starring in ‘The Public’,” Capitol File, Apr. 27, 2019; Jeffrey Anderson, “The Public,” Common Sense Media, Mar. 2, 2022; Oleg Kagan, “Movie Review: “the public” (written and directed by Emilio Estevez),” EveryLibrary, Feb. 8, 2018; Michael O’Sullivan, “Emilio Estevez’s new movie has a good message, if you don’t choke on it,” Washington Post, Apr. 3, 2019; Josh Terry, “Movie review: Libraries as homeless shelters? Salt Lake-inspired ‘The Public’ checks it out,” DeseretNews, Apr. 8, 2019; Anthony Lane, “Flesh Meets Machine in “High Life”,”The New Yorker, Apr. 5, 2019; Peter Travers, “‘The Public’ Movie Review: Life, Liberty and the Library as a Battlefield,” Rolling Stone, Apr. 5, 2019; Tricia Olszewski, “‘The Public’ Film Review: Emilio Estevez’s Homeless Drama Is Sincerely Clunky,” The Wrap, Apr. 2, 2019; Alan Ng, “The Public,” Film Threat, Apr. 5, 2019; THR Staff, “‘The Public’: Film Review | TIFF 2018,” The Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 9, 2018. Earlier in the film, “We’re a public library, we’re not a shelter for the homeless.” This discussion partially fulfills what I noted in my review of The Public, “some have been critical of how the librarians were all white and racial (and gender) dynamics in the film.”

[7] Matt Zoller Seitz, “30 Minutes on: “The Public”,” Rogerebert.com, Apr. 7, 2019; Brian Orndorf, “The Public Review,” blu-ray.com, Apr. 4, 2019; “MOVIE REVIEW: The Public,” everymoviehasalesson.com, Apr. 3, 2019; Jen Johans, “Movie Review: The Public (2018),” Apr. 5, 2019.

[8] Mahajan, “The Naked Truth,” 174, 176.

[9] Deana L. Jefferson and Jayne E. Stake, “Appearance Self-Attitudes of African American and European American Women: Media Comparisons and Internalization of Beauty Ideals,” Psychology of Women Quarterly, Dec. 1, 2009; Connor Key Birdsong, “Does Appearance Matter?: The Effect of Skin Tones on Trustworth and Innocent Appearances,” Masters Thesis, The University of Alabama, 2017, p. ii, 1-2. He also says on page 3 that “skin color has been an important determination of social, legal, political, and economic opportunities for Blacks since colonial times.” One day I may order the dissertation “Black Beauty, White Standards: Impacts on Black Women and Resources for Resistance and Resilience” through inter-library-loan and expand on Black female characters featured on this blog.

[10] Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, “A Blueprint on Self-Exploration to Justice: Introduction to ‘Referencing Audre Lorde’ & ‘Lesbian Librarianship for All'” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 278; Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, “Referencing Audre Lorde” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 279-281, 283-284, 289-290; Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, “Lesbian Librarianship for All: A Manifesto” in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 293-296. On page 295, she says that public service librarians struggle with the contradiction between capitalist-focused and justice-seeking at the core of library service, specifically the aim to “uphold national values, through referencing the canon, promoting academic publishers, assisting teaching faculty, assigning access policies, and other practices.”

[11] Hathcock and Sendaula, “Mapping Whiteness at the Reference Desk,” 251-9. On Page 252 Hathcock and Sendaula write that “the history of public resistance towards African Americans and other people of color inside the library, as both patrons and employees, is rooted in the segregation laws of the early twentieth century.”

[12] Specifically, I haven’t read Archival Quality which features a queer Black librarian-protagonist, Celeste Walden, who begins working for a haunted museum as an archivist. The same can be said about Clarice in Girls with Slingshots, a porn store employee who really wants to be a librarian, and unnamed female librarian in Namesake, although I don’t think either of them are people of color. This is unrelated to the ingrained racism of lists like the one by Emily Temple for Lit Hub, which lists 50 fictional librarians and only ONE is Black, while the rest are White. The same can be said about Glenn Glazer’s all-White list of “Favorite Fictional Librarians” for NYPL, or almost all-White list of “fierce female librarians” by Lacey deShazo for Book Riot. It is any surprise that Temple, deShazo, and Glazer are all White women? Its erasure for them to have almost all-White lists.

[13] One list of fashion styles notes styles such as aztec, bollywood; Bon chic, bon genre (BCBG); bro (Bronies, Scrumbro, Snowbro, Surfer Bro, Tech Bro); Bubble Goth; California(n); cyberpunk, dasakawa, decor, dieselpunk, disco, e-girl/boy, emo, ero-kawaii, futuristic, , gothic lolita, gyaru, hadeku, harajuku, indian, kampala blend, kawaii, kodona/ouji/boystyle, kowa-kawaii, lolita, lunarpunk, mori girl, psychobill, rasta, seapunk, skandi, solarpunk, southwestern (American), steampunk, tiki goth, ulzzang, Visual Kei, Vsco Girl/Boy, and Zoot Suiters.

Behind the Screen: Japanese and English voices which bring fictional librarians to life!

Hideyuki Umezu (left) and Stephen Mendel (right)

There are many characters nowadays who have Japanese actors or actresses voice them in the original anime, then English-speaking actors voice them in a dubbed version.

Part of understanding fictional librarians is understanding those behind the screen, specifically when it comes to those who voice animated characters. Part 1 of this series focused on Black voice actors, Part 2 on Asian and Latin American voice actors, Part 3 on Indian voice actors, and Part 4 on Japanese voice actors.

In this fifth part of this series, I am profiling the Japanese-speaking and English-speaking voice actors, men and women, who have voiced librarian characters, whether in the original show or English dubs.

About the English-speaking and Japanese-speaking voice actors

One of these characters is Doctor Oldham in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. He was voiced by Hideyuki Umezu in the Japanese original, while the English dubbed voice was provided by Stephen Mendel. Umezu, like many of the other actresses on here, is relatively skilled, even providing voices for Japanese dubs of Western shows like Inside Job, Animaniacs, Teen Titans, and X-Men, along with various anime. Mendel, on the other hand, is a Canadian/American actor who has often appeared in live-action series, a total of 89 acting credits so far.

Even more prominent, in terms of a librarian protagonist, is Myne in Ascendance of a Bookworm. Yuka Iguchi voiced her in Japanese while Reba Buhr voiced her in the English dub. Iguchi is a well-known singer who provides vocals for J-pop songs, even releasing two albums, first Hafa Adai in 2014 and az you like… in 2016, and ten singles between 2013 and 2019 according to her Wikipedia page. Behr has voice dubbed of characters in Knights of Sidonia, Beastars, BNA: Brand New Animal, and Hayop Ka!.

Another lesser-known librarian is Hisami Hishishii in R.O.D. the TV. She is a 13-year-old and author from Japan who becomes friends with the Paper Sisters, especially Hisami, while Tohru has a crush on her. She is voiced by Taeko Kawata, along with Megan Taylor Harvey for the English dub. Kawata has voiced 70 characters, either in video games or anime. [1] Comparably, Harvey has voiced characters in animation like Charlie Brown, Ikki Tousen, and many live-action series.

More recently there is Yukiyo Fujii as Himeko Agari in Komi Can’t Communicate, while Sarah Williams voices the English dub. Fujii is a voice actress who has voiced anime characters since 2010, including in the third season of Sailor Moon Crystal, Edens Zero, and Life with an Ordinary Guy who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout. Williams, on the other hand, did English dubs for Edens Zero and many other anime series, along with video games.

Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra featured many librarian characters. For example, Toru Ohkawa voiced Mattalast Ballory while David Wald did the English dub, Yuichi Nakamura voiced Volken Macmani while Greg Ayres did the English dub. At the same time, Tooru Furusawa voiced Fhotona Badgammon while Illich Guardiola did the English dub, and Masaki Terasoma voiced Makia Dekishart while John Gremillion did the English dub.

Ohkawa voiced characters in Macross Frontier and Gosick, while Nakamura voiced characters in Princess Tutu and Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S. Furusawa voiced characters in Cardcaptor Sakura and did many dubbed voice roles. Terasoma voiced characters in No. 6, Macross Delta, and The Aquatope on White Sand. English voice actors Wald, Ayres, Guardiola, and Gremillion voiced characters in English anime dubs.

Other characters in the same show had Japanese and English voice actors too. Romi Park voiced Hamyuts Meseta and Shelley Calene-Black voiced the English dub. Haruka Tomatsu voiced Noloty Malche and Cynthia Martinez provided the English dub. Akiko Takeguchi voiced Ireia Kitty while Marcy Bannor provided the English dub. Park is known for voicing characters in series like Hetalia: Axis Powers and The God of High School while Tomatsu voiced characters in A Certain Scientific Railgun, Tatakau Shisho, and Bodacious Space Pirates. Takeguchi voiced characters in Otherside Picnic and many other anime. Calene-Black voiced characters in the Engish dubs for Noir, Rosario + Vampire, and Battle Girls: Time Paradox. Martinez voiced English dubbed characters for Blue Drop, Bodacious Space Pirates, and Puni Puni Poemy. Bannor voiced dubbed characters too, but for BanG Dream!, Bloom Into You, and No. 6, to name a few.

About the characters

Doctor Oldham, Myne, Hisami Hishishii, Himeko Agari, Mattalast Ballory, and Volken Macmani. Bottom row: Fhotona Badgammon, Makia Dekishart, Hamyuts Meseta, Noloty Malche, and Ireia Kitty

Doctor Oldham in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet is a medical doctor and said to be a “sage.” He also oversees a library of books in Gargantia and has some knowledge of the old ways. In this way, he is a librarian, although he isn’t always recognized as one.

Myne is the protagonist of Ascendance of a Bookworm. She was once a librarian in her previous life and vows to be a librarian in this life. She also becomes an apprentice priestess just so she can access the books and the library within the church. She also works on producing her own books. She is very industrious and smart!

Hisami Hishishii in R.O.D. the TV is the best friend of Anita King and is known as “Hisa” for short. She is a quiet and shy girl who likes books, leading her to become the librarian at the local school library, likely on a volunteer basis just like Desiree, Sarah, and Sara in Too Loud.

Himeko Agari in Komi Can’t Communicate is a member of the Library Committee and struggles to communicate like Shouko. She has low self-confidence and can’t withstand peer pressure. She is also a high school student and food reviewer.

Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra, otherwise known as Armed Librarians featured librarian characters like Mattalast Ballory, Volken Macmani, Fhotona Badgammon, Makia Dekishart, Hamyuts Meseta, Noloty Malche, and Ireia Kitty. Mattalast is one of the strongest Armed Librarians. Volken is a proud armed librarian and is very skilled. Fhotona was the Acting Director before Hamyuts. Makia is another acting director who served before Hamyuts. Then there’s Hamyuts, acting director of the library who lusts for battle and has an easy-going personality, even as she is often self-loathing. On the other hand, Noloty is a trainee armed librarian while Ireia Kitty is an older armed librarian trying to teach newer armed librarians.

When looking over my list, I later realized that I missed Yamada in B Gata H Kei who has Japanese and English voice actors. She will be covered in another part of this series.

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Notes

[1] She has two pages on her website, here and here, which seem to allow submissions.

Behind the Screen: Asian and Latin American voices of fictional librarians

From left to right: Benedict Wong, Ashly Burch, Joey Haro, Elaine Del Valle, and Kenn Navarro

There are Asian and Latin American actors who have voiced many librarians in fiction over the years. Part of understanding fictional librarians is understanding those behind the screen and this article contributes to that. Part 1 of this series focused on Black women and men who voice fictional librarians.

In this part, I am profiling Asian and Latin American voice actors who voiced librarians.

About the voice actors

There are many talented voice actors who aren’t White men or White woman, who comprise the majority of those who voice animated librarians, especially in Western animation. These talented voice actors include Benedict Wong as Wong in What If…? episode (“What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?”), Ashly Burch who likely voices an unnamed librarian in a We Bare Bears episode (“The Library”), and Joseph “Joey” Haro as Mateo in Elena of Avalor. Specifically, Burch is of Thai descent, Wong is of Hong Kong descent, and Haro is of Cuban descent (and is gay).

There’s also Elaine Del Valle as Val the Octopus in Dora the Explorer episode (“Backpack”) who is Latine, and Kenn Navarro as Flippy in Happy Tree Friends episode (“Random Acts of Silence”) who is a Filipino animator. Additionally, there is Emanuel Garijo as Kaeloo in French in Kaeloo episode (“Let’s Play at Reading Books”). Doug Rand voices Kaeloo in the English dub, and Domenico Coscia in the Italian dub, to name another character. As it turns out, Navarro is one of the creators of Happy Tree Friends, while Valle is known  as the actor and writer of an one-woman stage play she created: Brownsville Bred. Garijo has done French voice work for years, while Rand has done English voice work, while I couldn’t find anything on Coscia.

Another person worth mentioning is Vivienne Medrano, a Latine animator of Salvadoran descent who created the animated shows Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss along with a video for her webcomic Zoophobia. She voices Sarah in Nico Colaleo’s series, Too Loud, replacing Julia Vickerman, who was racked by controversy following allegations that she engaged in pedophilia, after beginning her series, Twelve Forever, which was sadly cancelled by Netflix after the end of its first season. The reason for its cancellation is not known.

It is also highly probable that Janice Kawaye, an actress of Japanese descent who has voiced characters since 1983, likely voices the librarian in Totally Spies episode (“Totally Switched”). Kawayke has voiced characters like Couchpo in Edens Zero, Shiori in Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, Jenny / XJ-9 in My Life as a Teenage Robot, and Sara in Invader Zim, to name a few characters she has voiced.

An additional late entry to this list is Jenny Lorenzo, who presumably voices the skeleton librarian, Eztli, in an episode of Victor and Valentino. Lorenzo is known for her role as Lupe in the same show, but she has also voiced Choo Choo and Spooky in Jellystone. She is a Cuban-American actor known for her work on We Are Mitú and is a co-founder of BuzzFeed’s Pero Like, becoming a viral sensation for her Abuela character, and what her IMDB page calls “relatable, Latino-based content seen through the comedic and nostalgic lens of a 1st generation Cuban-American.”

Another additional entry is Danny Trejo. He voices Bobby Daniels, a bad-boy librarian in an episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee. Trejo, who is of Mexican descent, is best known for his role as Isador “Machete” Cortez in the Spy Kids franchise films. In terms of animation, he voiced Enrique, Victor Velasquez, and other characters in multiple King of the Hill episodes, along with assorted roles in El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, The Cleveland Show, Young Justice (as Bane), Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel, and Tangled: The Series (as Wreck Marauder / Malice Marauder). He also voiced characters in Big City Greens, Elena of Avalor, 3Below: Tales of Arcadia (Tronos), Victor and Valentino, and The Casagrandes.

About the characters

From left to right: Wong, unnamed librarian, Val, Flippy, Kaeloo, Sarah, unnamed librarian, and Eztli

As I described Wong, he is the first librarian shown in the series What If…?, trying to guide Doctor Strange, warning him that tinkering with time will threaten the entire fabric of the universe, but he cares little. Even so, he later helps the good Strange train to fight the evil Strange. Unfortunately, he has less of a role in the episode as the other librarian, Cagliostro. Luckily, he has more of a role in the live-action films, as Jennifer Snoek-Brown has written about time and again.

The librarian in the We Bare Bears episode, on the other hand, is stern, has some characteristics of a spinster librarian, professional work attire, wanting to do her job and following the rules. I concluded that she is probably overworked and exhausted, something you don’t always see when you see depictions of librarians in animation. She also is helpful to patrons, even letting them sleep in the library, which I found surprising. Mateo, on the other hand, is a wizard and royal advisor to the show’s protagonist, Elena. He bucks stereotypes of Latine people, not shushing people at all, remaining as helpful as he can instead.

Val the Octopus is a minor character in Dora the Explorer, having a variety of odd jobs like running a cash register, driving a mail truck (or an ice cream truck), being a lifeguard, or a librarian. She is the latter in the episode (“Backpack”) and is vary courteous to Dora.

Flippy in Happy Tree Friends episode (“Random Acts of Silence”) is perhaps the most murderous librarian I have ever seen in animation to-date. This not unique to this episode, as he often causes other characters to die on purpose. Despite this, he seems to die very infrequently during the run of the series.

Kaeloo is the protagonist of Kaeloo. She is the guardian of the place known as Smileyland and has an ambiguous gender. And in the episode “Let’s Play at Reading Books” she acts as a librarian, attempting to shush people and get them to listen, even though this is a failure.

Sarah in Colaleo’s series, Too Loud, is a new librarian who joins Sara and Desiree (going by a different name for much of the series), brought in to help out with the library. While Sara nor Desiree are big fans of her at first, they come around to her, and she becomes more of their friend as the series moves forward, helping with librarian matters.

Librarian in Totally Spies episode (“Totally Switched”) is one of the most interesting librarian characters in fiction that I have ever seen. Due to a personality switcher, which switched her personality with that of a wrestler, she becomes buff and even throws a patron across the room. She is later shown listing weights and doing jump rope. Hopefully she becomes a stronger librarian and better to her librarian.

Another entry is Eztli in the Victor and Valentino episode “An Evening with Mic and Hun”. In the episode, Victor and Valentino, who are in the underworld, have to get past Eztli, a skeleton librarian, who shushes them. Victor won’t stand for this, while his brother, Valentino comes up with a plan. This is disregarded as the librarian is smashed by a boulder and they get the extra skeleton arm she is holding. In the episode, she is also shown putting a book on a cart and stamping a book with a past due stamp, with the fee of one soul.

One final entry is Bobby Daniels in an episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee which is aptly named “Bad Boy Bobby Daniels”. In the episode, Molly, her father, and Scratch go to the Mewline Public Library to find the Bad Boy of Brighton, Bobby Daniels, to help her elderly friend. They attempt to turn Daniels “back” into a bad boy but it doesn’t work and they let him stay as the librarian. Later, Bobby and Patty get together after Molly put in a false book delivery notice. Their love ends up blossoming and it seems that he is taken away from his library job.

That’s all for this post! Until the next one!

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.