They're gonna come for libraries and books even harder than they ever had before. Y'all better get ready.

here is what I mean: + know what you have in your collection, get familiar with it. They are passing around lists of what to make up outrage about, know it before they do. + what is your collection development policy? Print it out, put it on your website. KNOW IT BACK AND FORTH.

+ talk with your supervisors TOMORROW about what you will do WHEN you get complaints. Ask what their plans on how to handle it are. Ask for a script. You are the supervisor? Get to working on that, prepare your frontline staff for challenges.

+ If you don't have a collection development policy that requires any challenges to be put into writing, well, I'd look into making those changes. Who controls the money at your library? A board? Local government? Time to get cozy with them and get them prepared too.

You're not a librarian? You need to get ready too and here's what you can do: + TOMORROW contact your local public library and your children's school library (IF you have children) and let them know how much you support them and their efforts at representing ALL our kids.

+Ask them who needs to hear this support and how you can get it registered. Can you write a letter to your local news source? Can you attend a public meeting and voice your support there? What do they need from you, a supportive member of the public who uses the library.

Librarians: + ask for help, please ask for help and I don't mean a bunch of randos in a Librarian Facebook group. Ask your supervisors! Make them create a plan! Reach out to your state orgs. Act as if it WILL happen. Because guess what? It's gonna.

They're only going to get hungrier. They have a set of books they are out for but they will literally settle for anything. It IS happening in your community and if you disagree, your voice matters.

And listen, you can literally call up your public library tomorrow and be like I LOVE THAT YOU HAVE TONS OF BOOKS ABOUT QUEER KIDS!!! HOW CAN I SUPPORT YOU!! it is an immediate, short-term action. But this is long-term work to keep an eye on. Time to pay attention.

Librarians: + just as you need to practice a script of what you SHOULD stay (stick to the script, stick to the script) you should also practice the phrases to NOT say. I know this is unpleasant and feels forced. But it's just being prepared.

anyway I don't really like to do doomerism on main lol but this is really bleak and it's a sad and hard and scary night for people who work with books and kids and I have so many inchoate thoughts about it and what it's meant in my life these past few months. It's just shitty.

HERE'S SOMETHING TO GET FAMILIAR WITH. PUT IT TO USE TOMORROW.

WHO SHOULD I CONTACT? Here's a great list to start with:

anyway I quit my job (that I loved and was bad-ass at) because I would not work under a law that "banned critical race theory" and it was one of the hardest choices I've ever made. I ask you to consider that soon you may have to make this choice too.

So tonight sucks real bad and I feel more hopeless than I have in a long time since so much about this is about books and kids (and about my own future in libraries) but. But there's no other choice but to keep fighting.

Did you know YOU can form an advocacy group for your library just like the people who want to remove books about how queer people exist and Black people have inner lives! And YOU can get work done. Check it out:

General members of the public: if you like this tweet thread and want to dig into it more/have an easier way to share via article format, here's a piece I wrote for @harpersbazaarus :

@misskubelik AND know how they will clip what you say to share out of context. Rewrite with painstaking care.