Despite losing her job in a battle over removing books in Llano County, Suzette Baker says she’d encourage young people to pursue a career as a librarian. “You’re a warrior for knowledge,” she says.
Baker was the head of Llano County’s Kingsland Branch until she was fired in 2022 for speaking out against the county’s Library Advisory Board’s changes to programming and procedures. Baker later won a settlement against the county for wrongful termination. But, as of now, the county has won the fight to ban the books – the U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to take up the case.
» RELATED: Llano Library book ban case could overturn longtime First Amendment precedent
Baker’s story is one of several from Texas and elsewhere in the country profiled in the documentary “The Librarians.” After hitting film festivals and theaters, it’s now coming to PBS stations. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Did you ever expect that being a librarian would be a job where you’d be thrust into the spotlight?
Suzette Baker: Not in a million years did I expect to be in the position that I’m in right now.
It was my goal in life, was to move back home to Texas and just go back to the library until I retire at 65 and that’s not what happened.
Part of your story is that you’re an Army veteran. Why is that such an important part of how you’ve viewed your work and your mission?
Because military service in my family has happened since the American Revolution. We’ve been here that long.
And the emphasis of growing up in a family of veterans and police officers, too, and prison guards, is that there is justice and there is right and there is wrong. And you protect your freedoms, you protect your liberties. And that’s the atmosphere I was raised in.
Texas is really at the center of this documentary, but even as films wrap up, politics and life continues, there’ve been challenges to both public libraries and school libraries here. Where do things currently stand in Texas?
It’s a mixed bag.
We did, with the Little v. Llano County court case, it is not being heard at the moment by the Supreme Court. It could be brought up again in the future but, right now, it is not. So that was a huge blow to the rights of the readers here and America in general.
But also, you know, with the recent win in Tarrant County of them returning from a predominantly red county to now a predominantly blue county, you know, that is a win for us. So people are waking up and they’re making changes.
Editor’s note: Democrat Taylor Rehmet beat Republican Leigh Wambsganss in the special election runoff for Senate District 9. Wambsganss helped get people elected to North Texas school boards – which is credited as the start of an explosion in book bans across the country.
Why is it so important – the books that we have on shelves in libraries – when we have so much access to things that we need online these days?
There’s no truth in what you get online. There’s no standard in what’s available online.
Whereas, when you go to a library – you have the choice to read what you choose to read and you can look at the truth of the words before you. You can research, you can do your own due diligence to ensure that what you’re reading and viewing is correct.
And there’s a lot of people now who don’t go beyond just watching what’s on YouTube or on TV or Fox News or CNN or anybody, they just take it at face value and it’s not necessarily truth.
The idea that parents know what’s best for their kids seems very well-intentioned, but how do you respond to that when it comes to what’s in libraries?
It’s different in a public library. Public librarians do not abide by in loco parentis. So a public librarian is not there to parent your child. That’s the parent’s job.
But it’s also the librarian’s job to make sure that everything is available for everybody equally.
So, you may go into a library and see books you may not like, but that does not give you the right to take those books away from somebody else’s child. So it’s not infringing on the rights of one parent by removing things that would offend another.
In the film, there’s a point where you go back to a Llano County library. Is this still a place where you feel comfortable, feel happy?
It’s not a place where I feel happy now. It’s not a place where many people feel happy now. It has changed. It has changed.
A lot of the librarians are gone. The children’s librarian is there, and she is remarkable. She does great things. She does great work. But, as far as the regular librarians, they’re all gone. And it’s new staff, and it’s… It’s not a welcoming place, it’s not friendly place.
Is being a librarian something that you would encourage a young person to do right now?
I would. I would.
Because a librarian isn’t just a steward for knowledge and a guarantee of access – you’re a warrior for knowledge. That’s what a librarian is. You’re protecting people, you’re protecting books, you’re protecting the right of everybody to access information.
What are you thinking as more people are going to get to see “The Librarians”?
Hopefully they wake up. They wake up and they realize that there is an issue going on in our country and it’s a very major issue.
Even here, when you tell people that there’s problems in the library here. There’s so little press coverage here that there are people in Llano County who have no idea what’s going on and that’s sad that that exists.
As you watch “The Librarians” – are there other stories that stick out to you? What moves you beyond, of course, your own experience?
There are a lot. I don’t want to give too much away.
Carolyn Foote is amazing. Her and Becky Calzada and Nancy Jo [Lambert], they started the FReadom Fighters here in Texas. They’re amazing people and their story is just wonderful.
Martha Hickson out of New Jersey, phenomenal.
Actually, one of the most moving people that I feel, personally, in that movie is not a librarian. It’s Rev. [Jeffrey] Dove from Florida, and his take on being a man of color and watching the books about children of color being ripped out of the schools – it’s just, I mean, it still gets me tearing up now. It’s just an amazing story.
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