Washington Post: “With book bans, heated political debates and a pandemic to deal with, it isn’t an easy time to be a librarian. In cities and small towns across the country, librarians have become increasingly maligned for simply keeping the shelves stocked and doing their jobs, which includes everything from organizing yoga classes and book clubs to sometimes providing resources to homeless people and other times helping kids with their homework. “There’s a lot more involved than just helping people check out books,” said Linda “Lynn” Hori, a library technician at the Goleta Valley Library near Santa Barbara, Calif. “Libraries are the heart of every community.” Part of Hori’s job is to help organize children’s events for the library in Goleta, which has a population of about 32,000. She said she and her co-workers realized their community could use a break from the divisive rancor and isolation brought on over the past couple of years by the pandemic. In previous years, the Goleta library held a stuffed-animal sleepover every summer for younger patrons, Hori said, in which kids would drop off their favorite teddy bear or other stuffy, then return in the morning to see photos of them in various silly poses around the library having a late-night party….She and her volunteers spent hours staging the animals (and one well-rounded, smiling avocado) in dozens of party scenarios: roasting marshmallows for s’mores, sharing milkshakes, goofing around on the library’s photocopy machine, playing computer games and making phone calls to faraway places…By midnight, Hori had taken more than 1,200 photos and it was time for a bedtime story with bubble machine special effects…”