“Hi, I’m looking for a book with adventure, but no graphic violence.”
“I’m interested in a thriller that doesn’t have any rape scenes.”
“I want a gay main character but I don’t want it to be a coming-out story. And no anti-gay violence.”
“Oh, no, murder’s fine, but no animal cruelty.”
All separate reader’s advisory questions that I’ve answered, and successfully. I don’t know why any of these people asked for those specific parameters, and I didn’t ask, because it’s not my fucking business. And it’s no one else’s business, either–up to and including the government.
Librarians don’t make you reveal your trauma in order to justify what you read or write. You may be confusing us with, uh… *checks notes* …fandom.
We are literally trained not to ask. Any halfway decent reference professor nails it into you. Even if it would help you answer a question, you never ask a patron why they need something.
Some librarians will ask why you want it (because they don’t all get the same training) – but they don’t mean, “why the hell would you have an interest in this?” They mean, “is this for you, or for a school assignment, or to share with someone else,” which helps them figure out what range of similar books you might be interested in.
If it’s for you, you want books with those exact restrictions–but possibly any length, any author, including short stories as well as novels.
If it’s for an assignment, you may need to use recent books, or a specific range of authors, or only one genre.
If it’s to share with someone else, you may be looking for books within a particular age range, or books with a particular gender of protagonist, or books that are currently trendy enough that you’d’ve heard of them and offered to find one.
They DO NOT CARE what you like to read; all the books in the library are there to be read. They just want to help you find the book you’re looking for.
If a librarian (or bookstore employee, or anyone else) asks why you want a book, don’t tell them why you care about the contents; just say what you want to do with it – to read it; to study for a project; to give as a gift; to fill out a collection, or whatever.
Free Graphic Novels (DC, Marvel, Image, etc), Music, TV shows, and music on HOOPLA.
Free music that you can KEEP on FREEGAL
You are PAYING for all this with your tax money – USE THEM. Most likely systems will have all 3 or 2 out of 3, so if you aren’t sure call your local library’s reference/information desk and how you can get set-up or started.
many libraries also give you access to KANOPY which has free movies (mostly documentaries but last i checked Moonlight was on there!)
A big chunk of the criterion collection is on Kanopy, as are a lot of the Great Courses sets! It trends toward indie stuff and documentaries definitely though.
RBDigital is another one a lot of libraries have, for magazines.
Also for Overdrive, there’s a new, improved app that’s much easier to use called Libby. You can download it plus the apps for hoopla, rb digital, and freegal in the Apple and google play stores then just plug in your library card info and get going.
Oh and if you’re running into paywalls with your online newspaper reading, libraries got your back there too – most of us provide access to the big ones and whatever the local papers are.
Finally, for any of my Massachusetts folks that don’t know, literally everybody in the state can get a Boston library card, physical or digital, and they have a pretty dang robust set of databases you can use as well as most of the above mentioned (I don’t think they have kanopy as of now but I’d have to double check).
I can second this. Hoopla is the only way I’ve been able to start listening to audio books.
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