The Fraud Police and the Real Adults
Posted October 22, 2015 by Tara Pealer
This semester I’ve had trouble finding time to read books for my own personal delight. There’s the Excitement of A New City and of My First Semester As A Graduate Student, and the stress of When Will Someone Find Out I Don’t Know What I’m Doing?, all of which have taken over most of my time.
It’s about halfway through the semester now. No one’s noticed yet that I’m making it up as I go. I’m getting worried.
In her book, The Art of Asking, Amanda Palmer describes that feeling as ‘The Fraud Police’. The Art of Asking, which is the only book I’ve read this semester in full (though I’ve read it religiously) is about asking for help, and about accepting help. It’s about flowers and donuts. It’s about a lot of things, really. I have the section on ‘The Fraud Police’ underlined and highlighted. It helps to hear other people tell you that they’re also making it up as they go along.
Amanda Palmer’s book cover
For most of my life, I’ve been worried that someone would find out that I didn’t know what I was doing. I decided to go into Library and Information Science, because, in my second year as an undergraduate, one of my friends told me “You like working in the library, and you’re good at it. Why not?” It took about a year for me to work past all of the ‘nots’ I had invented–I wasn’t the librarian type (lie), I wasn’t actually good at it (not true), and librarians knew what they were doing, and I did not (Fraud Police)–to actually sit down and ask some other people (my amazing Library Boss, and my friends and family) what they thought.
They agreed on several things:
1.) I enjoyed working at a library and helping people
2.) I’ve always enjoyed helping people
3.) It was possible
4.) I could do it
Outside validation can help silence the Fraud Police for a little while.
So can asking for help and trying.
It takes a lot of courage to do both of those at the same time. Palmer’s book made me realize what I love about the library and information science profession. Libraries are a place people can come to say “The imaginary Real Adults who know what they are doing are following me, can you help? I am trying, but can you help?”
The LIS profession, as a whole, answers back: Yes. We can. The imaginary Real Adults are after me too, and if I can help you, maybe you can help me.
On page 48 of my heavily highlighted and underlined book, Palmer says “Asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.” Libraries at their core are about collaboration between libraries and communities, and between librarians and patrons. The library profession is about collaborating between the multiplicity of jobs and positions to help a community. My 401 professor, Dr. Mary Wilkins Jordan, announced to the class one day that the people sitting around us were not competitors, but collaborators.
We can help each other.