Find Your Library Joy!
Posted April 23, 2026 by Abby Edgecumbe
This week is National Library Week! National Library Week is sponsored by the ALA, and each year comes with a theme. This year, the theme is “Find Your Joy.” In honor of finding my library joy, I’m going to share a few joyful experiences I’ve had in the MLIS and in libraries so far this year.
In October last year, I saw a showing of The Librarians at the Brattle Theater, as a part of the Boston Globe GlobeDocs film festival. The documentary follows a handful of school librarians in the American South as they fight against book bans and for the freedom to read. The movie was absolutely incredible, and I really recommend it. The most joyful part of that experience was before the showing, when the organizers of GlobeDocs came out and asked all the librarians in the audience to stand up. Although I’m technically still in training, I did stand, and I felt so honored to be among so many amazing librarians in that audience. The picture to the left is me at the showing, sporting my “I read banned books” pin, of course!
Another instance of library joy also happened in October, when I attended the Boston Book Festival at the Boston Public Library. It was so cool to see all the tents pop up in the courtyard outside the BPL in Copley, and the library itself held a bunch of events and programs. Some examples of these events was a talk on the connective and restorative power of music, nature, and art called “The Transformative Power of Going Deep: Tubas, Fungi, Beauty,” or a poetry open-mic that happened in the Newsfeed Cafe at the central branch! The event also boasted a bunch of insane keynote speakers, such as Geraldine Brooks, Kiran Desai, and Patricia Cornwell, to name a few. It was a really joyful experience to see the library so full of people, and especially to listen to the poetry open-mic from my fellow Boston community members.
Coming into 2026, you may or may not be aware, we had a couple big blizzards. My next hit of library joy comes from the insane library haul I checked out in preparation for being snowed in. I got my haul from the Brookline Public Library, and it was so much fun to pursue the shelves, and I even noticed a lot of other people seemingly doing the same thing. It’s joyful to think about everyone holed up all cozy in their homes with a big pile of library books while the snow falls unceasingly outside. Among others, my library haul included Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, and Private Rites by Julia Armfield. The first one I finished during the blizzard– which you can see pictured to the right, was the Booker Prize shortlisted title The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller.
The last library joy story I will share with you all today was my visit to Yale University’s archival library, the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library. As I might have mentioned on this blog before, I work at an archival library at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute, the Schlesinger Library, so I was really excited to visit a similar library at Yale– but let me tell you, WOW! This library had super interesting architecture. It is basically like an enormous illuminated glass cube filled with old books.
That sounds weird, but look at the picture I included to see what I mean. I always love to see academic libraries, because not only do they store materials for students to learn, but often they are completely beautiful; I think that speaks to how much people really love spending time in libraries, and how we all can acknowledge that libraries are inspiring places that we put intentional effort into beautifying. We all love a beautiful library! If you’re ever in the New Haven area, I highly suggest checking this place out.
Happy National Library Week! I hope this post inspires you to think about how the library has facilitated joy in your lives, and gets you thinking about how as an LIS professional, a degree from Simmons could kickstart your life bringing joy to library users everywhere!