The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Encounter with a woman with disabilities lead others to share stories of local libraries as havens.
The story of an interaction between a Dekalb County librarian and a lost woman with developmental disabilities went viral on Twitter, reaching everywhere from the Library of Congress to Sesame Street.
David Russell, a senior librarian at Wesley Chapel Library, said a disoriented woman wandered in last Friday. The woman, wearing an Elmo T-shirt and carrying an Elmo notepad with her guardian’s phone number, said she was lost.
Russell said this isn’t a rare occurrence — lost and confused residents come to the library for help multiple times a week. However, the woman kept repeating a short phrase, which stuck with him and led him to share the interaction on social media.
“Somebody had told her that the library, that’s where you go. That’s your safe place,” Russell told The Atlanta Journal-constitution on Tuesday. “And I just thought that was kind of poignant.”
The situation quickly resolved itself. Russell called the woman’s guardian, who was just outside the library. The two were reunited within 10 minutes, and the woman was able to leave with a few new books and Sesame Street DVDS.
In two tweets, Russell summed up the sweet encounter. He didn’t
expect it to garner attention, but within five days, both tweets had more than 100,000 likes and thousands of retweets.
Russell, a Buffalo transplant liv
ing in metro Atlanta, said people seeing the tweets led to countless stories from people reflecting on their local libraries.
“So many people were just sharing their stories. ‘I was bullied as a kid, but one place I went to was a library. My dad was in the Army, and the first place we always checked out in the community was a library,’” Russell said, quoting other people’s stories. “Every once in a while, people just kind of need to be reminded that we’re here and that we do great work for people in the community.”
The tweets struck a chord with Carla Hayden, who has been the librarian of Congress since 2016. She said, “Libraries are safe havens and sanctuaries for ALL people.” Levar Burton, who hosted “Reading Rainbow” for more than two decades, also found Russell’s story inspirational, tweeting that, “Librarians are some of my favorite humans and libraries themselves are definitely safe spaces.”