Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Had my first desk shift...

...at New Library today, and either I missed this a lot more than I thought I did or I've got some hormones out of whack, because when I made my first good connection with a patron, I cried a tiny bit.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Life as a children's librarian

I've got to figure out how to make a kid and a bird out of flannel, ideally by a week from today. My new best work friend, the children's library assistant, offered to help me, but in exchange I had to promise not to reveal the location of her existing flannel sets. She says she'd prefer to keep them hidden in her desk drawer because sometimes other people borrow them and don't return all the pieces and making a flannel is hard work, man!


Why do people do such a bad job weeding children's nonfiction? I am trying to put together a display for 'Computer Learning Month' and I have to withdraw three pre-2010 books about the internet. Ugh.


We need a copy of our program calendar in Spanish. Or at least we need to label the days of the week in both languages.


I write a proposal for a program that is just kids playing board games. But I promise it will contribute to our library's mission of supporting kids' education because board games allow kids to practice important skills like:
  • Sportsmanship
  • Strategic thinking
  • Prediction/statistical reasoning
  • Rule-following
  • Pattern detection
I think I am starting to figure this stuff out.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Other duties

This morning a stray dog followed a patron into the library and into our ESL class. I had to scoop him up and carry him outside, where we put out a chipped bowl from the staff kitchen as a water dish for him while we waited for Animal Services to come pick him up.


When I went out later to pick up the dish, someone had stolen it.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

At New Library

My new coworkers, who seem pretty great so far, point out the patrons it's important to know: The pee-er, the family who is only allowed to eat in the lobby because they make a huge mess, etc.

Our page's name is Donald McDonald. Poor man.

A woman wants to know the status of her account, so my colleague asks her for her ID. She says "I don't have an ID, so this'll have to do" and hands over an offender card, which is just what it sounds like. 

We have a box for raffle entries to win four tickets to Paw Patrol Live. Two sharply-dressed, extremely cool-seeming men around my age come in and get so excited about it--"My nephew loves Paw Patrol! Can I enter more than once!?"

In my new capacity as Children's Librarian, I and the Children's Library Assistant attend a brown bag workshop about using puppets in storytime. This is starting to become real.

Two young teenagers ask for books about slavery. Since they're on the fence age-wise as far as sending them to Juvenile Nonfiction or Adult Nonfiction, I ask how much information they want. The answer: "A lot. We have to do a report!" 

The cleaner, who mainly speaks Spanish, notices that the water fountain isn't working. None of my Spanish-speaking coworkers happen to be out at the moment so she and I combine broken English and broken Spanish to pass this info onto our boss. I'd forgotten that "oasis" is the word for water fountain in Spanish! 

A tiny gecko falls onto someone's shoulder in one of the study rooms. We commend him for not freaking out, then one of my coworkers catches it in a pencil holder and names it "Overdue." She is practicing making her case for keeping it as a library pet when the Children's LA (my new role model) firmly takes the pencil case from her and releases the gecko back into the wild.

Monday, September 18, 2017

Misconceptions

I had my first day at New Library yesterday. One of the first things I did was do the branch's pull list to help familiarize myself with where things are in the collection. (For non-library readers, the pull list is the list of items that need to be collected from the shelves because a patron has asked for them.) One of the things on the list was a copy of 1984, which I couldn't find anywhere despite searching high and low. A little bit later I noticed that there was a copy in excellent condition sitting in our pile of donated books to be sorted, so I asked my manager if the library ever adds donated books to the collection. The answer was 'pretty much never,' just like it has been at most of the libraries where I have worked.

This bums me out a little bit, since I'm pretty sure that a big fraction of the patrons who donate books think that they are contributing to the library's collection, when instead they're contributing to its book sale (or, sometimes, its recycling dumpster). This made me think of other common misconceptions about the library that seem to cross the various public libraries where I have worked.

Librarian readers: Anything to add?
Non-librarian readers: If any of these are still a surprise to you, I apologize.

1. If you donate a book, it is added to the library's collection.
2. The librarians know where all the books are.
3. The library keeps track of what you have checked out.
4.  If you wanted, you could volunteer and staff the information desk.
5. Surely the ISBN is important somehow. (About a 50/50 split between people who give to me for item lookups and people who scan it thinking it's the library barcode)

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

New job

Good news, everyone! I had scheduled blog posts out through August mainly just because the number I had written spread neatly over that length of time rather than because I realistically thought I would have a job by September, but I am starting at a new library next week!

I haven't come up with a nom-de-blog for New Library yet (I think I'll need to get to know it a bit better first) but the striking thing about it is that I'll be working in its children's department. It's a small library so I'm sure there will be a lot of cross-over, but I'll be doing kid's programs and things and doing some extra chatting to small children and their parents. I expect that that will make for good blog material.

I didn't specifically seek out a children's librarian job--instead, I wanted to work at this particular branch of Sprawling Metropolitan System because it's in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, so the materials and services that the library is providing access to are really, really important to the people living there. I'm not sure if I'll make a good children's librarian or not, so if any of you have tips or resources to suggest, I would be grateful!