Mystery Library

I'm going to name my new library Mystery Library, partly as an homage to Mystery Boat, the best of the STEM program boats, and partly because its central administration is even more bizarre and opaque than other library systems where I have worked (longtime readers will know that I am early in my library career, but that on a per-year basis I have sampled a lot of different libraries).


There is a variety of weirdness, but the thing that stands head and shoulders above the rest for me personally is this: Remember how I said I was going to be a children's librarian? I didn't go into all the weirdness on here, but when I interviewed for this job it was just listed as 'librarian' and the interviewers didn't really ask me about children's services, so when I found out it was children's--which was roughly when I got the job offer--I was surprised. Accordingly, you would think I would be less surprised when my boss called me into her office just under three weeks into my time at the branch and said "So...I've gotten clarification on your position from Administration, and you're not a children's librarian. You are supposed to be in adult services."


I asked when that change would take effect and was told "immediately." I asked why the change had been made and was told "I don't know; I just do what they tell me."


Welcome to Mystery Library, everyone.

Joshua Reynolds painting of Samuel Johnson looking confused. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson#/media/File:Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds_2.png