All posts in: libraries

libraries
01 May 2012

catch the reading bug

Been thinking a lot about myself as a professional. My potential career. Where I’ve been, where I want to go.

Where libraries are. Where they are going. Where I think they should go. The librarian’s role in the community, in society, throughout history. What part of this history I’d like to play.

Job hunting, apparently, makes me more philosophical than usual.

When my information seeking devolved into navel-gazing, I found this:

Hand-cut letters, an hour or so of my life spent standing on a creaky desktop, stepping over computers.

One of my major contributions to the field.

So far.

 

 

1
goals
03 Feb 2012

on employment

Sometime in autumn, 2009, I sat down and wrote up my first three year plan. There wasn’t much there – despite what you might think of me, I don’t micromanage that far ahead in time. I wanted to do a little macro-managing. Draw a box around Spring semester. “Turn 25,” “Turn 26,” “Turn 27.” A red line across the calendar when my student loans are due.

I have now reached the box that reads “Apply for Jobs.” I’d like to say that I’m feeling less anxious about ending school and finding employment than I did in 2007 when I finished my Bachelors, but I’m not sure that’s true. No, I am not having the severe mental breakdown that was my final semester in college. That’s good. I think I might die if that happened again. But I’m feeling that “The Whole World Is Out There, Jessica, And You Damn Well Better Choose Wisely Otherwise You Will Die Poor, Unhappy, and Alone.”

Yes. Apparently that’s what was waiting for me in that “Apply for Jobs” box at the end of my little calendar. Complete a challenging graduate program, continue to work and pay your bills, and do it all, with a smile, and, when you have a minute, decide your fate.

I’m being ultra-dramatic. Noted. But this is a hard state for me to be in. It is easy to let myself be too negative. I spend about 90% of each day being too negative.

Here is the 10%.

 

1. I currently spend a significant portion of my life working with undergraduates. I have a lot of negative things to say about working in academia, in general, and even some negative things to say about the current crop of undergraduates and their issues with technology/self-reliance/entitlement/hyper-achievement.

But at the end of the day, I get excited when a new crop of students arrives. Freshmen are fun: I get excited to meet them. To make little undergraduate friends. To watch them change, often dramatically, usually for the better. The group of students I met on my first day of work in 2009 are finishing their junior year now. I feel sappy about that.

This makes me feel like I could work with college students for the long run.

 

2. I helped a patron at the library who wanted to find information social workers and their career satisfaction.

I asked if she was applying for the social work program at my school, and she revealed herself to be a high school senior.

Looking back, I can see where I changed my reference-providing tactics. I explained the difference between databases and catalogs more clearly. I jotted down notes for her to navigate our website more easily. I suggested some search terms that I thought would be more helpful, more specific.

At first, I wondered if I was being condescending. But then I thought, that hey, maybe every patron I work with might like a few notes to figure out where things are on the website, a few call numbers, a friendlier, more welcoming demeanor.

Learning how to give great service to teenagers, I think, teaches you how to give great service to anyone.

3. There are a lot of jobs. There are a lot of places to live. There are a lot of jobs in a lot of places to live and I have very few mechanisms that are allowing me to narrow down my choices in any significant way.

I spent 90 minutes applying for a job just because it was in a place that I might want to live, and I felt mildly qualified for the position.

The more time I spent filling out the application, the more time for doubt to creep in. Do I even want this job? Would it make it worth living in the place I wanted to live? Would I be able to even sound like an intelligent person at a job interview? Assuming I get the position, would I actually be any good at it? Would I even enjoy it?

I decided not to apply. After wasting 90 minutes of my life, I vented on Facebook. A former library supervisor friend of mine responded with this:

“The job market sucks. The question are, IF I take this job will it give me what the qualifications I need for a better job in a few years? IF I live in this city for a few years, will the job qualify me to work were I want in a few years? IF I take this job will I have better references to get what I want in a few years? Good luck. This is a long term game.”

I was asking the wrong questions. Even if I don’t know what kind of job I want or where I want to live, I still know where I want to be in my career. I still know what I want my life to look like. This is an easy litmus test for selecting jobs. For now, I am going to apply for jobs that will set me on a path to get where I want to go, career-wise. I’m going to operate on the assumption that my personal goals will fall in line, no matter what job I have or where I end up.

And where do I want to be? I want to be an active and influential part of the world of children’s literature.

I want to be creating, not consuming.

I want to be constantly learning.

I want to be ambitious.

Art from Marla Frazee’s Stars

 

2
books
02 Jul 2011

like.hate

Things I Like

1. Comic adaptations of novels I still (despite grad school) love.

2. Re-reading the Harry Potter books and then watching each movie as I finish a book. I’m on number three!

That is quite a movie poster…

nice face/nice hair/nice creepy stair, Rupert Grint/Emma Watson/Daniel Radcliffe

3. Fancy drinks. I made this one – the Redhead in Bed – but mine didn’t look so pretty. But I wanted to do something special with the last farmshare strawberries of the season!

I didn’t follow the recipe exactly and may have gotten myself and my roommates drunk. While we watch Harry Potter.

WHUPS!

Things I Hate

1. Feeling swamped with homework already, before my second class has even started. I had to read this book in 24 hours.

And it took me about 100 pages to notice the book’s cover and therefore feel self-conscious about reading it on the bus. Nice.

2. Being underemployed. I put out a major fire at work on Friday involving this book:

It involved two hours of near-constant attention at work, doing things beyond my job description perhaps, and was followed by three or four hours of decompressing from the experience afterwards.

All because the people who actually earn salaries and should have been carrying the fire hose were on vacation for the 4th of July.

wierwoirdjsf24rWRAS;f@#ASDF:mas

3. Not being able to eat a breakfast sandwich at Sorella’s every morning.

I didn’t take a picture but can you picture….

– fried eggs

– American cheese

– avocado

– sprouts

– lox

all on an English muffin?

I hate that I have to make my own breakfast tomorrow.

grad school
29 Mar 2011

socially networked

Talking about teens and technology in a room full of library students is a trip.

Most of my classmates are in their mid-twenties, with a bit of distribution higher or lower, which means most of us have used computers since elementary school, the Internet since middle school, Facebook since college, et cetera. We are pretty digitally savvy/integrated although we aren’t quite as “digitally native” as the teen patrons we hope to someday serve.

By the way, if I hear or say the term “digital native” one. single. more. time, I am really going to shoot myself in the eye. Seriously.

Anyway, even though we are online-type people, we still, as a group, have quite a few hang-ups regarding teen use and Internet use in general.

  • It’s great that teens can find social communities online when their human communities fail them, but it can be dangerous….. if you’re not anorexic or suicidal when you first touch a computer, you probably will be before the end of the year, and what about their social skills? Are they just going to meet people and fall in love and get married on Second Life?!?! HOLY MOLEY!
  • The Internet makes things EASIER and FASTER and MORE FUN! But if you read Sparknotes, you might as well put your application in at McDonalds. And you’ll just never learn to write properly in a text message box and with all those windows open all the time distracting you from Deep Thinking, so kiss your English major dreams goodbye.
  • If you’re a teenager, you shouldn’t give your mom your Facebook password. That’s just stupid. But your parents and your school should have taught you “net safety” tips – don’t give out your address, take a hooker-picture in your bathroom mirror, send your boyfriend a naked text – so you can be a responsible Internet user. In other words – you can use technology, but NOT LIKE THAT!

What really got me thinking was our chats about Facebook. The class was open to the idea of Internet as an addiction, as if the existence of technology creates a need to use said technology that was not there before. On a personal level, I completely agree, and I constantly assess the way technology affects my life and my choices and whatever. I try to control the amount of time I spend on the fun Internet things, the number of subscriptions and memberships and tools I use and subscribe to.

But at what point does something “cool” become something “essential?”

The class example was Facebook. Most people in the room, I’m assuming, use Facebook socially. The conversation turned to the weirdness of teens having hundreds of friends on Facebook they didn’t know (“Why is that necessary?”), the weirdness of needing to check Facebook constantly (“I quit for a year, voluntarily, and I found other things to do”), the weirdness of people spreading information “inappropriately” through Facebook (“I found out my friend was PREGNANT! On FACEBOOK. WHAT THE HELL?!” “Somebody posted that they ate a SANDWICH? On FACEBOOK? WHAT THE HELL!?!”), and why do we all NEED to be online so much anyway? (“I barely use Facebook, gawd, you guys are all addicted).

And I started to balk.

So people are checking Facebook too much, and people are putting more and more information out there and the rules of “conduct” for spreading information online is changing.

How can you ask people – especially – teens to “opt out” of technology because you think the whole thing is WEIRD and OBSESSIVE?

Like I said, I’ve thought about this in my own life, about whether I’m “addicted” to checking my email and my Facebook.

And yeah, I probably am addicted to the process, to the clicking and the reading and the feeding boredom perpetually without pausing to think.

But there’s nothing about FACEBOOK itself that is inherently bad.

It’s just the place where my friends are, the place where people “hang out” on the Internet, the place where we exchange information – important and not. I feel connected to my friends and family that live far away by reading a stupid status telling me they are tired because they had to work late, and they feel connected to me. If I didn’t have Facebook chat, I wouldn’t be able to talk to one of my best friends who is stationed overseas, or see pictures of her new baby. If a friend from college was visiting or moving to Boston, I would have no idea, we wouldn’t meet up for lunch or a cup of coffee even though I would probably like to.

If I decided to go the Puritanical route and give up Facebook for good, it would be like closing my bedroom door to the weird community of people in my life, past and present.

Facebook isn’t just a random url, a time-suck, a dirty habit.

It’s a tool.

Well played, Mark Zuckerberg.

libraries
26 Jan 2011

Library (Student) Day in the Life, 2011 edition

It’s that time of year again… time for…. Library Day in the Life!

6:30 a.m. “Jessica!”

“What are you doing here? How is it possible for you to have ANOTHER snow day?”

“I’m sick! I’m taking a sick day!”

“—-”

“What! I get 20 sick days a year.”

“I hate you.”

7:00-9:00 a.m. A little alarm clock snooze, followed by an egg sandwich, shower and blowdry, and generally readying myself for the day. Boyfriend wakes up too and insists upon driving me to Starbucks before work. Well, I mean, if you REALLY WANT to, I guess we can go… Am very excited to avoid taking the damn 39 bus. Every day, I leave earlier and earlier and the bus gets later and later, and – of course – the temperature outside gets colder and colder. The day before, I shivered for so long – knees locked – at the zero-degree bus stop that once I boarded, I had to ask a lady to let me sit down before I passed the heck out. And the bus died. I hate the 39.

9:00-10:00 a.m. Boyfriend texted his friend saying, “Hey, I’m home today if you want to hang out later,” and he of questionable sleep habits replied, “Do you want to hang out right now?” Swing by his apartment on our way, debating whether he actually went to sleep the night before or not. Park in front of the Starbucks – have to shimmy over to the driver’s seat to get out of the car because of severe snowbankage. Order my usual – double tall two pump mocha with skim, and sip while we talk about circular time.

10:00-noon Job #1. Sent about 50 emails, made a few phone calls, and listened to two undergraduates debate where you should and should not study abroad and what majors you should or should not attempt. Briefly discussed Eyes on the Prize and how once you’ve seen the whole series and read the reader, it’s pretty much impossible to speak about race to anyone who hasn’t done the same.

noon-2:00 p.m. Job #2: Reference Desk! The desk is double-staffed at this time of day, so while the library foot traffic is heavy (never fewer than 5 girls huddled around a Laser Printer for two straight hours), I have few questions. I help a student from the Massachusetts School of Pharmacy get set up to search for and borrow books and help a GSLIS student find our secret gratis databases over chat. My boss then puts me to work looking up Choice‘s Outstanding Books of 2010 in the library catalog, and making a list of what we don’t own in Books In Print. Which is exactly the kind of busy work that soothes my soul. Ahhhh. And a friend came to visit me at the Ref desk, too, and we exchanged strategies for pub trivia that evening.

2:00-2:30 p.m. Wait in the interminable Laser Printer Line for some articles to spit out, then headed over to my First Library Class of the Semester! Chat with a few friends before class started, mostly about how much work we will have this semester, how little time, how little money, and how little health insurance.

2:30-5:00 p.m. Programming for Young Adults. The second class of the semester that opened with the question “So what exactly IS a young adult?” Uhhhhhhh. Went over the syllabus – booktalks and observing teens in their natural habitat and critiquing teen library spaces – then went over a brief history of adolescence and library services for teens. Feeling like a bit of a seasoned pro when I can identify the name drops – G. Stanley Hall, anyone? – and random Printz and Newbery winners.

5:00-5:30 p.m. The godforsaken 39 bus…. a;sij;ansdjfkljngksdfa. Call my best friend who I haven’t spoke to since she had a baby last week, and try not to speak too inappropriately while she recaps labor and other gross baby things. Have to squeeze myself out of the bus like a sausage at my stop.

5:30-7:15 p.m. Help my Delinquent Boyfriend make the chipotle corn chowder from Mark Bittman’s Food Matters cookbook, although he took his friend and our roommate to an Indian buffet for lunch and isn’t even hungry enough to eat. Chill out on the couch for a bit before bundling back up and out into the cold for a little pub trivia.

7:15-10:00 p.m. The Brendan Behan is packed. We can’t get a table – just a few bar stools – but with a seven-person entourage, we put up a damn good fight, and answered some seriously obscure questions about weird Coen Brothers films, European explorers and Sailor Jerry’s rum. We were in third place at the final round, and we decided to just bet 10 on both questions… and if we’d got both right, we would have tied for first! However, we got one wrong: apparently The Color Purple was the Steven Spielberg flick that earned the most Oscar nominations without any wins… not E.T. Ugh. We are annoyingly Gen X (or are we Millenials? I’ll report back after a few more classes)

10:00-10:30 p.m. Frosty cold walk home, sleep in a nice warm bed, dreaming of… the 10 to 12 inches of snow on their way to Boston.

Oh, wait. Those are nightmares.

Maybe a few Library Day in the Life’s from now, I’ll be posting from somewhere a little more temperate.

grad school
17 Jan 2011

three is a magic number

1. I walked into a strange university library today, looking to exercise my borrowing rights as a part of a library consortium and obtain two YA books I need to read for class. The following conversation transpired.

Me: “I’m looking for a few children’s books. I checked the catalog from home and it said they are in, but I don’t have the call numbers or know where the children’s books are.”

Snarky Librarian Who Has No Idea Who He’s Talking To: “Well, call numbers are very important for finding books.”

as;oijao;wiejradosklkadfdfnadf

–

2. I am learning to knit!

I do not know what I am knitting It’s too wide to be a washcloth, and I don’t even know how much yarn I have left. Also, when I do run out of yarn, I think I might have to run to my new local yarn store and ask a knowledgeable employee to tell me how to… oh… stop knitting and do whatever it is you do to cast off or something.

–

3. The Grind is slowly returning. Working 29 hours this week and classes resume in 7 short days. I have a little over a bottle of wine in my fridge, and when it’s gone, I think I’ll have to stop buying/drinking so much alcohol and return to the sober world of early bedtimes and earlier alarm clocks.

Le.

Sigh.

books
29 Sep 2010

library card exhibitionist

Checked Out

1. Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez

2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

3. Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson

4. The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

5. Northanger Abbey

6. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

7. Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

9. A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk

10. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

11. The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates

12. This Hole We’re In by Gabrielle Zevin

13. For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage by Tara Parker-Pope

14. Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

15. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

16. The Darjeeling Limited

17. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

18. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield

19. Getting Things Done by David Allen

20. Dancing on my Grave by Gelsey Kirkland

21. A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias

22. The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket

On Hold

1. Where I Want To Be by Adele Griffin

2. When in Rome

3. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

4. Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts

5. Shutter Island

6. Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

7. Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes

8. My Hollywood by Mona Simpson

9. The Good Psychologist by Noam Shpancer

10. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

11. Empires of Food by Evan. D. Fraser & Andrew Riman

books
22 Sep 2010

here’s the thing

Things I’ve Been Thinking About

I. Libraries

Is is too early for me to be TOTALLY jaded about my career? I’m researching young adult librarianship for a class assignment (topic chosen by me, based on my own interests), and I’m reading all this stuff about how libraries NEED young adult librarians and they are CRUCIAL to the fabric of the world and blah blah blah.

And instead of thinking “Oh, yeah, awesome, we are needed and loved and someday if enough people continue to need and love YA librarians, I can get a job!” I’m thinking: “Um. That’s baloney. There’s no research saying we need and love YA librarians, or that kids need librarians at all, and the people who are saying ‘Yay, librarians for kids!’ are either A) Librarians for Kids B) Authors of children’s lit C) Publishers of children’s lit or D) Pining for the fjords their idyllic youth. Why aren’t there designated librarians for 25-30 year-olds? 60-90 year-olds? (They probably use the library a whole lot more anyway!)

I am SUCH A CYNIC I CAN’T STAND MYSELF!

Also, I’m never going to be gainfully employed. It seems the only activity I’m morally comfortable with is opening the library’s doors and pointing patrons toward a bookshelf or computer.

II. Inward/Outward

I remember when I was a kid, 10, 11, 12 years old, I just really wanted to be nice.

I didn’t want to be popular or exemplary or talented or well-liked or funny or good at sports or music.

I just wanted people to talk about me and say, “Oh, Jessica? She’s a nice girl.”

I wonder when that stopped being my central thesis of life.

It was a little confusing though, because when I was at school, I was Nice Jessica, but at home, my parents seemed to think I was fairly rude, selfish, and uncooperative.

Also, my sister told me I was manipulative the other day.

Me? Manipulative?

Yes, I can usually figure out how to get what I want in life, but that doesn’t seem manipulative. Especially given that my sisters use all the same tricks I do: they just think I’m the manipulative one because I’m the one who taught them.

At exactly what point does one become TOO self-absorbed to function?

III. Fall

It’s here. It’s cold.

What do I do in fall, again?

Put away my flip-flops?

Buy cold-weather clothes?

Pick apples for applesauce?

Waffle over/get ready for NaNoWriMo?

Look at leaves?

I can’t remember.

IV. Books

I am disappointed, all around, by reading this year. I’m disappointed by my own lack of reading motivation, and by the books available for me to read.

The only books I crave are old favorites I haven’t re-read TOO many times, usually dispensed by my iPod via audiobook.

It doesn’t help when I have 500+ page, 6 lb obscure 19th Century novels assigned for class, distracting me from literary enjoyment.

V. My Cat

I have Mondays off this semester. I realized, last week, that I haven’t had a full weekday off to do as I please since late April.

And boy howdy did I miss cuddling with my lovely kitty.

She’s just so dang cute!

libraries
28 Jul 2009

Library Day in the Life – 2009

I read a Library Day In The Life post on Agnostic, Maybe, and instantly thought it was super fun. A few Google searches later, I’m writing my own. Apparently it’s a longstanding tradition (or longstanding in internet-terms) and today is the day to document your library life.

As some of you may recall, I really prefer not to Blog About Work, but I am feeling sentimental since these are my last days at my dearest library, so to heck with it! What are they gonna do? Fire me? Haha… just kidding.

Anyway, in case you too are finding me via Google Search of your own, I am a Youth Services Library Assistant at a popular rural library. That also means we’re on the decline of summer reading madness, so things aren’t too active ’round these parts, but still fun nonetheless. I am about to leave my job to start earning a MLS and an MA in Children’s Lit at Simmons College in Boston, which entails a cross-country move in less than 3 weeks.

8:00-11:30 a.m.

Gradually entered the land of the living. Watched an episode of In Treatment with breakfast, did the dishes, and gathered motivation to go for a run. Being that I rarely exercise outside of the gym (rarely = once every year or two) this was a momentous occasion. Then found myself with a very bad hair problem and no time to fix it. Gave myself this hairstyle I called “I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow and I just have to make it through one day, so y’all can suck it!” Took off for work.

11:30 -12:30 p.m.

Commute! Pomegranate Rockstar (shut up, I’m cutting waaaay back, believe me), Harvesting the Heart, and chatting with the BF.

12:30-3:00 p.m.

Actually on time for my desk shift! Yay! Immediately upon arrival an adorable little boy comes up and asks me how old he has to be to get a library card. I tell him he has to be 5-years-old, and he cracks THE hugest smile and runs up to the Circulation Desk sans his mother. Apparently he’d been waiting for this glorious moment. I made a mental note to suggest we get some “I got my first library card!” stickers to hand out to excited kids.

My boss came over to visit my desk, and told me I looked fancy and she loved my hairstyle. Librarian-chic.

Photo 114

(looked the same 12 hrs ago, I promise)

The rest of the afternoon is spent doing computer sign ups, procuring desk stats sheets for the coming months since ours are all gone, signing off on Summer Reading Sheets – everyone’s finishing up and getting grand prize tickets – did a little blogging (shhh… don’t tell), and quizzing everyone on staff about car insurance. There was also a fun moment when the Info Desk transfered me some irate patron who wanted a stock quote – like I’m more equipped to do that than the info desk? – but either she hung up on me before I could answer or I mis-transfered the call. Both are equally likely.

3:00-4:00 p.m.

Off desk now, which means a retreat to the back of the staff area. I took a fifteen minute break to call Borders, and set up an interview for August 17th! Which means I am really moving to Boston. Holy crap. I had to turn in my “two weeks notice” today, but I wanted to double check my dates with the BF before I did, so I tried to call him periodically. After too much computer-staring and moving related stress, I left the staff area to restock coloring pages, locate pencils, and straighten up the new books.

4:00-4:30

World’s Earliest Lunch. Tried a new sandwich at Schlotsky’s – it was good but holy SPICY MUSTARD. I read Audrey, Wait! which I’d been consciously avoiding for no apparent reason. Found myself struggling not to check it out. Can. Not. Check. Out. Books. Moving. In. Two. Weeks.

4:30-5:35 p.m.

Back to work! Still floundering about that two week’s notice letter. Made a little schedule of my next few weeks to see when things need to be done, when I physically HAVE to leave for Boston to make it to my interview in one piece. Finally got a hold of BF after 5:00 and have a series of misunderstandings, one of which involving what day he needs to be in Boston. Frustrating phone conversation that is unfortunately happening at work. Am late for desk shift, and am needing to move my last day up from Friday to Monday. Egads.

5:35-8:30 p.m.

Retype resignation letter with altered dates. Enter panic mode where I can barely keep my eyes in a straight line for more than a moment. I’M MOVING AND GOING TO GRAD SCHOOL AND HOLY CRAP WHY AM I DOING THIS HOW AM I DOING THIS?!??!? Take breaks to help patrons:

– Attempted to locate misplaced “Keeping Rabbits as Pets” books. Filled out In Stacks, Can’t Find form.

– Put holds on the entire Maximum Ride series for a mom and daughter pair, and found myself unable to gauge whether Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas has any content inappropriate for a 10-11 yr old, even though I’ve read it twice.

– Helped a dad locate a list of dinosaur picture books, emailed from his daughter who’s taking a teaching class at Western. Saw one book on a pile another family had picked out. Asked politely if they might want to choose another Curious George title today? Felt weird that I would feel comfortable doing that.

And then some noisy teenagers came in. They got on my computers without signing up, so I tried to establish A Sense of Rules In The Library right away by confronting them and asking them to visit the desk. Five minutes later, they are reading aloud from their Myspace pages, mentioning things that would be a high PG or PG-13. Mom who surrendered Curious George spoke up before I could decide what to do – asked them to keep their voices down, her children were nearby. They quieted down, but soon the punching and arm slapping began. I paid them another visit. Told them if they wanted to stay, they would have to be quiet, use discretion in their conversation, and keep their hands to themselves. They did a little teenaged boy arguing but I was having none of it. I’ll take it from the kids I see every day, but not some randos off the street. Five minutes later, Boy 1 was kicking Boy 2. I asked Boy 1 to leave, telling him he could come back tomorrow if he was better behaved. He said he probably wouldn’t, because the library is racist. Against loud, slightly disrespectful white boys. I walked him out of the building and his friends came with him.

It struck me that it was highly likely that he would be the last kid I kick out of the library.

Sad.

Anyway, I sat back down at the desk and wrote up my encounter in our departmental “Code of Conduct Wiki.” I threw in the racist line for kicks and giggles.

Things were quiet, so I went back to my stressing out, and brief attempts to brainstorm ideas for the scavenger hunt I needed to invent, create clues for, make clues for, and hide clues for before Thursday at 4:00. Was sadly unable to do so. Will have to throw something simple together Thursday morning before the End of Summer Reading Celebration.

Right before closing had a lengthy conversation with an EXTREMELY precocious 7-year-old. He only comes in once every few months, but is memorable enough to be considered a regular. He quizzed me on every flier and paper I had on my desk, asked why he couldn’t attend the Toddler Literacy program because even though he wasn’t a parent, his baby cousin didn’t know how to read yet so he should go and learn how to teach her, and I taught him how to say good night in Spanish.

Computers off. Toys away. Boss is still here, so tell her about change of dates. Coworker realizes he will be on vacation for much of the next week so this could be our last time together and makes the saddest face imaginable. I show him something funny on the internet – a friend of mine ran into one of our regular patrons at a showing of Ghostbusters in Ann Arbor… or so I’ve ascertained judging by her description of the strange, farting man standing in front of her in line – and then said sayonara for the evening.

8:30-9:15 p.m.

Commute home. All 45 minutes of it spent freaking out on phone to BF. What a lucky, lucky boy.

Sigh. I will miss my job. No libraries are hiring in Boston right now, so I’m doomed to switch over to retail while I study diligently to get the chance to come back to the light!

P.S. If that sounded like The Best Day Ever, and you are in the MI area looking for a swank 32 hr/week position, my job’s done been posted and we are looking for top-notch candidates with library experience 🙂 Drop me a comment, I’ll point you in the right direction.