In which I feel like a real librarian

[gement]

I volunteered my first three hours at the county library today. I felt very useful. About 80% of library work seems to be clerical drudgery until you graduate to Queen Bee Librarian, which makes sense. I don't mind. I have an attention span for drudgery about as long as it takes me to train up to the trickier stuff, which is convenient.

Tasks accomplished:

• Full tour of the library, including meeting everyone and Getting To Go Behind The Desk (a big deal for me, since this is my home library, and children are trained to never ever go behind the desk)
  
• "Shelf reading" Juvenille A-K (the drudge work of making sure the shelves are alphabetized)... They're impressed by my tenacity. Little do they know...
  
• Magazine donations prepped for lobby giveaway, three paperboxes full (clip off all addresses, mark each with large permanent marker X)
  
• Brochures copied and folded, 30 (rhymes to say to your baby, the verbal components of pre-literacy!)
  
• Calendars copied, 30 (including my first Major Clerical Catch, a date that hadn't been changed since October)
  
• First self directed project: I am to design and implement the next bulletin board.
  
  Tomorrow I go in at 11a.m. to learn how we relabel books from the old system. It turns out that this will involve a typewriter, which explains why it takes so long. I don't mean to rock the boat, but why didn't they do a database pull of the full inventory and print 'em all? At this point they may consider it too late, since a fair number have been painstakingly manually labeled and they won't want duplicate labels floating around, but DUDES. Labor time. Efficiency. Consider these things.
  
  By the way, I'm in search of a good "mmmm, booook" icon for my library stuff. I'm thinking a picture of a Tome is the correct feeling. Anyone have any suggested images?
  
  Also, I'm hooked into proper POP email now, and I'll be trying to get people to use that instead of my hotmail. For those of you updating your addressbooks, instead of this handle @hotmail, it will be this handle @ravensanctuary.com. Stalk me and you die. Any questions?

Comments

[littlemystories.livejournal.com]

I think volunteering is an excellent way of seeing about the field, good work. While I am also happy and eager to do drudgery, I have never met anyone else with your capacity for it. Little do they know that you re-alphabetize bookstores on your own time.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

That actually sounds quite dreamy. I wonder if my local library is hiring.

Mark Ferrari (http://www.markferrari.com) has a lovely picture called Bookwyrm, but I don't know how he'd feel about his art being used for livejournal icons (he's, like, a professional). It was just the first cool book-image I thought of (I have a postcard of it).

I have a couple of book doodles that I did just to test out a specific technique I learned from him at a con panel. They're nothing special, just drawings of books, but hey, it's free art with permission from the artist. :) They're here:

http://www.cyphertext.net/~vix/temp/books.png
Individually:
http://www.cyphertext.net/~vix/temp/book1.png
http://www.cyphertext.net/~vix/temp/book2.png

I'd be happy to shrink 'em down to lj icon specs (and also move the books in the two-book image closer together) if you want. Just say the word. (Don't worry, my feelings won't be hurt if you don't want to use them. Like I said, they were just doodles.) :)

[shandryl.livejournal.com]

Ah memories... Back in the old days, I used to volunteer in the school libraries when I was in elementary and high schools.

Back in elementary school, because the teachers didn't like having to supervise kids before the bell, we'd normally have to wait outside until just before the bell, even in the winter. I volunteered, so I got to go inside early which meant no waiting in the cold! And, at the end of the year, I'd get a free novel as a "service award".

Then in High School, I hated socialising with my fellow students, so I volunteered to work in the library before class, at recesses, and lunch. Lunch was especially important since normally they locked the doors to the library, because, again, they didn't want to have to supervise the students... Plus, by having access to the library, I had access to the computer room, which in turn gave me access to the net.

Ah, the good old days... Who says having to update the database of checked out and overdue books is lame? =)