The Library Chronicles

Today was my first day of library work.

First up, I got the tour of the library. This is to say, the official You Are Working Here tour. It was cool. I haunt that library a lot to begin with, so it was familiar territory. Oh, one librarian looked at me and recognized me – my parents and I have a reputation at the library, it seems, as being readers. That was cool.

I got a brief laminating-machine demonstration. I’ve done laminating before, so it wasn’t a case of what is this magic, and I spent a happy ten minutes doing that. After that, I proceeded on to shelving and scanning in returns. Easy stuff; library work isn’t entirely new to me. I’ve done scanning and shelving before – cough stocktake.

Half an hour for lunch.

More shelvings, more returnings. Turns out, that when I don’t know a computer program, facing the computer will not magically appear the knowledge in my brain. Still, I learnt at least three things.

I never quite understood how much a library staffer is on their feet during a day. There’s roaming around shelving, there’s going around picking up requested books, there’s hopping back and forth and watching the others as they person the desks. It was overall a good experience.

And I do it all again for the next two weeks.