Issues of Control

Most days, I have very little to say. Most days, I simply do what I call, hanging out, with my students. I have so much fun answering those questions I can, and pursuing the answers to the questions which are new to me. I do wonderful things like drool over incredible books about beloved artists, I watch as they incorportate the words from the shelf into amazing creations. Once in awhile I say, "shhhhhhhh" and I spend a lot of time resizing windows, explaining how to choose a printer and giving my honest opinion on written and fine creative works. I keep meaning to blog and I keep forgetting...and so I have energy today, and I remember today and of course, I have snippy things to say.

I don't want to stock the library with portable drafting tables! I don't want to take public performance licensure fees from the library budgets each time an instructor shows a movie! AND! I don't want to answer the door 12 times an hour because our library doors MUST be on a secure system requiring a key card that my students generally forget. That's a lot of I don't wants...and...its a lot of I don't wants given the *I* am the manager of my little fortress of whirring passion captured on pages. How did this happen? There are so many things I cannot control!

A good day after all

I had such a fabulous day. I had gotten so much done in my little library - moved a cupboard here, move something there, get another cabinet (or two, $500! Yikes) and it looked fantastic. I was so excited to show it off to the boss. The students said it looked fantastic. The boss walked toward me. Our day had ended and we were both ready to head for home. I smiled brightly and sat my things down so that I could open the door for him and notice his reactions when he saw my new streamlined, efficient but warm new space arrangement. I stepped inside the glass door, standing just a foot inside the library. He approved of what I'd done. We spoke of ideas for the future use of now blank walls. It was a fun, enthusiastic conversation and I felt again that, "I am a librarian!" feeling. I felt so COMPETENT. I felt sure of myself and pleased with my success. Yes, this was a good day! It's marvelous to feel an internal sense of accomplishment. All that dust cleaned up, all those odds and tag ends laying around now in proper home and organized, a work space for processing books now laid out. Yes! I felt great internal pride and my Boss's approval was like icing on a very tastey cake.

Our conversation ended and the Boss headed out for home. I followed two steps behind him to discover that my purse was gone. In that short space, someone had not only stolen my purse, but helped themselves to two packs of cigarettes at a local convenience store, a hard drive and X box game at the local gaming store and a tank of gas at a nearby station. Just that fast. What it took a crooked creep less than an hour to accomplish will take me months to clean up.....

Yup! I feel like "I AM A LIBRARIAN!" Just a broke and irritated one. And not feeling quite so competent and in charge of my atmosphere...

Express Lane

I really don't have much to say ABOUT the express lane, but that has to be the title of today's entry because, though lacking much to chatter about, it has been, undoubtedly, the most important part of today. Yes, indeed, I discovered the expresslanes this morning. While the rest of the city crept along, I fairly flew to work this morning. I arrived half an hour before I'm expected and took advantage of the time to sit by myself, in the near dark, and consider my little library. I actually looked at the newspaper, and contempted the stacks of newly arrived books that I must process. And, while enjoying my peaceful little moment, before opening, I was summoned, by loud knock, to the door.

My students must have a passcard to open the doors in our school. However, no student cards work before 8 AM. I am most usually here by 7:45 and even leaving the lights out does not prevent them knocking on the door so that I can admit them. Apparently this morning I was too slow to open the door and my student visitor turned and left. Perhaps she assumed that I was not going to open the door since it was not yet opening time. She returned, promptly at 8 and had nasty words for me about how the library should be open before 8 for students who have classes at 8. She's really quite angry and I will have to learn how to handle this type of complaining SOME DAY. Either that or I will find myself making the new library hours sign and be shocked when I realize that I've designed a sign for a library that opens at 5 AM....

Students often fail to bring their passcards to school and I spend a lot of my time opening the door for students....I'm not sure how to address this problem either... I have one student in particular, a cheerful, smiling young man who is always pleasant company. He usually the library alot and for that I am grateful, but for the entire month I've been here, he never has had a passcard. We joke and I tell him that Im going to charge a toll for entry, tootsie rolls maybe. Clearly he has no concern for my jovial adminishing. This morning I was a little more firm and said, "hey! I mean it, you need to see the IT manager for a new passcard." His response was, "Whatever." He turned his back and walked away from me and hasn't been in the library since then - he usually is here 3 or 4 times a day. What is the balance in this? Must I do as my students demand in order to keep their patronage? At what point am I a servant, and I wish to be servant to them, and when do I become a pushover? I somehow did not anticipate these sorts of questions, not yet anyway.

But! I found the expressway and I flew to work this morning. And, tomorrow, I will finish processing this latest shipment of books.

Now, I have to ask myself, "why have I begun this?" The truth is, I have no idea why, nor do I have any more idea than that what I will discuss. But, I've enjoyed reading other's blogs, and so I thought to give it a try for myself. So, with the tiniest of intuitive urging, I begin....

I am Lee and I am also a librarian. It gives me such a thrill to be able to say that. Years of searching following graduate school had left me wondering if I would ever really be able to say, "I am a librarian." It feels almost like a victory cry, I can nearly imagine myself on the top of some mountain, looking out over a vast ocean and shouting, book in hand. Of course, no one would hear me, and the book would be getting soggy with all that mountain fog and ocean spray. But no matter! I AM A LIBRARIAN.

And - I'm a brand new, faltering, taking babysteps librarian. So perhaps here, I will share the flow of my days, my interactions with students, my trials and lessons as I learn things I've never done before like covering books in that goovy plastic (do you just cover them all? Or only those that seem frail and likely to tear?) and my daily celebratory reminder that no matter how confused I get, no matter how much it seems that I have to learn, "I AM A LIBRARIAN!"

As I sit writing, one of the students, in my art school, is cutting up tiny pieces of paper, and glueing them into a book. It looks like a fabulous project, it looks exciting and forces me to restrain from finding something similiar (I want to create beautiful things too!). However, she's working on her project on my check-out space; I thought she would be only a brief moment when I agreed to allow her to use my scissors.....but it looks as though she might be quite sometimel Oh! no! she's cleaning up and heading out....maybe that's b/c I did not have the glue stick she requested.

The library is filled, anxious looks, and whispers...the creativity in this place is fairly palpable and made more so by the tension of projects due just before we leave for the holiday. I see some desperation, some determination and lots of excitement. I love this library, I love these students - I just wish they'd bring their own glue, and use it somewhere that's not my desk...and as I type, I look up to discover that one student is using the glue somewhere else, over her keyboard....and now, off to explain (again) about choosing the proper printer...