I believe you’ve said you are a librarian. Can you elaborate on what sort of librarian stuff you do, and/or what sort of library you work in?
Gladly! I am, indeed, a librarian and I work at a public library–which is a pretty broad category, lbr.
I’ve been working in libraries since I was 16, when I was hired at my local public library to help check in and shelve books. I moved up in the world, shelving, then working at my undergrad library, then briefly in a bookstore (where I decided I wanted to give books away instead of sell them), then back to another public library where all the librarians I was working with kept insisting that I go get my Master’s [of Science in] Library Science (MLS). So I did. And I worked in my university’s library for a bit there, then did some temp work in my current library system. And now I am happily ensconced as A Real Librarian (MSLS 2010) at another public library. Whew. So since I’m now 35, that means I’ve been in libraries for 19 years. I should retire soon, right? (Wrong.)
As of now, I’m I guess what some other library systems would call an “adult programming librarian,” so I have to coordinate, plan, and present, like, library events and programs, among other things, for grown-up library patrons. I was first hired as a reader’s advisory librarian (as in, hey, you like The Shining? Okay, here’s 19 other books you might also like) but I’ve been shifted into the business&education area lately. So that means, sigh, that I have to help with the small biz stuff, the getting-into-college stuff, and testing stuff. It’s not my favorite area, but it’s not as bad as I thought. It requires some attention to detail, which I can totally do. I’m just not always interested in “Setting Up Your Business Accounts The Right Way The First Time” for a program. I might be able to shuffle my way into another area here in a bit–the arts committee, or maybe back into the reader’s advisory committee…
A lot of my day is helping the public. This is what I do and it is the most important thing that I do. I do a lot of checking in/checking out, computer help and troubleshooting (we have 30+ public-use PC terminals and they get a lot of use because you can’t do a job application on your fucking phone; get real), some reference work or reader’s advisory work (more like giving directions to the book), sometimes more in-depth reference (a good day!!!), usually some good-natured ribbing of famous Brand Name authors, some sarcastic comments thrown around with colleagues in the office, &c.
I thought for a long time that I wanted to work in an academic library, a library attached to a university. Sometimes I still wish for that, because I miss reference (see below) and that’s a lot of what goes down in academic reference departments. But it’s highly competitive, which is intimidating. But, while this may sound like sour grapes, I really think I can do more and do more good helping the general public than I could do in an academic library. Would academic work be interesting? Yes. But I’m here in one of the last truly public (even downright socialist!) institutions in the United States and I am going to keep it going. The work we do here may sometimes be tedious, but it’s overwhelmingly important–whether it’s literacy programs for children, college preparedness programs for teens, keeping the most popular books on hand for reluctant readers, having obscure nonfiction for esoteric questions, talking YA and manga with young people, bringing in guest authors to talk up their books, providing access to the internet and technology and resources, &c, &c–all of what we do is really important. And I think we need to keep doing it.
As a final aside: one of the more interesting stints (gigs?) I had was working in a local history/genealogy library. It was sort of part library, part archive, all reference. And I got really good at reference work during those couple of years. This was as close as I’ve gotten to true academic librarianship. Reference has always been my strong suit. But, wow, there were so many days when someone would start in on “And now John had 3 children and his son, James, had 4 children, and his third daughter Sarah married John Jones and they had 9 children and their son Frederick was my great-grandfather and we want to know who John’s father was because we want to know where we came from.” And I’m just like “Okay, and I am third generation Don’t Give a Fuck.” To say nothing of the Very White People (disclaimer: I, too, am a Very White People) who would suddenly discover an ancestor identified as Native on the census and suddenly the whole family were “really Indians” and they fell headlong into all the “Magical Indian” tropes and it was awful. I should write a whole post just on that. I have Seen Some Shit, y’all.
All librarians have Seen Some Shit. Let’s be really honest.
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