The majority of people who visit this blog wind up here because they’re interested in finding out how to become a librarian. That number has increased over the last year, because Lauren pulled me into the Library Day in the Life project, where everyone described what we do during an average day. It was a nice idea because few people who think they might want to become librarians have a firm understanding of how we spend our time.
This is doubly problematic for people with jobs like mine. Even though I work under the traditional title of “librarian,” I tend to spend a vast majority of my time doing things that are not related to library work.
Not only do I wind up spending a lot of time working outside the library sphere, but when I do, it’s often with unique and often bizarre material. For example, this collection came from our friends at the Montana Human Rights Network.
Liz and I are planning a trip to New Orleans in the spring. It will be the first time I’ve been back since Katrina, which is the longest I’ve been away since I was a teenager. Aside from seeing how the city is recovering, I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of my old haunts. I was particularly thrilled to see that Kermit is playing every Thursday night at Vaughan’s.
After watching Nolan’s cardboard characters lumber around his unrealized environment for an hour, I found myself wondering if I might be trapped in a nightmare myself.
Montreal is dotted with “I love cheese” tags like the one pictured above. I regret never coming across the gang members responsible as I have literally millions of questions.
We’re finally getting to the end of the conference “silly season.” I’ve never quite understood why so many organizations and associations have to schedule their statewide and national events during the same period of time. Fortunately, the American Library Association doesn’t stick to the same idea.
Thus far, I’ve presented at four conferences and attended a fifth. This Saturday, I’ll give my last presentation — Lynchburg to Berlin: United States Policy and Nazi Ideology. I’m fairly excited about it because it gives me the opportunity to talk about the destruction of handicapped under Nazi Germany, which is one of my favorite (Holocaust) topics.
Fellow UNC-G alum Lauren Pressley recently published a book entitled So You Want To Be A Librarian. It’s an attempt to answer the questions librarians everywhere hear from those who think they might be interested in the profession. Even though I’m long past the point of being curious about what we do, I’m planning to buy a copy and loan it to those who (so very frequently) ask about the job.
