Today was a good day. The new students at the school have been having induction sessions for the library. We give them their barcodes, that they use to scan things in and out of the library and tell them about what facilities there are and how chocolate has no place next to shiny new books that I just managed to shelve that day. I say 'we' do the inductions, so far it's been the main librarian doing them, and I stand to one side like a spare part and hand them their barcodes half way through. But today...
I did one.
Which is a big deal for me. I stood in front of a group of students, totally alone, and remembered everything that I had to tell them. The main librarian was busy elsewhere, so my triumph went un-witnessed. But it felt good. I wondered if I'd have trouble, being the 'new' member of staff, but no...I sailed through and even supervised successfully after whilst they did some work. The students seemed to recognise me as an authoritative figure, and asked lots of questions...always a good thing as at least they're engaging. We only had one accident...a student managed tip up a bookshelf (small children apparently are far stronger than we give them credit for), resulting in all the books from Ab-Al falling on another students head. This meant that I, after sending the more battered of the two up to the medical room, had indeed have a whole lovely shelf to put back together. I was apologized to over and over, and obviously it had been an accident so I joked about it with the student, for fear that tears may happen instead (I am in no manner at all qualified to handle crying children!) and everything was calm again.
In other news, this article is old, but I enjoyed it. Putting the good word out there about all the hard work we do!
http://careers.theguardian.com/job-of-21st-century-librarian
It's a good introduction for someone who knows very little about library work and would like to know more...Dated 31st Jan 2011. It also includes some case studies.
For now,
Over and out.
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