On a slightly lighter note....

[frolijahfan]

I was walking to work this morning and I her a voice going "Hi, librarian." I look around and see some guy that I've never seen before (to the best of my recollection) and he stars walking behind me and talking to me. Just general conversation stuff, and he asked me how long I've been at the library, and I tell him 27 years (as of Tuesday) and he gives me some line about how I must have started right out of high school and I said no. Then somebody driving by called out to him and I went on alone. But it made me think-- I've been working here over half of my life. A sobering thought, that.
And now for the continuing saga of our children's room...
Poor F. (the children's librarian) didn't have a good day today, either. She found another possible attack site, this time in the children's reference books. So she called the police in (again!) and filed another report. She told me that the total number of affected books is closer to 1800 (not counting the new site) and that the insurance company is debating whether to pay for the company to come in and try to salvage what they can or to have us trash everything and replace as much as we can. Frankly, I don't know which would be the better choice. A lot of the books won't be replaceable, but even with total decontamination, I don't know that I'd ever want to touch those books again. Somebody surely has a grudge against our children's room...

Comments

[ex-lbilover.livejournal.com]

God, that is so awful. I was telling our children's librarian about it yesterday and she went pale. I have to say, I don't know that I'd ever want to touch those books again if I were you, either.

I always find it so weird to meet library patrons out of context- you know, at the supermarket or whatever. I'll be at my library 24 years in October, and yeah, it's a strange feeling to think how much of your life is spent in one place. I never imagined I'd stay that long. But aww, that was sweet of the guy to say you must have started right out of high school. :D:D:D

[frolijahfan.livejournal.com]

I know that I've said it before, but I totally don't understand why anyone would do something like this. (My vandalistic thoughts are more along the lines of "Let's just burn the place down." Although I shouldn't say that too loudly-- I don't want to give them ideas) I think that the children's librarian would rather we had the books "cleaned," but she is notorious for never wanting to get rid of *anything.* You should see the lengths that she will go to to patch and re-patch and re-re-patch (and even then you sometimes just have to throw it out when she's not looking!)
What was so weird about the guy recognizing me is that I'm rarely in public view these days. When I first started and was on the reference desk full time, then, yeah, I could see being recognized (although it still felt strange). But now?... (And he just couldn't see all the grey hair tucked under my "Frodo lives" baseball cap (A necessity to keep the morning sun out of my eyes--the drawback to living west of work. You're always heading into the sun)).
Yeah, when I started here I figured that I'd stay for a couple of years and then move on. But a year or so after I started, the director and I managed to convince the Board that they needed to hire an actual reference librarian and both of us were able to escape a lot of our previous desk time and do other things (Cataloging in uninterrupted peace and quiet! (well, sort of) Yay!