Tales of an eccentric redhead radical militant librarian

So my job at the public library gives me ample opportunity to work with "real people." I really do feel like I'm more in touch with reality there, even if the questions aren't stimulating, although I can't say that answering questions for clueless undergraduates is really that stimulating, either. Case in point:

Undergraduate: Do you have any articles on, like, sociology? [Yes, she actually said "like"]

Me: Yes, I can show you how to access LOTS of articles about sociology. Is there a specific topic you're interested in researching?

Undergraduate: No, I really just need articles on sociology. My paper's due tomorrow.

Anyway, one interesting feature of my public library job has to do with collection maintenance. I'm in charge of the adult fiction, mystery, DVD, and CD collections. Unfortunately, I don't get to purchase new stuff or anything cool like that. Instead, I scour the collections to spot duplicates, damaged books, things that smell, DVDs people have used as coasters, and other such nonsense.

What this means is that I destroy books. Yes, it's true. Members of that vaunted profession, librarians, tear of books on a regular basis. I really only do this for damaged books, however: broken spines, coffee stains, etc. Unfortunately, you can't really sell such items and it's not really worth the time and effort to repair them, particularly not if it's your 80th copy of the latest Janet Evanovich. Good stuff does get sold, though.

Even though tearing up the books is for the better (we're recycling the paper), I still feel somewhat queasy about the process. It's strange, in a profession whose underlying value is the proper stewardship of information, to be destroying it. In my stack of items to read is a book called Double fold: libraries and the assault on paper, written by a rabble-rouser of the profession, about more nefarious and/or unfortunate destruction of information. I wonder where the line should be drawn.

Anyway, on to cheerier things. Have I mentioned before how much I love Unshelved? Well, I do.

This summer, I have two jobs, one at the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL) and one at the University of Michigan Library. I've had a hiatus from the public library realm for a while, paying ye olde tuition bill by being a TA.

My return to a public library has made me realize how much I love working in them. I feel closer to real people. Well, maybe "real people" is the wrong term. I feel like I'm helping make the world a better place. At times, this even seems odd to me, since much of what I seem to do is place holds on DVDS for people. Nonetheless, I feel like I'm closer to helping solve people's problems than I do at the Graduate Library. Being back at a public library, despite my misgivings with AADL itself, really confirmed my desire to go into public librarianship.

But then I've been questioning even this of late. Last week, I was at a workshop/session on library 2.0, i.e. using web 2.0 applications in delivering library services, and I had this epiphany. Here we were, talking about exciting our patrons with tagging and high-level browse and reaching out to them on Facebook. And I began thinking about all those people who have to clue what Facebook or del.icio.us are, because they lack the information access with which we're blessed. Africa, Southeast Asia, South America. Maybe, I started thinking, I should try to promote information access internationally.

And to throw yet another wrench into the gears, I'm still thinking about going into state libraries, thank to my internship last summer at the Oregon State Library.

In sum, I don't know what kind of librarian I want to be. I just know I don't want to be holed up in a university library somewhere. I'm tired of being a student. I'm tired of working with academics (important though they are to our society). People have suggested that I go on to get a Ph.D. in library science, and I cringe at the thought. This is going to could terminally cheesy, but as a librarian, I hope to make a positive impact on the world. Hopefully, I'll find the right path to make that happen.