My Library Card Problem

As I write this post, we are in the last days of July. August is almost upon us, and the dawn of that month brings a lot of questions to which no one--and I mean no one--has satisfactory answers. 

I have a general-ish, vague idea of what my job as a teacher is going to look like in a few weeks.

I have a thousand questions, some of which I cannot even articulate yet. 

So I'm not going to talk about teaching in this post. {Side note, that was always the plan for this post...it was never going to be about teaching, but I was currently feeling the introduction, so I went with it.}

I'm going to talk about my other job. My new summer job. The job I am viewing as a stepping stone toward an eventual dream job.

That's right:  my job as a library clerk.

Libraries have been impacted by the pandemic and the shut-down just like every other business. We are just now getting ready to transition back to open doors. The closing of libraries has been unfortunate for many people across the country, and I don't just mean bibliophiles who need access to reading material. There are people who use the library's computers and internet. There are people who use the library for quiet study spaces. There are people who have no other place to go, and so they go to the library for as long as they can in a day. 

Libraries are important!

Libraries are also dangerous. I'm serious. 

Do you know how tall my stack of checked-out books is? I'll give you a hint:  it's tall. And it keeps growing! Part of my job involves checking books in and putting them back on shelves {after they have sat for an appropriate number of days in order to reduce contact contagions}. Well, that inevitably leads to reading the synopsis or flipping through the pages...which leads to more books on my stack.

Another part of my job is the dusting of shelves. Which means taking books off shelves. Which means I read the synopsis or the first chapter and end up with more books on my stack.

A perk of my job is no check-out limits. Which means I can check out as many books as I want. Which, of course, means that I do, and...you see where this is going.

And that doesn't even take into account the new books we get, which need to be logged and covered and put on the shelves. Or the books that we weed which are then put on a book sale cart. Or the books that come through the interlibrary loan for other patrons that I have to handle...

And then there's the movies. And the magazines. 

I decided that I would start in the fiction section one day, at the beginning of the alphabet, and just start perusing what we have. I need to be familiar with authors and titles. Even though I can do it on the computer, I like to have a basic knowledge of where things are and what we have in case someone has a question. I'm still working through that first shelf...I think there are only about five more books I want to check out from that section? Which gets me....partly through the C last name authors? And maybe just to Ch? *Sigh.* It's a problem. And it was probably a terrible way to start, because given my personality and brain, I have to finish. 

It's a good thing I don't have any check-out limits...

Anyway, if you don't have a library card, you should really get one. If you don't know how, I bet you could contact your local library and they could walk you through the process. And if you want some recommendations of authors whose last names fall into the A-Ch range, just let me know, and I'll give you some.