Library News: Bedbugs in Library Books

A new library patron! Bedbug Coloring Pages

A friend of mine sent me this New York Times article about bedbugs infesting books. I am absolutely disgusted and terrified of bedbugs, but this article didn't strike a note of fear in me. I guess, being a public librarian, I can say that I've handled my fair share of insect infested materials from the bookdrop or in boxes of donations, or handed directly to me from a customer. I've also seen my fair share of insect infested customers. But, still, bedbugs are pretty gross.

My Rant on Education and Some Questionable Teachers

Every kid, in every school, in every district, in every state will not be able to understand the same things. Case in point:
A kid came in for homework help and we have excellent homework helpers at our library, yet they were stuck on a particular question on this kid's homework. He was asked to identify the picture by writing the name of the item underneath. This was an exercise in phonics, because all of the pictures were three-letter words using different A sounds. The picture my staff was stumped on was one of a tree with what looked like a stick sticking out of it and a bucket hanging from the stick. I knew what it was immediately, but that's because I watch a lot of TV. How are kids from the inner city of Los Angeles supposed to know what a tree tap is? Or is the word supposed to be sap? Or if it weren't three-letter words, I would've suggested "maple." I was tempted to send a note back to the teacher, but I let it go.

Another kid came in with this ridiculous project topic: What is the role of the library in the community? Now, as a librarian, not only do I know the answer to the question, but I can find ample articles to support my point. What makes this project ridiculous is the fact that it was assigned to a 2nd grader. I dare you... double dare you to find information explaining the role of the public library that a 2nd grader can read. Go ahead. I hope you find something and can share with me because I searched books, databases and all over the Internet, but was unable to find anything below a 6th grade level. Now, what teacher is going to send their 2nd graders out on that kind of goose hunt without searching for themselves to see if there is any information on the topic? The teacher who doesn't care or forgot that they weren't teaching a high school level course. Oh yeah! That's right. Huh.

And then there are the teachers who send all 30+ kids in their class to the library to get books and information on the same topic. Could you give us a heads-up, for goodness sakes? At 3:30 p.m., one kid comes in asking for books on China, we give him all the information he can hold. Then half an hour later the rest of the class is lined up, but all the China books were checked out by the first kid because we had no idea the whole class had the same project. Would it have hurt that teacher to give us a call on Monday to inform us they'd be assigning that topic on Friday? How much time would that take them and save us here at the library. Countless hours my friend. Countless hours.

The Roach

We have a pair of brothers who are regular customers of the library. They are nice people, talkative, flirtatious and funny, but they aren't very clean. That's a very nice way of putting it. In fact, they're pretty gross. They often come in reeking of old urine and cigarette smoke. Recently, their smell has found its way onto the materials they borrow. One of their visits left us with about 10 DVDs that smelled like they were dipped a pee trough and left in the sun to dry. I had to seal them in a box after spraying them over with a product called Eliminator. After a day, I set them to air out. They returned to their regular, circulateable smell.
Then, one day, one of the brothers came in alone to return some materials and pick up his holds. We volleyed some banter about him putting my boyfriend in cement shoes so he can take me out on a date and me telling him If he killed my boyfriend, I'd be forced to kill him. While our chatter progressed, I noticed an insect on his jacket, which I was not surprised to see. What fly could resist the tantalizing scent of urine, fresh or old? But no! It was not a fly that followed him into the library, but a roach who hitched a ride, presumably from home. The damned thing crawled from inside the collar of his coat, down the front of the coat, lingered a bit there until he did the unthinkable: he crawled onto the counter and entered my world.
Now, this is me. I don't do well with roaches and spiders. I am also the same librarian who ran all the way across the library when, while weeding fiction, i discovered a spider was crawling up my arm (it was significantly sized and didn't look like a plain ol' spider, but something more viscous, and of course it was on my arm [above the elbow, nonetheless]).
I was frozen to the spot. The world disappeared and it was just me and the roach crawling on the counter. All I was able to do was signal to my coworkers, which was apparently indecipherable. Finally someone noticed the roach and smacked a magazine over it. My daze was broken.
After that, thank goodness, the conversation ended. He took his newly checked-out DVDs and left. Can't wait for the next visit!

Cool Find! Library of the Living Dead

I don't know about most librarians, but I'm always struggling to explain how the library works and how to use it to patrons and during class visits. Many people just don't get it. So, its always nice to find fun new ways to teach it. Case in point: Library of the Living Dead. A graphic novel that extols the library and briefly explains how to use it. Great for teens and those comic-loving kiddos.
http://blogs.mcpherson.edu/library/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Library-of-the-Living-Dead-Online-Edition.pdf

Reference Questions From Beyond: Imagination

Question: "I need a book on imagination."
Customer: a girl in the 3rd grade and her father
What They Were Really Looking For: after excavating her request (aka the reference transaction) i found out that her assignment really was to define imagination as well as how one develops it and uses it. fucking ridiculous.
this is another great example of stupid teachers handing out stupid assignments. dissecting imagination is hardly 3rd grade level work. and i would really like to see a teacher walk into the average public library and find a book that is on their reading level that would satisfy that assignment, let alone on a level that is appropriate for a 3rd grader. idiots!
What Materials Were Checked Out: Could You, Would You by Trudy White and the American Heritage Children's Dictionary for a definition of imagination.

not defeated

at 9:45 this morning i stood in my children's area and did a slow pan around the place. tears were welling up in my eyes and i was making every effort to stop them before they fell. i didn't want to show any signs of defeat.
so far my summer reading program has been a flop. not a big 500 lb. belly flop, but a oops-i-slipped-off-the-diving-board-and-fell-in flop. kids are signing up, but not following through. the staff is totally confused by the procedure i laid out for the program. attendance at my events is low. headquarters keep on sending more and more stuff to add to the minutia. i'm thoroughly frustrated with it all. the only time i'm happy is when the kids exchange the coins they earn for reading for the prizes.
and its only july for goodness sakes! i've another full month of this madness.

the only thing i am looking forward to is my upcoming sidewalk chalk festival. its going to a crazy event because i have so much going on at one time, but i think, at the very least it will boost my spirits again, and at the most raise the community's awareness of the children's services @ my library.

what i've learned so far for future planning and especially for next year's summer reading program:
1. keep it simple. i love cool titles, bright colors and exercising my amateur graphic designing skills for flyers, but unfortunately, people don't get it. so go minimal.

2. espionage. visit other libraries to see what they're doing. steal ideas. don't trust what people say when you run ideas by them. find out what really works.

Sort of a Librarian's Reference Question of the Year

or at least its the reference question of the year so far. its rather early in the year, but i doubt it will get any worse than this. here it goes....

"When did racism end?"

are you serious? what country have you lived in for the past....for your entire life? i can't imagine that someone actually believes that racism ended. the only logic i can pull from this is that the customer didn't know the definition of racism. maybe she meant the civil rights movement or apartheid or suffrage. or, maybe she's just a dumdy nut.

Sort of a Librarian Vol. 2: Permanent

so i signed the paperwork today and i am officially a permanent library employee.
oh my goodness! finally. i know its only been a couple of months of working as a temporary employee, but i was getting worried.
really i was...REALLY.
dammit. i can't even convince myself.

i was worried, but only a little bit. it was a combination of knowing that i'm good at what i do and that my spider sense told me not to worry. i like to trust my instinct, and in this, like many other cases, it was right.

but now that the paperwork is signed and i know where the money will be coming in for the rest of my life (unless i fuck this up big time) i feel like i can start working on the next goal: enjoying life, while saving for my own place.

in the meantime, its mardi gras tomorrow and i'm going to have the kids make their own masks. laissez le bon temps rouler!

Sort of a Librarian Vol. 1: I Love It/ I Hate It

when i started this post i was uber frustrated with office politics and large library system bureaucracy.

i am a children's librarian working in a small library within a large library system. my branch is located in a very poor and urban neighborhood. i was hired as a "monthly" employee, which means i'm temporary, easily expendable when the ship starts to sink.
its been three months and i basically still love what i do on a daily basis, but some things have started to get to me.

i am blessed to be in a library where my manager says "sure! sounds good" to almost every suggestion or idea i come up with and i implement almost all of her suggestions and ideas, too. however, i feel like there's still some communication issues and not just with my manager. it seems like most of the other employees all have things to tell me, but they feel like they're going to hurt my feelings, upset me or enrage me, so they all hold back. this sucks, especially when i ask people for their opinions and they clam up or give me canned answers thinking i'll accept that. i really dislike it when people agree just to make someone happy. it actually hurts my feelings some of the time that people would want to treat me like a small child, "yes! that's a great idea!" when they know that particular idea won't get off the ground in my library.

enough of the negativity...i got a hint of good news yesterday when the regional supervisor's assistant called me to check on my employment status. seems like a good sign to me. she used to call my manager and inquire, but now she's asking me directly. unfortunately, since i'm not considered permanent, i have to re-interview for my position. my interview is this friday. she even asked what time it was...i hope it was so that she could check on the results afterward. i hope that means that she wants to expedite making me permanent.

my manager also gave me some news yesterday: once permanent, they may want me to transfer to another library. i know of two libraries in my region that are children's librarian-less. in fact they both are bigger libraries. however, i really like working where i do and i've bonded with a few of the kids. they're part of why i like this job. i guess we'll see...

Hope is a Librarian's Word, Too

Copied from Myspace blog

this is week 2 of training and i'm feeling really confident that i'm going to be a good at my job when i finally get a chance to actually do it.

so far i've come across a weary children's librarian, who still has plenty of good in her, but is really short with customers, mainly the adults. i see what she's been through with stupid customers (young and old) destroying books and other library materials, parents dropping their kids off like the library is daycare and kids acting like the children's section is the set of american gladiators.

i wonder if i will ever take on that weariness. i return to my days at borders and am trying to remember how i felt the last few months there: was i more weary of the growing corporate atmosphere/waning family feel, or was i tired of dealing with unappreciative customers?

another factoid that i've picked up recently, is that in the southern region of l.a. county, the libraries and librarians are more appreciated by their users, where as in the west region they are used, but often don't receive the necessary support or rarely hear a word of thanks from the local users. so, even though i have to drive the extra mileage to work, i think i'm going to be much happier in the south, than dealing with entitled yuppies and their brats. i should keep my mouth shut, because i may end up transferring up there one day.

i've also come across a children's librarian who is insecure. she constantly is apologizing for almost everything, from accidentally bumping into me to asking me to help her with storytime. that's what i'm there to do! why apologize? her insecurities trickle down into her work tasks, she is not confident about what she does for the kids, even though they and their parents are appreciative. i feel bad because when i came in and worked with some of the kid volunteers, they said that they would start splitting their time to come to my library so they can work with me because i'm "awesome."

i briefly met another children's librarian who was really nice, but hated doing storytime. are you serious? on a more positive note, i've seen another children's librarian lead a storytime that drew a crowd of 60 kids, most of which sat through the stories then participated in the following craft. that's pretty awesome.

i'm still really excited about this job and everything i'm going to have to do. i will be the first children's librarian assigned to the graham library in a long time, if ever. that means a lot of work carving out a space in the current milieu.

so far, when i go to work i feel uber-confident. although my language is cleaned up, i pretty much treat the kids that i've worked with so far the same as everyone else, which has always been my policy in working with people. i get to play with babies and then send them home, i get to color and come up with different arts and crafts projects, i get to sing songs and read children's books. life ain't bad.

hopefully the confidence, excitement and hope will continue into next week and beyond, when i'm finally working in my library.
unitl then...

Day 1: Librarian Training

Copied from Myspace blog

the day flew by surprisingly fast. i spent most of my time shadowing the children's librarian at the branch that i'm training at. i was also surprised to learn that she's about as cynical as i am, which was a good and a bad thing. good because the atmosphere was very similar to when i was working at the bookstore. i felt right at home. we exchanged stories about all the crazy regulars we've come across and i got to meet some of them, too. it was a bad thing because although i'm sure she's an excellent children's librarian, she's not exactly the kind of librarian i want to be. she did the least amount of work as possible and what she did do, it seemed as if it was half-assed.

i feel awful saying this about her, especially since she actually wanted to work with kids and focused her education on it. i'd like to think that she started off like i am, wanting to be a great children's librarian, but after experiencing the crazies, the unattended kids, the asshole teenagers, the smooshing of m&m's into picture books and the non-participant parents she's developed a fairly negative attitude. i don't want that and hope i don't get it.

the community library manager (CLM, aka branch manager) is the opposite. she gave me a children's pep talk, telling me about her experience. like me, she went into librarianship wanting to work with adults, but kind of slipped, fell and and landed into children's services. she learned to love it and preaches that she thinks its the best way to start off in the profession, a widely held belief.

we'll see where i land when i finally get to work in my library and meet my kids along with their parents and neighbors.

i'm ready for day two.