books...

I always wanted to be a librarian. When I was about 12, I organized, categorized, and labeled the spine of each book in my personal collection. I put a card and pocket inside each front cover and my bedroom became a library. The only patrons were my brothers, who sadly had not much interest in Nancy Drew and other girly-type stuff. Still, it was a joy to me.

A couple of months ago, I applied for a volunteer position at our local branch of the library, and last Saturday I was trained and started my new job! I work 3 hours every Saturday. It is very exciting. I help work the “bins.” When library patrons put books on hold from other libraries, they arrive in bins. Anywhere from 10-20 bins full of books arrive at our library each day. The books each need to be processed and tagged with the patrons’ names, then I alphabetize them on carts and wheel the carts out onto the library floor where I place them on the “hold” shelves, in alphabetical order (I did get pretty tired of the alphabet after a while). This week I had two and a half carts of books. I have no idea how many books there were altogether, but one patron had seemingly dozens on hold, so we checked it out. A 15-year-old girl had put 60 books on hold (the limit is 100)! At first we were all duly impressed with such an avid reader, and so young, too. But then we got to wondering. Maybe she didn’t understand how to work the library web site, maybe she accidentally ordered 60 books, when all she meant to do was peruse the titles. Maybe a “friend”, as a joke, borrowed her card and ordered them for her. Let me just say, we at the library do not think that is funny. At any rate, she may be in for a big surprise. Unless, of course, she really did mean to order that many; I guess we’ll know if she shows up with a wheelbarrow!