Local Library or "Cheers"?

   

Posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

Many of us grew up in The Good Old Days when we could visit the library down the street or at least in a nearby neighborhood. The librarians kept order and silence (sort of). Patrons thought the card catalog was a confusing tool and never dreamed that some computerized day they would long for its return. Kids went to story hour and adults read quietly in the periodicals room. For many of us regulars, it was a place where "everybody knows your name." Yeah, like "Cheers." (Disclaimer: I've never worked in a big city library, although I've spent many hours in them as patrons. The ambience is a bit different there, less personal, but still darned high quality.)

Libraries were a refuge for me as a child, especially Mrs. Wornick's in the LaGrangeville (NY) Elementary School Library; I wonder what happened to her. I'd love to be able to tell her how she has inspired my life. I've been a librarian for ... yikes!... 40 years, unless you include the semesters and summers I worked at a university library and a small city library (the city was small, not the library). I have worked in a corporate library, a medical school library, and two small public libraries.

The latter, hands down, are my favorites. I remember being afraid, when I was in college and planning to be a librarian, that I didn't know enough about anything to be a genuine reference librarian like the folks at the university ref desk.  So imagine how happy and relieved I was to discover that being a reference librarian in a small public library doesn't require a depth of knowledge in any field. Of course, you have to be able to find information in a range of subject areas from literature to sports and cooking. I don't know a lot about anything, really, but it turns out that having a broad range of interests is more important. My knowledge base is a wide as the Atlantic, but only 1" deep. Luckily, that's all it takes. Well, that and an abiding interest in people and their problems.

Tomorrow, April 15, besides being Tax Hell Day and my birthday, is National Library Workers Day. Let me explain who's really working at my public library. First, we have the front desk people, who check out books, find lost items, and act as social workers. There are a handful of unsung goddesses in the back room, the women (in our case but not always, of course) who order the books, figure out where to shelve them, find titles we don't have from all over the country and beyond, and keep the bills paid. Several folks ('pages") come in part time to put all those books and increasingly, DVDs, away. Our director is the contractor who keeps the building in good repair; she's also Information Technology guru of last resort. Our assistant director chooses the books and provides the literary underpinnings of the place. The children's librarians are storytellers, teachers, and art directors. The custodians, besides keeping the place clean and spiffy, are the bouncers, the guys who evict the people who sleep through all our closing announcements. Volunteers and the Friends are the folks who provide services beyond the budget--like delivering books to shut-ins.

The reference librarians are bartenders. We are the captive audience who dispense relief in the form of information and listen to your life story, your genealogy search successes, your troubles, triumphs, and what happened to delay the plane 3 hours in Paris. We commiserate when your California sister is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. We keep it to ourselves when a long-married patron asks for a book on divorce. We are very discrete when asked for a book on, say, herpes. If you want to start a business selling sexy undies from door to door, we've got your demographics. If you have landlord problems, we've got the sources to deal with them; ditto if your tenant is giving you trouble, and we probably know both of you.

Weddings, funerals, bar/bat mitzvahs--we can find you books to help in the planning, and we get invited to some of them, too. Some of my best friends started out as people asking questions across the desk, and many of the rest have been coworkers at several libraries. As I wrote last week, I'm one of the lucky ones. I love my job. Frankly, I'd probably make a lousy real bartender; I can't tell my zinfandel from my pino grigio, not to mention Budweiser from Coors or Drambuie from Kahlua.

But if you really need to know that, I can look it up for you. Happy National Library Workers' Day and National Library Week to all. And to all, a good night.

Comments

[Barbara Sack]

Thanks for a look behind the stacks, Jeanne. I've always said I'd rather lose my credit card than my library card. Librarians and their staff are my heroines (and heroes), so here's raising a glass of zinfandel, and another of pino grigio, to you all.

Barbara

[paul lamb]

Sorry, I don't long for the days of the card catalog. I can explore the library from my computer at home. Try to do that with a card catalog.

[Judy]

Jeanne,
Love this blog. Knew you did mysteries from the Refcom meetings, but obviously,you're talented in more than one area! I do like pinot grigio( hint:it's lighter than zinfandel white or otherwise). I feel like a bartender here at Dean some nights, of course, I can't dispense spirits, just elevate the spirits of college students doing their final papers and projects. Thanks for a day brightener!
Judy Tobey, Dean College

[kate flora]

Jeanne...I love this column. Of course, to me, libraries are temples of the book...and these days also temples of the video, the audio book, the latest literary magazine, and in Concord, of Mr. Emerson, who presides over the central hall and keeps a stern, if somewhat amused eye on all of us.

My first job was in a library, and I did it both to get near the books and to have first dibs (after the librarian) on the newest Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, and Victoria Holt when they came in.

Happy National Library week to our resident librarian.

Kate

[Annette]

Jeanne,
What a wonderful post. I worked as a school librarian for 16 years. I do miss it.
I love having access to my local public library's card catalog through the computer. But I must confess I do miss the smell of the card catalog.
Only a librarian would know what I am talking about.

[Annette]

Jeanne,
What a wonderful post. I worked as a school librarian for 16 years. I do miss it.
I love having access to my local public library's card catalog through the computer. But I must confess I do miss the smell of the card catalog.
Only a librarian would know what I am talking about.

[John Clark]

Great snapshot/memory lane journey. I'm both a writer and OPL-One person library(ian) in a small Maine town. There isn't a more rewarding job or a better way of feeling a like a true part of the community.

[Jeanne]

Thanks for the comments. I secretly have to agree with Paul, because the computers allow our small library to function like at least a medium-sized one. And some of those card catalogs DID smell--I'd rather not know what some of that aroma was from! I admit I am still excited to search for my books in catalogs and find them! Once the Library of Congress called ME--they had to sort out which of the Jeanne Brackens I am, so I gave them my birth year. I kept that message on my machine until the phone company deleted it. John, we spend a lot of time in Maine in the summer and I have a card from the Poland Spring library on my key chain. Happy Library week to one and all. Jeanne