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My new job requires that I take shifts working the reference desk, which for those who don’t know, is basically the help desk. Questions range from “Where’s the bathroom” to “I’m writing a paper on Albanian History.” I’m feeling a little anxious about pointing all of these graduate students toward the best resources so I’ve been mentally preparing myself for the last week or so. Part of my preparation includes figuring out what books are in the reference section and what types of research they would be useful for. The findings are about as dry as you might have expected. Encyclopedias and dictionaries for most subjects including business, science, history, and the arts. The usual periodical indexes, gazetteers, and concordances are there. A couple of days ago I happened to come across an online review for the following title and thought it would be an exciting addition to the reference section: Dirty Words, a Literary Encyclopedia of Sex. Out of curiosity I decided to to see if any other libraries carry this title and lo and behold, 10 libraries have it proudly on their shelf. So go ahead and order it through Interlibrary Loan if you need to brush up on some old moves or figure out what the kids are up to these days.
The New York Times featured a story today about Paul Otlet, a school librarian in Belgium during the early 1900’s who was planning to create a master bibliography of all the world’s published knowledge. (!!!!) The project is now being recognized as one of the earliest prototypes for the Internet, and is honored/archived at the Mundaneum in Mons. Read More Here.
Needless to say, I’m completely smitten with this very dead man and would like to nominate him as Librarian Hero of the year.
I’m into my third week at the new job and I must say: I really, really love it. The people are fantastic. The space is wonderful and the campus is just unspeakably attractive. The nature of the work is more or less to my liking with plenty of opportunities for moving around and physically working, as opposed to just sitting at a desk all day.
I have to admit, though, that there have been more than a handful of confusing/frustrating moments and I’m beginning to realize that the majority of my time will be spent solving little library mysteries. For instance, a lot of patrons submit requests but can’t provide much information. They might not remember the author’s name or might not know the exact title. This makes my job really challenging. Part of the problem has to do with library tools not being quite as user-friendly as say: Amazon or Google. I don’t get any help if a word is misspelled, and title indexes are pretty picky about format and word order. Fortunately, I like a challenge. I feel a small sense of defeat when I resort to Google, and a huge sense of accomplishment when I manage to locate a circulating copy of some obscure reference work.
For those who are interested, there is an online resource called WorldCat that essentially strives to be a fully functional catalog for the whole world. It is the number one resource for my work. Go to worldcat.org and enter your zip code and then search for books, CD’s, movies and more. WorldCat will show you all the libraries in the world that own those titles and how far away they are from your house. Pretty neat, huh!
I’m not sure that I’ve fully captured how big and bright this place is… I never have to turn the lights on!
Well, I started my new job about a week ago and have found it relatively easy to settle in. I’ve been mentally composing a blog post for several days now that would highlight some of the terrific advantages, and while I’m really excited about multiple aspects of my new job, I can’t seem to get past how great the bathrooms are here!
Now, for some context: I had considered writing bathroom-related entries on many occasions at my previous job. They were awful. All of them. A seven-story building with restrooms on every floor and each and every one of those restrooms had unique characterics that made them completley unpleasant and avoidable. The basement level had a nice spacious handicapped stall away from all of the others, but no hot water at the sink. The main level was often standing-room only with women doing their hair, fixing their make-up, waiting for toilets, whatever… And all of the bathrooms were filthy at best, low on toilet-paper, and worst of all: automatic flushers. I want to break the knee-caps of the person that invented the automatic flusher. How is that helpful? It mis-fires all the time, causing the squatter to stand with your pants around your ankles until the flushing has ceased, or get your back-side sprayed with toilet-water. Lovely. Really, what a terrific invention. Cause… let’s face it: I just can’t remember to flush that baby on my own! Or, maybe some germaphobes are convinced that hand-washing won’t suffice after touching that cooties-infected flusher. Please don’t cater to those people!
Anyways. The new bathrooms. Four per floor. Four private bathrooms per floor. There’s one right outside my office. Rarely used. If it is, there’s another just down the hall. Each bathroom is spacious, well-lit, and provides an extra chair with a writing surface… you know, just in case you need to proctor an exam while going to the loo. Best of all, each toilet is equipped with a traditional lever for flushing. Is that so much to ask? Oh, and copious amounts of paper products, anti-bacterial soap that doesn’t smell wierd or self-foam, and excellent instructions for how and when to wash your hands. The coup-de-grace? A pleasant little reminder by the door to turn off the lights so that the Florida Everglades don’t dissapper under water. (something about greenhouse gases, global warming and polar ice-caps melting? huh, never heard of it!)
So, I’ll try to remember to talk about some of the finer points of my new job in a future post, but for now you should just know that I’m happily peeing away. Oh, and there’s a 5 foot black snake that likes to sun itself in front of the building… And I’m trying to be okay with that.
