My Day

I guess you could say I'm settled into the life of a part-time librarian. What, you may ask, does one do as a part-time librarian?

• I don't shelve or check out books.

• I don't "shush" people.

I do sit at the reference desk (Children's, Fiction, Reference, or Computer Help) and answer questions in person and on the telephone. In any one day (seven hour shift with an additional unpaid hour lunch), I may sit at two or three desks during the day, depending upon where I am scheduled.

This morning at the Fiction desk, in the first 45 minutes of the day, I spoke at length with Movie Man, one of our regular patrons, whose fondest dream is for a librarian to tell him the long forgotten title of a movie he once saw (opening scene is of an attempted suicide by gas who is subsequently revived by a stranger. If you know this title, PLEASE let me know).

After a lengthy conversation ranging from such topics as AIDS to whether or not the NYPL is open 24 hours a day, Movie Man left to go downstairs and I spoke to a mother on the phone whose high schooler informed her he needs to have a book for school by the end of the week. Said book, about which he has known since September, was published by a university press and is not widely held. We found some options that might work, however, and I sent the caller on her way. Immediately after, I spoke to a caller who could not remember the author of Sarah, Plain and Tall. Although I did not know the answer off the top of my head, the caller was impressed by how quickly I found the answer in my trusty catalog.

I suspect that the rest of the day will pass in much the same way. To keep myself occupied when not answering questions (or blogging), I have several projects on which I can work, including formatting some bibliographies written by other librarians, checking the catalog to see if we own certain books recommended by vendors, and investigating the possibility of using a wiki to disseminate certain information to library staff (incidentally, Starrlett, how did you get your wiki to stop displaying ads at the top? You aren't a paid subscriber yet, are you?)