Thing 20: The Library Routes Project

This is the joys of an internet cafe and not having a tablet. Note to self buy tablet NOW!!

So the post for Library Routes is all ready to go but naturally it won't upload for me so it's just one more thing to do once I get home along with fixing a few other links on previous posts!

I started working in a library, actually the library I'm in at present in 2001. I started as a student assistant and apparently I was capable enough because I and another student assistant who also now works in the library (do we ever leave?) were given tasks to do that were beyond the remit of student assistants in that library. Ordinarily we would shelve and collect material to be reshelved but instead we were working with serials, working on the books collection, re-organising the shelving and doing inventory tasks in general.

Ironically once I'd done this for 18 months I was asked did I want to be a librarian and I said I wasn't sure as the stereotypical image of a librarian remained in my head and so I didn't do the library course at this point. My library career duly stalled until the summer of 2006.

In the summer of 2006 I was hired in the library as a library assistant. My erstwhile colleague was working in the library before me so he gave me all sorts of useful tips such as: It's not all about books! Naturally I was asked at the interview: Is it all about books?

Over the course of the next six years I would work in Customer Services on a part-time, full-time, part-time and full-time basis, in Special Collections on a part-time basis, in a health sciences branch library on a part-time basis, and finally in Inter Library Loans on a full-time and part-time basis. In one six month period I was in four different sections but fortunately no more than three on any given day! While it has been quite the juggling act especially from January 2010 to September 2012 I was always working in two places on the given day, I have gained so much experience and met much more people than most people. You really see the library as a whole and how each section interconnects. Libraries do not have stand alone sections but each section is vitally connected to the others and it so in order that we may give the best possible service to any individual at any given time.

Hmm! That seems quite 'O Band of Brothers' for me but I feel strongly about it.