Library -- mental work -- well not always

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Many people have visions of working in a library so they can sit and read books all day. Is this realistic? Not really. Another idea held by many is that working is a library is all mental and no physical work. Is this realistic. Also not true.

A common problem in a library is crowded book shelves and this creates the "What are we going to do with the new books that arrived in the mail?" dilemma. If you work in a technical library, say an engineering library, where technology is rapidly changing, you simply throw the old, obsolete books away. Throw away has a rather negative meaning to many people, including management, so librarians call this "weeding." No one, well almost no one, likes weeds, and pulling out weeds and throwing them away is viewed as a good thing.

However, in a theological library, this is not the case. A book that is two hundred years old may be as valuable as or of more value than a newly published. So nothing is thrown awa.............. oops, I mean weeded from the collection. Collections grow unevenly, that is some subject areas grow more rapidly than others and this creates sections where the books are crammed together and there just "ain't no room left" for new books. So, what is to be done? The solution is you move every book in the library leaving space at the end of each shelf for new additions. And, that is exactly what we are doing ... moving every book in the library. Well, if nothing else it is good exercise.

Good news-A very nice young man who is teaching English here on campus (and doing a lot of other things too) is volunteering in the library in his free time on Monday-Wednesday. He is helping us with the move. He is a student at the University of Wales but is living here this year. We both have already found in only a week that he is a delightful conversationalist and a very hard worker. I am sure we will count him among one of the good new friends we have when we leave this year.

Bad news-After we moved rows of books we learned that the money has been found for new shelving to be added beginning tonight or tomorrow. So now we will get to re-move the already moved books. Actually the addition of these new shelves was something we were really hoping for so it isn't bad news but rather bad timing.

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Photos

Nancy moving books
See the snow out the window behind Nancy?

Comments

[Patrick]

My first part-time job was as a Page in a library. By Page I don't mean a sheet of paper in a book or a youth being trained for the medieval rank of knight and in the personal service of a knight - I mean a kid who put books away. And believe you me, it was a hell of a lot of work. First you had to deal with the Dewey Decimal System, which I don't think the Czechs use. Then there was the physical aspect, especially dealing with carts with stubborn stuck wheels. Follow that by the sheer banality of the setting of a wee municipal library - not exactly babe central, let me tell you. The most difficult thing was trying not to read books while sorting them according to the DDS, and putting them away. Patrick www.prague-spot.com/blog

[Marsha Millard]

Librarians
My sister was a page at the Fitchburg Public Library while in high school, and my Aunt Linda (who is deaf) worked in that same library for a number of years... Of course, I'm not a geek, so I have never worked in one... HAHAH (MagpieMidge)