Feel-good Librarian

On the good ship Librarian

The face of librarianship is different these days from the stereotypic dowdy, bun-wearing shusher. We are just as likely to be wearing headsets, tattoos and eyebrow piercings (at least if your library has a more relaxed dress code than mine does).

Or feathers. Our library celebrated Mardi Gras in the spring. We all wore bright shirts, beads and feathered masks. I scared one adult patron, coming out of the stacks like that, but a child gazed up at me wonderingly, amazed. Isn't that how you'd rather kids think of librarians, though? As opposed to hornrims?

We think of ourselves differently, too, I am finding. We are a scared bunch these days, frightened that we won't find jobs, now or ever. We're scared that libraries won't keep their place in society. Or that they will, and we won't like it. We're scared that the generations who are clashing on our staffs won't ever get along. That the techno-terrified will hold all the rest of us up, or the techies will drag us all kicking and screaming into a future where we will be replaced by machines.

Let's not ditch all the past. Get rid of Marian the Librarian, but remember what else we do, too. Please.
We hold hands. We open eyes. We walk through doors with people through the information we provide. We boldly go where no one has gone before, through teaching people to read, showing them new possiblities, giving them options. One piece of information has the power to change someone's life, and we get to do it every day. Every day!

We do some of it through technology: virtual hand-holding and eye-opening. But my opinion? We do most of it through love. We love what we do, we love people, we love information, we love connection. Some love the very technology, too.

I'm not saying the problems aren't there; they are, just as frustrating and endless and grumpifying as people say. But that's not the whole picture. Librarians are some of the smartest, most creative people around, balanced between information and inspiration. And there are problems in every profession.

It's just that this one is worth it. It can't be the pay, right?

All you discouraged people in library school who are writing to me: come on. Keep going. Reassure yourselves: it's a practical profession, stimulating, fun. Most of us do this because we love it, despite all the griping. Walk down the dock and jump on the ship. Join us feather-wearers who are waiting for you.

And you discouraged librarians: remember why we do this. Put on your feathers and hold on to the rail.

It will be the ride of our lives.

Summer solstice

I have written briefly before about the effects of the full moon on our patrons. Those who are unstable for various reasons become more so during the three days of the full moon (day before, day of and day after). Today the moon is full.

Today is also summer solstice, when we have the most daylight hours in the year. This seems to have intensified the effects of the moon. I think every schizophrenic patron who visits us is here today, as well as some who I have never seen before.

The man with the teddy bear is here. He is alternating between speaking and waving. He is excited about something - just feels it in the air, maybe? The man who can't remember his password from one day to the next is here. The young man who unnerves people by staring at them is here - and the two of them are having a conversation. Not much information is being passed, but a lot of goodwill is - smiling and handshaking and asking after personal well-being.

A patron asked us to help look for a strawberry blonde woman with round glasses in the library. A twitchy man at the internet stations overheard. "I like strawberry blondes," he said. "By the way, did you know that methamphetamine production turns the skin red? Even someone in the house while the process is going on is susceptible."

Well, no. I didn't know that. And the connection would be? The solstice/full moon combination, I'm guessing.

One woman is looking for a bank account that was supposedly left to her. People are looking in nonfiction for children's books and Local History materials. Librarians can't find information that is written there clearly on the page.

One man wouldn't turn down the volume on his headset and got kicked out of library. A mentally ill man walked through the security gates, rubbing his hands down them as though he could feel them scanning him. Six or eight babies in the foyer all started crying at once.

I know there's no scientific evidence. But anyone who works a hospital emergency room or police dispatch will tell you:

These incidents make today truly the longest day of the year.

Braveheart

One of my regular patrons came in yesterday. She's an older woman, always emailing people across the country and around the world. She's active in community service groups, cheerful, neat, smiling.

She stopped at the desk today, still smiling. "How are you?" she asked. "Have you got a minute?"

"I'm all yours," I said. "Believe it or not, that's what they pay me for."

"Well, I'm looking for this new AARP book Caring for Your Parents," she said.

I looked, but we didn't have it. "Let me check Amazon.com, " I said. "Then I can request that the library buy it. It'll take a few weeks; is that ok?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"Would a different book on the same subject be of any help?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. "I need something." And then the story came out....

"I am 82 years old, " she said. Sharp intake of breath - I couldn't help it. I would never have guessed that to be her age. "My husband is 84, and I am his caretaker. I can't keep up anymore, I must have some help, but my children don't understand the need. Every time they see him, he's fine."

Her eyes filled with tears. Her husband does not want to admit his failing capacities, and her children do not see them. And she is stuck in the middle, exhausted.

"I'm sorry," I said softly, patting her hand. "That's hard."

She squeezed my hand and nodded, then took a deep breath. "Yes," she said. "It is. But I've come to you for help."

We went to the shelves and found another book, and I put in the request for her. "Good luck," I said. "Remember to take care of yourself, too."

She nodded. "That's what everyone says. I'll try." She smiled again, and touched my hand. "Thank you for your help."

She took the book and walked determinedly to the desk, her head up, with a smile for the clerk. She'll take my "help" and run with it.

Bless her brave heart.

Monster

Monster.com, that is. Constructing my own resume is a big enough challenge. Rating my skills – on a scale of what? Who are you comparing me to? Coming across as confident, but not cocky, successful but not swaggering, listing the advantages of hiring me without sounding like a self-centered egomaniac. It’s a hard balance to strike.

Now try doing it for someone else. Someone you don’t know. Someone who you’re not sure even knows what their skills are, but you do know that typing isn’t one of them. By the way, do they speak English?

People come in to fill out applications online all the time. Some of them do not have good reading skills. They don’t know how to type, not even two-fingered. They do not know where the AT sign is, or the letter E.

They sometimes don’t have an email address or understand how email works. They don’t understand why they have to have an email account so that their prospective employer can contact them. “I have a phone,” they explain to me.

They can figure out how to fill in the resume template pretty well, most of them. I do have to explain occasionally that they delete the template words that say, “YOUR NAME HERE” and put in their name instead.

The thing that is most difficult is filling out the skill survey. Many people ask me if ONE experience counts as - well….experience. Most surveys I've seen don’t have a place to list how long you’ve done the skill. They don’t have a scale even as simple as Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced.

Many people want to know if related skills count. A woman who had raised three children was applying for a nurses’ aide assistant position. The skill was listed as caretaking, and she wanted to know if her care for her children counted.

How can I know? If she works in pediatrics, sure - uh, maybe. Moms give medication, they change diapers, they feed kids a special diet when needed. But trying to do these services for an 83 year-old Alzheimer’s patient in diapers requires an expansion of those skills.

The men I have helped seemed to get caught in secretarial skills. “I typed my resume, “ they tell me: a long, painful process I observed and helped with. “Should I say I can type?”

One man who required me to sit beside him for 10 minutes, figuring out his form, how to get from one page to the next, how to fill in a button on the screen asked, “I’m filling out this survey on the computer. Do I have computer skills?”

I hate to be the monster, but…

NO!!!!

Where's the disability?

A big, barrel-chested man came to the desk on Wednesday. He walked with a cane, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he asked his question. "Do you have the AMA Guide to Evaluating Impairment?"

I got him a chair, so he could sit as we searched. He had become permanently disabled because of an accident at his job. Our state gives $300,000 lifetime total. Our state does not allow him to sue his employer for unsafe working conditions. He has no income coming in because his medical pay has ended. He has one week to protest his disability rating.

He was not a bitter person. He wasn't angry. He was actually very cheerful, but very focused on finding the information to help him work within the guidelines so that he didn't have to declare bankruptcy. "I worked hard for what I have - almost twenty years. I got a brand new house five years ago and I don't want to lose it. I have good cars that I worked hard for and I want to keep them."

"If I can work, I will, but I know nothing about computers and will have to learn new skills so I can sit down. I have to find an employer who will buy a special chair for me to sit in because of my back - $3000. Meanwhile, I have no income coming in and my bills are getting behind. I've had money coming in while they were doing surgery, but now that I've been declared permanently disabled - they don't see any improvement possible, even if they do more surgery - the money stops."

Did I mention this man is 35 years old? He had been through a year of surgery.

I spent half an hour with him. Our library doesn't own the book. The university libraries don't have it. The content is not online. Finally I called the hospital to see if their library had it, and talked the librarian into letting him look at it. They usually lend their books to other libraries, but this man did not have time for that.

He was so grateful. "Thank you so much for finding this," he said. "I think it is the only place I am going to find what I need."

"I'm sorry it took me so long," I said.

He said, "I didn't even know the hospital had a library, and I heard you talk the guy into letting me come. Believe me, it was a half hour well spent." He gave me a big smile. "I'm going right over there and find out all I can." He hobbled off with his cane, a man on a mission.

A half hour versus losing your credit rating and a lifetime's investment in your home. All because his employer is protected by the state and he is not.

There's the disability.