Library Page(s)

[eumelia]

Working at a library has many perks.

You get to see how it actually works, the whole system and drudgery of hauling books to and fro, discovering that students (my peers) are often so helpless in the wake of the scope of the stacks.

That's very charitable thinking as very often they are simply lazy. That's also an unfair assessment, the books are intimidating, especially when you have this system to work through. It's called Dewey-Decimal. Why can't it just be alphabetical?
I used to think that, when I was in high school and spent most of my free time (or the time skiving off lessons) hiding in the stacks, reading useless sex-ed books (hey, you had to find porn where you could get it) and the slim selection of Science Fiction and Epic Fantasy was not much to go on.
But woe, the alphabet is sorely lacking in the nuance needed for arranging books in a Library that caters to those who are to be over-educated (like moi!).

I'm still under a lot of scrutiny. I try to take in stride but my boss is one of those unsmiling sorts and takes making sure I put all the books on the shelf correctly. I'm waiting for this month to end, if only so that I can be trusted with the books a bit more.

I find myself loving books more now that I handle them as objects and not things which contain things I want to read or know. it's a different way of interacting with a book. The majority of the books I handle are so incredibly boring I don't even bother leafing through them - seriously, "Introduction to Microeconomics", "Qualitative Research". Those are the titles.
I pity my fellow over-educated peers. I mean, granted not everything I have to read is a page turner, but still, they would pity themselves more than they would pity me.

My stacks are not sexy stacks, alas. They are metal and have many copies of one book - many of them is very bad condition. Wear and tear comes with the territory, but it being a reading hall Library (there is more hall than Library, in fact) you'd think people would take care - after all, the books don't actually belong to them.

In relation to the above, I was sitting around with friends a few days ago and while I can't remember what it was we were watching, it did contain a chase scene and the person running away pushed over a bookcase and I cried out along with a wince:
"No! Not the books!"
And was promptly laughed at by my friends.

The main (and self-indulgent and shows you all how anti-social I actually am) perk, is that I get to show off my mad book finding skills and feel superior to the other over-educated students who think we're going to find jobs with a crummy B.A. in the Humanities and the Social Sciences.

Unless you major in Econ. Then you have a chance. Maybe.

P.S.
BBC's Sherlock has taken over my brain side by side with Inception. I cannot wait to finally have a functional DVD player so that I can re-watch some of Doctor Who and Torchwood. I've been completely neglecting those fandoms!.

Comments

[silveradept]

I'll bet. In our system, anyone who gets caught with something they don't feel comfortable with is highly encouraged to dump them off on someone who has had Advanced Hat-Pulling and let them do the thing. For our pages, it's not actually in their job description to do reference work at all. Don't know if that's the same for you.

[eumelia]

I've generally found them the specific book or books they already knew they needed (they either couldn't see it on the shelf or wrote the Dewey number wrong or got the title/author wrong, stuff like that) and pointed them in the direction of shelves that may or may not have various books that pertain to the subject of their search.

But more often than not I'll tell them that they need to ask the actual Librarian - I just happen to know where the books go!

[silveradept]

Got it. You're finding out that in all RPG-type campaigns, library workers have a significant bonus to spot checks, especially when there's an order to the things being looked at.

[pineapplechild]

Now you're giving me ideas for characters... wonder if my GM would let me get away with justifying that bonus with "It's okay, I'm a librarian."

[silveradept]

They should. I mean, if you work in a place where your job is to spot the one out of a lot of similar-looking things, you should be able to claim a professional bonus to spotting things that look out of place or that need to be found.