So here's the story...

I spent approximately three years working in a library after graduating from the University of Chicago.  About a year and a half in, I started thinking, "Huh. I guess I kind of like this library business." In the interest of getting to do something a little more glamorous than being one of the gnomes that makes sure all the books get moved/shelved/lost/found, etc., I'm now at library school, pursuing my MLIS at Syracuse University.

This blog is going to be shifting gears, now. If I find weird things in my new libraries, I'll be sure to document and post them as I can, but this is officially my blogging-for-class blog. I've never run into a professor who mandates blogging before--much less who views doing so as a necessary skill--but I think it's interesting.  Plus, I'm a somewhat-veteran blogger now, so it shouldn't be that difficult, right? Right.

I like the idea of blogging as a skill. Sure, it's communication. It's shouting into the void that is the series of tubes... and sometimes, they shout back. Learning how to write for an audience (particularly for one you may not know that well, if at all) is exceedingly useful. But now, the pressure is on.

I'm so very intimidated and excited to be where I am. The other library students are cool kids (not to be confused with Cool Kids), so I'm in good company. There is so much to do now. My schedule for the past few years was work, 9:00-5:00, Monday-Friday, then come home and do whatever it was I felt like doing on a given evening/weekend. Now, there is literally always work I could or should be doing. It's awesome, if a bit daunting, to be busy again. It's a major gear shift in my brain that I'm still wrestling with, to a certain degree.

So Dr. Dave Lankes--the aforementioned professor--wants us to be radical librarians. I like the idea. It's hard not to think of it as a bit of anti-propaganda (which is still propaganda), because it's catchy, but... It works. I like being prompted to decide instead of told what my career options are going to look like; what this entire field is going to look like. Things are taking shape, and those who are shaping them are usually the last to realize they're doing so. We have at least been warned, so we have no excuse not to do it with purpose.

I propose that we get team shirts. This suggests itself as the obvious choice. And no, I'm not just saying that because I've wanted that shirt for a few years now. It's just convenient and accurate. And awesome.

Paperdolls

One morning--very early--walking through the stacks, I came across these abandoned little fellows. They struck me as kind of sad, given that they were just left lying there on the floor, on opposite sides of an aisle.

I often have some sort of guess as to the origins of the strange items I find in my work's way, but these guys kind of baffle me. Who cuts out little foamboard people and just leaves them in the aisle of the library? They aren't the strangest of the golems--as I've come to call the various humanoid constructs--I've discovered.

My best guess is that they were either a) part of a student project of some sort, discarded because they weren't quite up to par or, perhaps more likely, b) created out of boredom by students who were supposed to be doing something else entirely with their foamboard. Whatever the case, this was a fun way to start my morning.