In the midst of all the drama surrounding the current "officeholder", I am reminding myself that this is National Library Week, the irony that we celebrate Libraries and Librarians during this week, when that person has probably only stopped in a Library to use the bathroom or to see if the "hot Librarian" stereotype is true, is not lost on me.
So I think about how I am tied, forever to libraries. I was raised in a family of readers and since BUYING every book we wanted was both impractical and fiscally impossible, my mother, my sister and I would go every two weeks, like clockwork, to the Pacoima Library. I don't remember my grandmother coming with us, but my mom must have picked up books for her. MY grandmother is one of the reasons I am a reader. One of my earliest memories is her reading to me, cuddled in her large lap in her big blue chair. My grandmother was what we might call zaftig and her lap was a cozy place to a young child.
I was allowed to check out five- and only five- books. I remember that you needed to be able to write your name to be given a card and one early proud moments was writing my name on the application. I could barely reach the circulation desk and had to be lifted up to do it, but there I was,a MEMBER, with my VERY OWN CARD! My mom laminated the paper card and kept them in her purse.
Years later, I began my City career as a messenger clerk at that same branch. It was a wonderful job and I was going to go to Library School, but things happened along the way and I didn't go. I became an analyst with the City and in 1986 went back to work in Branch Library Services. My job allows me to work with librarians to keep the doors open. It has been a wonderful job and I love my people. I love libraries. The free and easy access to information is one of the hallmarks of this country; and while I am distressed with the current political climate, libraries continue to give me hope. We have changed in the last 40 years since wide-eyed eighteen year old me started shelving books. We are more in line with the times and provide vital community services along with books and periodicals. Libraries are lively places these days,we are NOT your mother's library - or MY Mother's that's for sure. I always say that one of my ears is longer than the other, because every two weeks, we would stop at the door to the library to receive the following warning. She would pull my left ear and say "If you make ANY noise in here, we are leaving and not coming back" I would nod and be as quiet as a church mouse. For the first two weeks I worked there, I whispered.
It is a whole different world! For better or for worse.
ReplyDeleteI got hooked on WORKING at the library when I did some volunteer work at my local library (County of Los Angeles, Temple City, Branch 712) for my Boy Scout Reading merit badge. My children's librarian was Mrs. Helga Abbe, and I learned about a year ago that she is now serving in the great library above. I, too, started as a page (that's what we called them) and then became a clerk,a dn then a library assistant in Selections and Acquisitions, and that's how I paid for library school. My time at the UNiversity of Oregon (GO DUCKS!) was wonderful, and three of my folks from those days are still very close to me. I bounced around private industry libraries (that's what we called them then, in a series of unsatisfying jobs, but at least I can now draw some Social Security) and then lucked into the children's gig at Los Feliz. Alas, as the decades passed, I ran across some bad hombres (as Cheetoh Head would say) and my LAPL warm fuzzies soured. But all in all, not a bad career. And again, a few folks that have become some of the most important folks in my life, including possibly the most important love affair I ever had. (And I don't mean the books!)
Libraries have become 180 degrees different than when I started, except, and this is important, for the little ones coming on in with their parents to be read to and become exposed to what I truly do believe is the magical world of books.
Tom