[Sca-librarians] A must-read book for all library staff

[Nancy Shapiro]

Twenty-five copies in the network, all out, with nine people ahead of me.
But I just put myself in line from the comfort of my sofa, while the world
melts and freezes by turns outside.  Yay electronic access!

Ki-lin

On Jan 8, 2008 9:34 AM, Sally Burnell <sburnell at raex.com> wrote:

> I just finished a book that ought to be read by anyone who works, or has
> worked, in a library, called "Free-For-All: Oddballs, Geeks and Ganstas in
> the Public Library" by Don Borchert, assistant librarian at Torrance Public
> Library in Torrance, CA. I laughed until I had tears rolling out of my eyes
> at recognition of the things that library staff are expected to encounter
> anymore in daily life at the library.
>
> No longer the quiet haven of intellectuals pondering great works of
> literature, libraries have become the dumping ground for society's detritus
> - drug addicts, homeless people, porn addicts, pedophiles, wackos and other
> undesirables frequent libraries and make them a challenging environment to
> work for people who tend to be of the more introverted variety and aren't
> prepared to deal with everything that gets thrown at them by these people.
>
> I recommend this book especially to those of you who, like me, work in a
> large urban library setting where these problems tend to be more frequent
> than the quiet rural or suburban library setting. You'll recognize all of
> the kinds of people you see daily walking through your library doors and
> coming up to your circ or reference desk. You'll also realize just how much
> we're expected to be everything to everybody, from social worker to
> psychiatrist to security guard to school teacher to computer expert and
> beyond.
>
> But still, I suppose a bad day at the library beats a good day at, say, a
> jail or some other nasty place......I still like my job in spite of all the
> craziness we deal with each and every day. Which is why I'm still at it
> after 25 years.
>
> ~Saradwen
> Midrealm
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-librarians mailing list
> Sca-librarians at lists.gallowglass.org
> http://lists.gallowglass.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-librarians
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.gallowglass.org/pipermail/sca-librarians/attachments/20080114/01e181d8/attachment.htm