Blinded by library science!
Jan. 10th, 2013 11:42 pmLast night I didn't do any writing. I didn't do any work on cover letters. After work, I went to the gym, cooked dinner, and then went to bed around 11:00 pretty much washed-out and fully tired. And deeply satisfied just the same. Yesterday was the first time in God knows how too long that I got to do real, honest, actual library work. And it was beautiful.
I work in a synagogue that has its own on-site library - nothing too big, since there isn't the floor space for it. It's got a decent children's section off in its own little room complete with a brightly colored rug and small chairs, and the main holdings take up almost every shelf and a couple of book carts in the main area. Everything's very densely packed, with the bookcases running along the wall and out into the main space. I don't do a lot of work with the library, since I was hired to organize and manage the synagogue's cemetery records - but since that's on hold for the moment during office renovations, plus the cemetery records database finally getting up and running to the point, I haven't had much to do, period.
So yesterday I got to deaccession five boxes of irrelevant books from the library's holdings.
The library's got a small storage closet that houses TVs, old bulletins and minutes of meetings, and books donated to the synagogue that haven't yet been processed. Some of them are nice art books about Marc Chagall's sketches, some of them are decent historic narratives or engaging modern novels, and some of them have no point or purpose for the synagogue to keep housing it for yet another day. Books on Japanese cuisine, murder mysteries set in 1970s Laos, the architecture of beach towns of southern Florida, classics like All The Pretty Horses and HMS Surprise along with a giant photo book of the films of Sean Connery that was printed in the mid-1990s. Stuff that was genuinely nice and interesting that would make someone else very happy to have in their library. But not in this one.
Collection organization and development. I've had classes about it, I've had discussions about it, I sometimes bring it up when people ask me what librarians do. And yesterday I got to do it. Actual library work: not something I get to do nearly enough. To step into the role, accept the responsibilities, go forth and practice the science and the art.
I took all five boxes to a local branch of the New York Public Library that's having a book sale this weekend. I grabbed a few, including a culinary school textbook and a narrative about sailing through the Long Island Sound. And none of them are in the synagogue's closet anymore, giving me the space to take all the books off the floor, tidy up a bit...and make tentative plans about further reorganization, now that the closet's got a little more room in it.
I work in a synagogue that has its own on-site library - nothing too big, since there isn't the floor space for it. It's got a decent children's section off in its own little room complete with a brightly colored rug and small chairs, and the main holdings take up almost every shelf and a couple of book carts in the main area. Everything's very densely packed, with the bookcases running along the wall and out into the main space. I don't do a lot of work with the library, since I was hired to organize and manage the synagogue's cemetery records - but since that's on hold for the moment during office renovations, plus the cemetery records database finally getting up and running to the point, I haven't had much to do, period.
So yesterday I got to deaccession five boxes of irrelevant books from the library's holdings.
The library's got a small storage closet that houses TVs, old bulletins and minutes of meetings, and books donated to the synagogue that haven't yet been processed. Some of them are nice art books about Marc Chagall's sketches, some of them are decent historic narratives or engaging modern novels, and some of them have no point or purpose for the synagogue to keep housing it for yet another day. Books on Japanese cuisine, murder mysteries set in 1970s Laos, the architecture of beach towns of southern Florida, classics like All The Pretty Horses and HMS Surprise along with a giant photo book of the films of Sean Connery that was printed in the mid-1990s. Stuff that was genuinely nice and interesting that would make someone else very happy to have in their library. But not in this one.
Collection organization and development. I've had classes about it, I've had discussions about it, I sometimes bring it up when people ask me what librarians do. And yesterday I got to do it. Actual library work: not something I get to do nearly enough. To step into the role, accept the responsibilities, go forth and practice the science and the art.
I took all five boxes to a local branch of the New York Public Library that's having a book sale this weekend. I grabbed a few, including a culinary school textbook and a narrative about sailing through the Long Island Sound. And none of them are in the synagogue's closet anymore, giving me the space to take all the books off the floor, tidy up a bit...and make tentative plans about further reorganization, now that the closet's got a little more room in it.
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