This Does Not Define You

 This does not define you. You are more than the grade on a civil service exam. You are a strong, talented, highly educated librarian. You work hard to stay on top of your profession while going to school, working two jobs, raising a family, or maybe still living at home. Every day at the desk adds to the sum total of your experience and knowledge.  Each and every day you become a better, more experienced professional.

You may be an expert in technology, reader’s advisory, or story time. You may struggle to keep up with Live-brary’s never-ending updates. But that does not define you. Your willingness, your dedication, and your determination to succeed will help you leave a mark in the library world regardless of your place on the list or your annual salary.

Wherever you are in your career, you are a valuable member of this profession. We all want to grab that brass ring, to score a 100 and snag a full-time job. Don’t make it your whole world. You’re doing good work. And if no one else has told you that lately, they should have, because it’s true.

So when you sit down to take that test tomorrow, take a deep breath and relax. Do your best and leave the rest to the universe (however you define it). You are more than a grade. You are more than a library professional. You are a valuable, capable, loveable, worthwhile individual.

Good luck, my dear colleagues.  I’ll see you on the other side.

Book Review Friday ...

A confession.  I am reading 3 books right now, and I'm only up to about chapter 3 in each of them.  It's not as crazy as it sounds, one print book, one audio book, and one on my nook.  But I can't do a book review justice on only 3 chapters.  In addition, my older daughter is graduating from high school this weekend and reading and writing have taken a back seat.
So, to keep the promise to myself to get my blogging act together and post SOMETHING.  Here's a link to a great blog post at the AMACOM Book Blog.  "Discovering the Library and the World" by AMACOM's managing editor Andy Ambraziejus is an essay on what libraries meant to him growing up and how he feels about libraries now.  As a librarian it was good to read about someone with such warm memories and strong feelings about, what I think, we are all trying to accomplish in our libraries. 

Here's a sample of what he had to say:

"For me, the library was both a refuge and a place of discovery during adolescence and my teen years."

"The memory is of a place, a place where I felt at home.  Safe and secure, and away from the tumult of the real world with its responsibilities and sometimes conflicting demands. The quiet hush was not oppressive but nurturing, a place to unwind and relax and start exploring everything the library had to offer. And being surrounded by other people doing the same thing gave added comfort and security.  There were other people like me who preferred this place to hanging out or playing outside.  I wasn’t alone."

This is how I want people to feel about the library.  This is the goal of every transaction and communication, to make patrons feel welcome, safe, and home.

Bench marks for a good day

A benchmark is an incredibly useful thing. 

Surveyors use them to measure elevation.

I use them as a way to measure my relative failure or success.  Lately in the library I've developed a few new ones.  For example, any day when the police don't come and there are no bodily fluids on the floor or furnishings is a good day.  It's incredibly easy to have a good day when you're keeping it all in perspective.  It just depends on where you put your bench marks.