Cathy the Librarian

To Savvymoo, I don’t like shushing people, and I wasn’t the one in that circumstance doing the shushing. It was the mother, but only because she couldn’t be bothered to speak directly to her children. I don’t feel that it should be my job to shush. I don’t like continuing the very old fashioned idea of librarians. Librarians, in fact are very cool PEOPLE. 🙂 They are not little old white ladies in sensible shoes who want to be able to hear a pin drop. On the other hand, I want all people who come into the library to respect others. This past week there was VERY LITTLE respect held by any of the people under 18 that came into the library. Wednesday and Thursday’s antics continued on Friday, so by the end of the week I was very sad. So I had a Japanese beer. It was yummy.

To Adrienne, thank you. As an uber librarian (not me, you), I value your opinion beyond words.

To Patty, I was at Ogden on Thursday and Anne told me about the mother allowing her child to climb on the puppet theater (and laughing about it). To make matters worse, it sounded like they didn’t even apologize for breaking it. I think there must be something in the water on that side of the city, or disrepect was just floating in the air. Sad really.

Even so, I LOVE being a librarian. The hugs that I sometimes get (when parents are in the room) from story time kids make everything better.

I’m going to try and get another grant… or two. I can’t remember if I posted earlier about this, but I was involved in a homeschooling grant with Cathy Henderson, the librarian from Greece, Jennifer Lindsey, the librarian from Chili and Adrienne Furness, the librarian (or uber as I like to call her) from Webster. So we officially got this grant for $35,000. Woe. Anyway, each of us was supposed to specialize in a different area. Hilton was going to specialize in the Arts. Then I found out about the grants available through the Arts and Cultural Council for Greater Rochester. There’s two of them: one for specific programs and one for advancing a cultural institution. Both sound great, but I’d have to have them in their office by November 10 at 5 PM. This does not give me much time to get everything set down on paper and completed. EEK! Needless to say, I would have to get started on this, whatever I’m going to do, almost immediately. I would like to do some Art History or Art classes for people that would relate to the homeschooling program. I would also like to get money for classes for one of the staff members to learn html, so that our website can be better developed. I just need to start writing everything on paper and sorting it out in my head so it makes sense.
Okay. Time to go to sleep. I can worry about this tomorrow.

Today started banned books week, and I thought that each day, I would talk about a different banned book that I have read… I just came up with that a second ago and I love it! I had some of the pages and one of the clerks go through the list of banned books from 2004 and find the ones that we had in the library for a display I wanted to put up. My director and I decided that we would put all the books in some sort of cage or chain them up somehow. We wouldn’t let anyone check them out, to give them a small taste of what it would be like to be told you couldn’t read certain books. Unfortunately, while we were looking for the books we couldn’t find quite a few. They were supposed to to be there but no one could find them. People looked about five times, but no one found them. Personally, I think it was because people didn’t want us to find the books, which included: Doing It, It’s Perfectly Normal, and Holly’s Secret. SEX, SEX, SEX. People want to “protect” their children from everything. Teenage sex, their own sexual organs and homosexual sex. Anything to do with sex is out of bounds for these teens, and their parents are going to make sure that no one else gets to see them either. Or else its just some crazy teens who were too embarrassed or wanted to keep the books for their own collections. Needless to say, I’m pretty ticked off. I thought I would go back through the list of banned books and make a list of all the books that are “supposed” to be their, but aren’t. I thought it would be a good way to show everyone that a few people had to ruin everything for everyone else and now no one can read it. BTW, if you haven’t guessed by now, I’m pretty ticked off. I am all about parents monitoring what their kids read, and if they don’t think its appropriate, not letting their kids read certain books. However I am NOT for a small group of people deciding what everyone reads. That’s why when I purchase books for the library, I buy christian fiction, science fiction, mysteries, war fiction, romances and lots of other kinds of books. I try to take into account that there are lots of different people with lots of different tastes and I need to respect everyone’s opinions. Whew! Now that I’ve got that off my back, I can go on with my life!

We spent most of the day today at the Riverside Convention Center watching Battlebots! My tushy hurt after a while, because the seats were REALLY uncomfortable, but the robots were pretty awesome. There were a few good fights, but quite a few fights ended really quickly. At about 1 pm we took a lunch break and went to Bennigan’s Restaurant. Our food arrived, and after the waitress put my salad on the table, Jeff’s hamburger somehow flipped over off the tray and fell on my jeans and my nice new soft sweater. The rest of the day I walked around with hamburger greasy clothes. Yuck. They didn’t even give us a discount or free desert or anything. It took us almost an hour and a half to get out of the restaurant. Beh. Oh well. Jeff and I had a lot of fun watching robots kill each other. Oh and one of the teens from my library was there too, so we got to chat for a little while too. Fun, fun!

(Damnit! My computer died and I lost my post. Now I have to remember what the heck I was writing. Feh)
Once a month all the j librarians in my library system meet for “discussion”. I try to keep up, but mostly I like to listen to them spout their beautiful and maniacal mouth music. Today, I was lucky enough to sit near the uber-librarian, Adrienne, who has a blog of her own. I think that at once point, I decided that I would much rather live vicariously through her blog than write in my own, disappointing blog (and in turn, life.) Anywho, it turns out that sometimes she looks at my blog. Needless to say, she was a little disappointed in me because I hadn’t posted anything since coming back from California. I did try though! Last night I stared at my computer, asking it what there was that I could write about my trivial and boring life… Obviously, by the lack of a post last night, my computer was little help. I’ve recently been physically sick and thinking that compared to all those poor souls in New Orleans, I’ve got nothing to complain about. I’d actually been meaning to muse about my personal feelings towards New Orleans, but I haven’t decided how to put my thoughts together. (Don’t worry Adrienne, there will be a post!) I’d also thought that maybe I’d write about how I wanted to buy a Play Station, two dance pads and Dance Dance Revolution for the library.

All those thoughts went out the window, when I came home and smelled poop (so strong that I could smell it immediately, even though I’ve got a cold and can’t smell a damned thing).

We put our dog Buster in his crate when we aren’t at home, because if we don’t, he has a tendency to eat books, Jack’s clothes and toys, video tapes and DVDs, or anything else he can get his lips around. At first we tried to let him stay out on his own, because we thought it might be a little cruel, but our greyhound group explained to us that they spend quite a bit of time in their crates, and feel safest in their crate. Please try telling that to Buster. He hides upstairs when we try and get him to go in his crate. He howls when we are coming home. He is not a happy dog, one way or another.
This is where the poop comes in, he has no qualms about pooping and peeing in his crate. This is a weird thing because it would be like you pooping (on purpose!) in your bed. So tonight, we came home and he had pooped and peed in his crate, then sat in it and got the poop nice and deep into his back paws. I really don’t know anymore.
After all this, plus having Jack who is only about 6 months old, plus a cat that likes to vomit everywhere, plus having a job that causes me to run about like a chicken with its head cut off quite a bit, I don’t know if I can handle the whole dog thing. I really don’t know if Jeff and I have a life that supports a dog, especially such a high-maintenance drama queen kind of dog such as we have. I’m really at the point where I think we need to give him up back to the group, where he can go to a family that deserves him more. Unfortunately, part of me is really concerned with what other people think of us. I know it seems pretty shallow, but I don’t want people to think that I’m shit. But then, I really want him to be somewhere he would be happy. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO FREAKING DO! We’ve already agreed that we are never ever getting another dog, but other than that… I’m sad. Now he cringes and whines when we try and pet him, plus he puts his tail between his legs ALL THE TIME (like now).
OKAY explain this to me. He poops in his crate when we aren’t home. This says to me that he DOESN’T like his crate. Then, when we’re home, he keeps going into his crate. This says to me that he DOES like his crate. ARGH! What the hell!
Cats, I understand. They come to you when they want to be petted or want food. They piss in front of the litter box when they want the litterbox cleaned. Thats about it. Dogs, I don’t understand. I think that they might be too complex for me.
Okay, Adrienne. You wanted me to post in my blog. PLEASE HELP ME! I promise that my next post will be happier… or at least more entertaining.

I can’t even remember what happened this passed week… lots of programs and running around and being tired. Very, very tired. Oh and Friday after everything was done, I finally had time to realize that I’ve been having weird dizzy spells, so I get to go to the doctor tomorrow morning. I was talking to my friend Molly tonight, and I told her that I don’t know how people can be Youth Services Librarians… (which is both children’s and young adult) and she told me its because there aren’t any other librarians in Monroe County that do both children’s and young adult services. Oh. Well there you go then. So thats why I haven’t posted any messages. As soon as I get my senses back, I will be back as good as new.

So, if you don’t already know, I do children’s and young adult services for my library. That means that I have to do all the ordering, all the programming, all the reference, and anything else that comes up and is related to children or young adults. Needless to say summer is WAY busy for me. I do one children’s program, one young adult program, one movie day and the summer reading bits every week during the summer. Plus I do random story times or whatever as neccesary. I do this because I love it. I love working with kids and teens because they are fun, laid back and you don’t need to put on an act for them. Not to toot my own horn, but I think that the kids like me. Some of the teenagers got Jack a baby gift and one of the moms told me that sometimes when her son says his nightly prayers, he prays for me. This is not why I wanted to cry at work. This story need a little more background before I tell you why I almost cried.
The previous librarian was a lot different from me. She was the only librarian (as well as the director) and she did all the programming for the kids, she didn’t have any programming for teens and she was known to be mean to the kids/teens and sometimes even make them cry. Her idea of arts and crafts was using toilet paper rolls to create something that the parents would throw away as soon as it got home. During the summer she paid a performer either once a week or once every other week and she had a summer reading club for kids in 3 – 6 grade, which was a scaled down summer reading program, except she never used any of the NYS summer reading manual… you know now that I think of it, the club wasn’t much of anything except making “crafts” each Wednesday that the pages were forced to come up with. There may have been one story time thrown in there too, but I can’t remember. The rest of the year she did story time and some programs (mostly paid performers) during breaks.
I have story times, and some groups that usually meet all year round: 3 – 6 grade book club, anime group and teen book club. During the summer, I usually do a mixture of paid performers and programs that I have come up with. This summer I had a 80s costume competition (which was cancelled since no one showed up) a DDR competition, a music appreciation program and a bunch of craft programs. Needless to say, I keep myself busy! We’re getting closer to the crying bit now.
The craft kits come from Oriental Trading. They are each individually wrapped and I have a limited amount of space, since I only buy one or two sets. I make one as a sample and then the kids sign up. I have been having trouble with kids signing up, but not showing up, so I called everyone up a few days before hand. Then at 1:15 pm, when only three people showed up (and one was from the waiting list and the other just showed up and started doing it before I could tell him that you needed to sign up) I had the page re-call the kids. I had forgotten about H. Her step-brother had come in a week ago and told me that H was going to be at Soccer Camp and had already signed up, could he take the craft home to her. I told him “No, I had only made the exception LAST TIME because she said she was sick.” He said, okay and left. I HAD FORGOTTEN TO TAKE HER NAME OFF THE LIST. You can guess what happens next. The page calls H, her mother answers and the page says that she’ll try and set one aside for her. Other kids show up (some showing up ONE HOUR LATE!) and I do the craft with all of them. I even (STUPID ME) gave the craft to one of the kids who wanted to give it to some German kids who were living next door to them. I even gave the craft to them. But then a kid asked if we had extra craft kits from a program I had done with the teens two weeks ago. I did, but I told her that I couldn’t give that out. I got a little upset that I had put the time, energy and money into these craft kits and people just wanted to take them home. I told all the clerks that I wasn’t going to be handing out any more craft kits.
Friday, H’s mother shows up for her craft kit. I told her that we didn’t have anymore and that the page had made a mistake. She got furious and asked me why the girl on the phone would say that we would set one aside if we weren’t going to give one to her. She got all self-righteous and angry and stormed off to the children’s area. She then came back, told us that she was never coming back, and that the new librarians were not nearly as nice as the previous librarian. She was friendlier and …. you get the picture.
So then I got upset, tight and unhappy. I try my damndest to make everyone happy with the library and me and I take it way too personally when people tell me I’m not as nice as the librarian who threatened to throw the shoes of one of the Story time kids into the middle of the street and made another kid cry during ST show and tell because she didn’t want to see the Pokemon doll because she hated Pokemon.
To top it all off, one of the clerks went on break at the same time as one of the pages and the clerk kept telling the page that I should have just given her one.
Luckily, Sally, the director, told me that the craft programs are meant to entice people to come into the library and are to be done here. Since they really have nothing to do with summer, the library or reading, that I didn’t have to do them any more. I like Sally.

Luckily, my husband gave me a link to this website. It cheered me up immensely, and now I know that I was meant to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Mmmm…. Spaghetti.

I spent most of the day weeding the childrens non-fiction. MY GAWD! It was horrendous. I found books from the 1930s and 1940s. The books felt icky to the touch, they had terrible pictures and covers, and some were just falling apart. I decided that I would run through the collection quickly and go by condition and looks alone, but this is turning into a bigger pain than I thought it would be. I have a whole cart of books to delete, and I’ve only been through a tiny section. I kept thinking these poor kids. I wouldn’t want to check one of these books out if I was a kid. As a parent, I’d be afraid of diseases or other terrible things.
By the time I left work, my eyes felt dry, my teeth were gritty and my hands had a gray film on them. YUCK! These poor kids. They deserve better. My opinion is smaller collection of nice stuff rather than a library full of junk. We do have some really great books, but you can’t really see them for all the terrible ones surrounding them.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll find lost texts from the bible! Wish me luck!