THE AMBIDEXTROUS LIBRARIAN

It's February and I haven't posted a thing all year. Not a jot, a word or a doodle.  I know you're all clambering to hear my latest thoughts on librarian life, and it's not like I haven't been thinking (well, most of the time).  Things have been happening.  Big ideas are afoot.  So where do I begin? I have become interested in the study of Bibliotherapy.  Biblio means books.  Therapy means therapy.  Book. Therapy.  There was a man, an essayist and minister actually, who first came up with the term Bibliotherapy just over 100 years ago (he coined the term as a bit of a piss-take, but eh, we shall run with it).  Bibliotherapy has endured, if not a tad under the radar, since this time.  Recently though it has begun peeking out from behind the book shelves and tentatively interacting with the modern world.  There are articles, websites, blogs - even the odd radio program - talking about the concept with joy and wonder.  But is it...

Sometimes you read a book, and it really inspires you. I'm sure you've had the feeling.  It's like when you read a book on a new health fad and you're thinking - my GOD, all the answers to my health problems and weight issues and ageing fears will all be fixed by this wonderful new eating regime!  It's so obvious!!  I will start it immediately and I will be SO HEALTHY. And so you start down the track of religiously following all the ideas and themes laid out in the book.  Then a couple of weeks go by and some old habits start sneaking in, just here and there.  Then it's a month and there are whole days where you forget the book and its life-changing ideas (mainly because, well, maybe your life hasn't changed as much as you would have hoped).  A year later, the book and it's ideas are at the Op Shop. This trajectory of events happens with fiction books as well.  A story grabs you by the shirt and drags you through its emotional depths and giddy he...

It's Saturday.  I'm at work. I work Saturdays - Saturday is my permanent shift and I gotta say I am used to working them now, it also helps that I don't have any other family routines to conflict with the concept of the weekend.  I used to think that one day was pretty much like the other.  The sun rises, you do stuff, the sun sets.  Turns out though the cultural attitudes and expectations that are associated with certain days (Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday), still linger quite strongly, even if your schedule is no longer based upon the routines that give these days their flavour. So now my Saturday is like my....  Tuesday.  Kind of.  Friday is Monday.  Monday is Friday.  Does that make sense?  Probably not.  Either way, working in an institution that is open every day is a little weird (and I'm also talking Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years, even if it just for chute clearing).  The entire year just morphs into a ...

As part of my endless quest for professional development, I am currently undertaking an online course via www.futurelearn.com entitled "The Right to Education". ALIA sent through the link some months ago and it piqued my interest, despite the fact i'm not really an educator.  The course is based on the idea (or should I say "ideal") that all children should have access to free, quality education - regardless of their physical, psychological or social circumstance, but most of the content centres around the issues that prevent the realisation of this ideal. It would be Captain Obvious of me to say there are a LOT of barriers to education. Poverty, location, geography, war, gender, resources; just to name a few. If you live in a war-torn country, or a community that struggles for basic food, water, shelter or safety - education is going to fall a little low on your priority list.  But here in Australia, in all the glory and random luck of our first world birt...

MUSIC AND WORDS The other day my favourite bookshop (Readings) opened a new branch in a mega mall in Doncaster.  I'm not usually one for mega malls, but I felt the need to go and support Readings and basically give myself an excuse to browse and buy books (accompanied by another Librarian friend, of course). One of the books I bought was Music and Freedom by Zoe Morrison.  It so happens that this title just won the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction for 2016.  Totally justified win, it has to be said. I am a Librarian.  I am a mediocre musician.  I love all things creative that centre around words and sounds, so this book spoke to me in spades.  But spades of what?  Spades of discomfort and rage.  Spades of melancholy and infuriation (is that even a word).  Spades of happiness and hope.  Spades of curiosity.  A wide spectrum of spades. I would suggest that you start reading this book with the author's biograph...

Sometimes realisations will come to me in a flash.  Like someone has given my brain a solid nudge, and some loose piece of knowledge will finally settle snugly into its rightful place.  This happened to me the other day when I was serving a young man. He wanted to join the library, which was totally cool.  I love it when people join the library.  So I went through the usual spiel of asking for photo ID, proof of address, yadda yadda.  He gave me his Learners Permit.  Usually that's all you need. Except his Learner's only had one name, printed twice, and his birthday was 01/01/1996 or something like that.  I was a little bit suspicious.  "Do you have any other ID with your name on it?" I politely enquired.  At which point he gave me a couple of other cards, all with the same information.  I couldn't really question 3 forms of ID with the same info, so I just went ahead and created his library card with the details he had provided me....

There were a number of practical, on-the-job type things that we did not learn in Library School.  We did not learn how to repair staplers.  We did not learn how to navigate paper jams or troubleshoot WiFi on the millions of different devices that exist.  We did not learn the fine art of disentangling oneself from a patron who single-mindedly keeps telling you about their Telstra woes, even when they can see the queue of people growing behind them. And they did not tell us about the sickness. The sickness!  I don't have kids.  This is evidently my first problem.  My immune system has not been fortified by the varied and wondrous bugs and bacteria that kiddy-winks amass in their school years, happily sharing them with their folks.  My immune system has, up to this point, sailed through adulthood free of the stress of a constant barrage of public illness (even though much of my previous career was spent working with hospitals).  Ahhh but this t...

WHEN THINGS GET TENSE Not sure how to start discussing this one.  It was a weird night in the library.  And as the title of this post suggests, things got a little tense.  I guess I can expect to see this sometimes, or maybe more than sometimes.  When you're in an public space that's warm and inviting and entertaining and comfortable, people are going to want to hang out.  Unlike your lounge room though, you don't really have a say as to who that is.  Sometimes the odd person wanders in who is a little different, or perhaps has taken something they shouldn't have, and things get tense.  We are dealing with humanity here.  We're a diverse bunch. We had a young guy come in tonight who is known to staff.  He has his issues, whether they be mistreatment or a bit of neuro-diversity or maybe a bit of both, who knows.  He likes to pace and sometimes can be a little loud, but for the most part he keeps to himself.  Mostly.  I guess...