write like you need it to survive

So riverlight asked me to write about why I chose to go to library school, and I remember that process pretty distinctly, so I'm happy to natter on about it a bit.

I actually decided twice: once in my fresman year of college, and then again during the couple of years I took off between undergrad and actually going to grad school.

( The first time... )

( And the second time... )

So, short version, I decided to go to library school because it would be easier than getting a PhD in history. Although also because I really like working in libraries and thought I would enjoy being a librarian, which I do.

There is something so viscerally unpleasant--so nearly physically painful--about the title ( no, don't look under the tag, really ) that I am looking forward to the day when I might quit this job with all-new fervor.


On the other hand, for almost entirely work-related reasons, I now have a photocopy of the cover of the Jan/Feb 1997 Skeptical Inquirer--a photo of Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, with insets of the X-Files logo and Chris Carter--on the bulletin board above my desk. So there.

Horrible, horrible high-velocity pie of death!

THIS IS WHY I WANT TO BE A LIBRARIAN! RIGHT HERE!

Patron: I need the Journal of the American Acoustical Society, volume 116, issue 4.
Dira (squinting): Is it yellow?

I could explain myself, but...

( Cut for Gibbering )

...and that's why I haven't had much to say, lately. It all sounds like that.

It's like I've suddenly realized I work in a library.

Yesterday I took home the collected poems of James Dickey and Alan M. Beck's The Ecology of Stray Dogs: A Study of Free-Ranging Urban Animals, which I picked up from the sorting room, because, honestly, who could resist a title like that?

Today I got my ILL copy of a Mary Renault book, Purposes of Love, which I immediately requested after someone in some comments thread somewhere indicated that it was an interesting take on gender/power dynamics in relationships set in England c.1938. Or something like that. Anyway, I've never read any Mary Renault, and I don't want to be the last on my friends list to do so...

I also, a half hour ago, just looked up and then went and snagged a copy of Robert Vaughn's (yeah, that Robert Vaughn!) doctoral thesis, Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting. Just holding it in my hands is making me feel all squee-y, because, dude, Robert Vaughn wrote a doctoral thesis! He's gorgeous and smart! It's like when somebody figured out that the sexiest thing Lance or Justin could do in a story was math.

Unfortunately, holding Robert Vaughn's thesis in my hands is also causing me to think weird thoughts like, I want to write a thesis. I want to write a thesis on twentieth century American social history.

So I think I'll set it down now and go commune with the thoroughly non-enticing current science journals.

Have now officially carried on the proud library tradition of the thirty-second non-interview for student jobs. Partly because, dude, I'm pretty sure I had classes with this kid last year, partly because, well...

Me (reading application, trying to remember whether we had the same semantics class): you're a senior, so you've used the library before.

Him: Yeah.

Me: And you're okay with computers?

Him: Well, I can do, y'know. Internet stuff--

Me (aha! you're a geek! welcome.)

--Word processing, um...

Me: Yeah, don't worry, I'll teach you Mirlyn, it's no big deal. So you want to work on Thursdays?

But, dude, he's a senior. I graduated in April. And I'm almost certain we had classes together. I have this feeling that my 'supervisory experience' is just going to remain a figment of my resume forever.

We've had a subscription to the Annals of Improbable Research (ISSN 1079-5146) since the first issue in 1995. Back issues have been bound and are available in the stacks under Library of Congress call number Q 167 .A56.

That's a world-class university research library for you.

halfway through my Friday, I have already:

Embarassed myself in front of the Distribution & Supply guys by a) asking for paper that I'm supposed to just go pick up off the giant pallet in the hallway and b) walking into the door when departing their office.

Succeeded in de-staple-binding about a dozen journals which Bindery Prep refused to hand the de-staple-binding of. This was in fact a mighty feat, involving:
1) Asking everyone in the library whether they had a screwdriver, and discovering that there once was a screwdriver, but it has vanished, to the universal dismay of library staffers in need of screwdrivers, i.e. me and one other person.
2) Improvising with a staple remover and the metal thingie at the top of my box cutter (not the blade, the metal part the blade is framed by when extended).
3) Asking my officemate how the hell she did this, receiving the answer that a) she never did that and b) she has this old screwdriver in her drawer, do I want it?
4) Saying 'this is a nice screwdriver' (it's old, very old, so old it has a worn-smooth wooden handle and the metal part is warped subtly to one side) and then stabbing myself in the thumb with it five minutes later (shallowly, and my last tetanus booster was 31 months ago, and I swabbed thoroughly with 70% isopropyl alcohol before slathering it in the first aid kit's 'burn ointment'.)
5) Learning a very important lesson about keeping my fingers behind the leading edge of the screwdriver, which served me well through the rest of the task.

Probably freaked out the student employee by staring vaguely into space in her direction while holding a screwdriver.

Discovered to my intense dismay that, while I got A's in a series of human-body-related sciences in high school and now work in a Science Library, I can't remember exactly what DNA stands for. I've got di-something-nucleic acid, helaaspindakaas, so don't go getting completely incensed on me. But I can't remember if the something is -oxyribo- or if there's another bit in there or what.