Friday, August 12, 2011

What a Lovely Life

This is not my library, but it's awfully pretty
I think I'm actually jealous of one of the patrons who uses my library.

A bit of background: We hired a new programs librarian a while back.  He's a great guy (Male librarian! Those are rare!), and the programs he's been planning are awesome--interesting, educational but not in a boring way, just all around good stuff.  We have a patron who comes in daily, plays computer games for her allotted four hours, then goes to one of the library programs at 7pm.

The other night, on her way to the program room, she stopped at my desk and asked, "What am I learning about tonight?"

I checked the schedule and told her, "tonight, you're learning about climbing Mt. Everest."

Then she started raving about the previous week's program on beekeeping and how amazing bees are.  All I could think was I want to know about bees too!
Buzz buzz--we are fascinating!
For a while, I actually harbored the dream of being a beekeeper.  But that was only because I had a BA in English, wanted to be a writer, and I saw a job ad offering $30,000/year plus free housing as a beekeeper and that seemed like a good way to actually afford to become a writer.  I didn't apply for that job though, hence the reason I'm a librarian not a beekeeper.

Talking to her got me thinking how rad library programs are, especially the ones we're doing.  It also reminded me that I want to climb Mt. Everest and travel to Antarctica... You can come to the library, and learn interesting stuff from experts for free!  The only problem, in my case, is by the time these programs roll around, I've already been at the library for eight hours, and all I want is to go home.  I have no idea what this woman's life is like outside of the library, but it seems quite enjoyable to play Bejeweled Blitz for four hours, go to an educational program, and then go home (I'm just assuming she goes straight home, but maybe she has something else planned--who knows!).

Maybe I'll start going to other libraries after work, just for a change of atmosphere...

4 comments:

  1. I keep thinking there are interesting library programs out there too...ours though are often filled with people much older than I am though. It feels a little weird to be the only person at the program under the age of 60!

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  2. Fair point, I do think most of our attendees are older, but he's also been doing some programs with family and "young person" appeal. Of course, I don't know if the young people are attending...

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  3. Man, does this male librarian do the programs himself? Or does he bring in guest experts? Do you have talks every week? (... planning for adult programming in my new branch, if you can't tell)

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  4. He does some himself, and for others he brings in experts. The beekeeping one was the National Beekeeping Federation or somesuch thing; the travel to Antarctica and climbing Mt Everest were local people he brought in. Right now he's doing a True Crime series where one week he'll read super creepy stories, and the following week he'll bring in local police to do a CSI demonstration.

    It's about half and half :) and yeah, every Wednesday night. Then I think he's going to start doing movies on Saturdays and soothing music on Sundays--so much stuff!!!!

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