Things I love: Libraries

     I really like books so I guess it's only natural that I would like libraries. As a young child, I remember walking to the public library that was near my house with my mother. The library was an old red bricked establishment that consisted of two small levels that were crammed tight with yellowed books and an extensive and eclectic movie collection. There was also a closed off little reading area that snaked off into a turret like roof. I longed to go up there, convinced that any book that I enjoyed in that lofty place would be infinitely better than when I read it in our dingy faded apartment. Despite the library's preclusion to my entrance of the room, I always looked forward to going to the library because after checking out a huge stack of books my mother and I would go and have lunch together. It wasn't anyplace fancy but these little excursions were often the highlight of my week.

  

    I started volunteering at my local library when I was around fourteen. There was a brief period of training that consisted of the head librarian telling me that I was assigned to shelve the children's section, I should shelve quickly but not sloppily, and try to be helpful to any library patrons. If I was particularly adept at my job I would be "promoted" and have the opportunity to shelve in the juvenile and the reference section. If I volunteered for a month and I demonstrated that I was a good shelver then I would be allowed to shelve in the popular and heavily trafficked romance section, the pinacle of every volunteer book shelver's career. 

      I quickly found out why the children's section was the bottom rung of book shelving. I didn't keep a running count but more than half of the children's books seemed to be coated in some unidentifiable sticky substance. Pigtailed three year olds came in demanding that their mothers pick out for them the "brightest", the "newest", the "most interesting" books. I watched in horror as book after book was rejected and the pile of out of placed books grew and grew. Finally, the "perfect" book had been chosen and the hassled mother would lead her child wearily towards the checkout desk. I wearily trudged toward the pile of books and mentally calculated how long it would take me to reshelve them. Darn! The books ranged from A to Q, and Z.