My Life as a Wannabe Librarian

I'm back! If there's anyone out there in the world still keeping  up with these (Bueller? Bueller?), you know I've been gone awhile  and I deeply apologize. I had been hoping to start a thread of posts titled "My Life as a …" documenting different aspects of my life that make me who I am. However, my excitement was cut short by some issues I've been having with my computer as well as the fact that I have been very very busy with my job, which is what will actually be the topic of this post! Today we will be covering….

 Duh duh daaa! …  My Life as a Wannabe Librarian! 

For those of you who do not yet know me (AKA the vast majority of the world), I am a part-time Library-clerk in my hometown. Since my last post I have helped open  up a new library and have been very very busy ever since, as you can imagine, but this is not where I want to start. Let's take a few steps back into my childhood.

 I have always been  a bookworm. My first memories of reading are from when I was about four or five with a beginning reader that my mom had bought for me and my sister. That as well as many early memories of my mom sitting with us reading aloud from some of the best books: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, etc.

 When I was eleven, I determined to read every book that we owned, which was a fairly serious undertaking considering that we homeschooled and had several years of curriculum readers, history, literature, and science encyclopedias on the shelves. I had them all read by the next year. Many of the books I read then would be read again later on in high school and in college.  My family has always called me little librarian Mara, because I could tell you where every book in our house was, who it was by, and what it was about (Nerd alert).

 I have always said that I was born with a reading list so long that I could never finish it.  I was the kid who got in trouble for reading too much. My mom was constantly upset at me because I would take a book that was supposed to be spread in assignments throughout the next few weeks and finish it the same day I got it because I liked it so much.  I was constantly sleep deprived because I stayed up into the wee hours of the night reading. Books were banned at the dinner table because of me. You get the point. My mom was patient with me and soon got me started on a reading and writing intensive curriculum and fed my thirst for books as best as she could (YThank you mom!Y)

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a librarian (as well as many other things …"I should have been a great many things, Mr. Mayor") However, I was born a musician and pursued that into college,  but that's a story for another blog post...we'll get to that later. Throughout highschool  I went to a nearby library  many times to ask if I could volunteer only to be turned down, because the volunteer positions were all filled. However, once I graduated college, I caught one! A friend of mine told me that positions were opening in my hometown, since they were planning on opening a new library. I applied, and by the grace of God was accepted as a part-time clerk (for those of you who don't know, you need a degree to actually call yourself a Librarian...go figure!)

The Library always has been, and still is, my happy place. I love being surrounded by books! Since I started my job, there has rarely been a moment that I am not surrounded by books. During the move, I had the chance to really get up close and personal with pretty much every book in our local library. We had to unpack and check in new items, interfile them with the old. Re-shelve and shift, re-shelve and shift. I know almost every book in that library as a best friend (especially our upstairs nonfiction). I was so sore those first couple of months as we packed and moved and unpacked, but I have been so happy! My reading list is obviously growing longer and longer every minute I am there, and I  am totally okay with that! It has also opened up  thoughts of going back into school for a Masters in Library Science. 

Now things are starting to settle down and settle in. Our new building is developing a new heartbeat of regular patrons coming in for the computers and their maximum of three DVDs (books???). My favorite days are when we have toddler time and children's events. I love to see the little ones running in yelling "Books! Books!", singing their songs with our Children's Librarian or her assistant,  crying when they have to hand over their books to be checked out, then happy again when they get them back. They're such funny little things!

I have learned to repair books, have cut thousands of pages of scrap paper (I shredded bags full of scrap paper during the move!), and have issued hundreds of new library cards, and am loving every minute of it so far!