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3/1/07 04:24Until today my acquaintance with Garner was very limited; I live in the northwest corner of the county, and Garner is the southeast corner, and it's a big, big county. But it's surprising how much you can learn about a place just by working the circulation desk for a day.
First I was surprised at just how busy the library was. At the downtown branch, we filled a book truck a day. Here, they filled four book trucks by eleven a.m. There, I spent long stretches of time with no circulation-related things to do; here, I was hopping between one thing and another.
It's a very religious and conservative area, if the books people looked for are anything to go by. This could be educational, just like working at the downtown branch gave me a nodding familiarity with a dozen African-American authors. But I am still figuring out where to draw the line between being myself and being universally acceptable, or just how much to promote the new David Levithan (which is about the election in which the first gay Jewish president is elected, and which I have not yet read, and which the library is taking a long long time getting to me). Oh, but we are doing Dance Dance Revolution this Thursday, hooray.
Also: security guard. It is a good thing. I did not sign up to be policeman and babysitter, and it does not exactly promote goodwill and librarian-patron relations when you have to be disciplining people for their cursing and breaking up fights. We may yet get a security guard at the downtown branch, and I hope so, because last month a police officer came in and told us that the people hanging out outside had been about five minutes away from an all-out gang fight.
At any rate, I think I'll like being around here for the next few months.
(Oh: move-in date in 3 days. I CAN NOT wait).
First I was surprised at just how busy the library was. At the downtown branch, we filled a book truck a day. Here, they filled four book trucks by eleven a.m. There, I spent long stretches of time with no circulation-related things to do; here, I was hopping between one thing and another.
It's a very religious and conservative area, if the books people looked for are anything to go by. This could be educational, just like working at the downtown branch gave me a nodding familiarity with a dozen African-American authors. But I am still figuring out where to draw the line between being myself and being universally acceptable, or just how much to promote the new David Levithan (which is about the election in which the first gay Jewish president is elected, and which I have not yet read, and which the library is taking a long long time getting to me). Oh, but we are doing Dance Dance Revolution this Thursday, hooray.
Also: security guard. It is a good thing. I did not sign up to be policeman and babysitter, and it does not exactly promote goodwill and librarian-patron relations when you have to be disciplining people for their cursing and breaking up fights. We may yet get a security guard at the downtown branch, and I hope so, because last month a police officer came in and told us that the people hanging out outside had been about five minutes away from an all-out gang fight.
At any rate, I think I'll like being around here for the next few months.
(Oh: move-in date in 3 days. I CAN NOT wait).