~Service Learning Entry #4~

I had another exhilarating night at the JPL last night. As much as that was dripping with sarcasm, I really did enjoy my time there. It was a little different than usual, which was good. I believe the highlight of my night came at the beginning. While I was folding flyers in the Children's section, we had a few visitors. The first was a shy little blond-haired, blue-eyed girl named Mary, who was in dire need of some Bratz books, which it turned out we didn't have. In the end, she settled for Winnie the Pooh, who in my opinion is way better than Bratz.

Shortly after Mary found her book, a boy named Austin and his big sister Brittany came back to see us. Austin headed straight for the computer, where he could play his 15 minutes-worth of games. While Brittany was waiting for him to finish so she could have her turn, she struck up a conversation with Krista, one of the Children's librarians. Eventually it turned into a conversation with me, but I'm not sure when. One of her first comments though, was that she knew the names of all the girls who work in the Children's section, except for "that one." This kind of gave me an idea of how well all of the employees and faithful patrons know each other. For the first time, I actually felt like an outsider. I had noticed last Saturday during Storytime that the librarians knew most of the children's names, but I hadn't thought much of it. Either way, the excluded feeling didn't last long. Somehow, Brittany and I got off on the subject of snakes. I now know that she wants as Diamondback rattle snake as a pet, though she thinks King Cobras are really cool too. I felt a little dumb that her knowledge of snakes was a lot greater than mine, but I think I'd like to keep it that way... As much as she likes snakes, though, she is really scared of spiders. She also used to be afraid of thunder, as did I, but "that's a common thing for little girls," as she put it. Even if the topics of our conversation were a little creepy, it was definetly the highlight of my night. I even showed her some snake books so she could learn even more. Soon, though, it was her turn on the computer, and time for me to move on the the ever-exciting Circulation Desk.

Susan, my "supervisor," in Circulation, had again been having a busy week and didn't really have anything planned. The only job she really had for me was to hole-punch 550 pages of Circulation Desk Manuals, and put them in binders. Unfortunately, that only took about 15 minutes. As soon as I came out she said, "I was hoping that would take you longer." I really feel that in that part of the library, I'm more of a burden than a help. She repeatedly apologizes for not having something "fun" for me to do, no matter how much I explain that I'm there for her and not the other way around. I think some of that also has to do with age differences though. In the Children's section, the oldest employee can't be more than 25. When they run out of things for me to do, we can sit and talk about school, haircuts, you name it. In Circulation, there are employees of all ages. Susan is probably in her late 40s or early 50s, and she's really the only one I have any contact with. There are a few college students who also work there, but they seem to just keep to themselves. I believe that in any culture, even organizational, age is a large factor. It determines how people relate to each other, and therefore how they work together. For example, even if one of the younger girls had more leadership and organizational skills than Susan, age determines that she remains in a lower position. I think this also has a lot to do with why I feel more excluded in Circulation than in Children's. I believe Schein would refer to this as an artifact, even though the word is not quite fitting. He defines artifacts, at least on the website I found (www.onepine.info/pschein.htm), as "visible organizational structure." Age does define the structure, and it is visible, even to outsiders. In this case, it also somewhat defines subcultures. There is a culture in each section in the library, but also between different age groups in each section.

Anyway, after making manuals, I was out of work. After thinking for a few minutes, though, Susan decided that I could search the library for "Trace" books. Basically, I was looking for about 20 specific needles in a haystack full of them. I guess it was a good way to get rid of me for the rest of the night. I was just a little offended that she thought I didn't understand the Dewey Decimal System, but I guess that could again have something to do with the age differences. Aside from that though, I found 3 of the missing items. I got the impression that she didn't expect me to find any of them though, because she seemed really surprised when I kept showing up at the desk. I have to admit, though, that I got a little bored while wondering the stacks by myself. I probably could have searched as well as I did in two hours in one, realistically, but I didn't want to go back and make her come up with something else for me to do. So, I kept searching. I might have gotten a little sidetracked when I found shelves and shelves of music books, but I guess we'll never know... just for the record though, there's some stuff in there I'd like to sing one of these days.