~Service Learning Entry #7~

Wow, I can't believe I only have one more volunteering session left. It's gone really fast the last couple of weeks, but maybe that's because I've been so insanely busy. Unfortunately, now that spring break is here, I only wish I was still insanely busy. I don't do well with too much free time. Oh well.

Anyway, my latest night at the library was fairly interesting. I started off in the Children's section, as I generally do, where I folded more flyers and shelved the display books so the shelves could be dusted. While I was there, my little friend Brittany from last week came in. To my surprise, she remembered me, and I even got a hug out of it. That made me feel pretty special. I think that's what's great about kids, or at least most of them... they don't judge you in the way adults do. If you have a friendly conversation with them, it's no more or less than that. It's just a conversation, and after that you're friends. Maybe that's part of the reason I feel more at home in the Children's section than in Circulation. I'm beginning to think that the more time you spend with kids, the more you become like them, at least in that you don't judge so quickly or harshly.

After my time in Children's, I was off to Circulation. Again, Susan had forgotten I was coming and really didn't have anything for me to do. She sent me off to the very back corner with a cart of paperback books to shelve and told me to make that last a while. Now, I can be either very good or very bad at wasting time, and this was one of those instances when I was very bad at it. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't make it take a long time to put a few books in alphabetical order. I did my best though, and I think I made it take 20 minutes or so. I finally gave up and went back to the front, where she tried unsuccessfully to think of something for me to do. In the end, she sent me off with a cart of children's movies to shelve. The sad part is, that's what her employees are paid to do, which meant they ran out of things to do faster too. This cart was mostly full though, so it took me about 45 minutes to finish it off. After that I wandered up to the Children's desk to chat and kill some more time since I figured I hadn't taken long enough for Susan. While I was up there, though, Krista, one of the Children's librarians, decided that I could do some more "work" for her. I went to the front to return the cart and share the good news with Susan, which meant she no longer had to keep me busy.

When I got back to Children's, Krista went to scrub her hands some more, since she had been painting a people-sized cardboard birdcage with silver paint. For some reason it was really sticky paint and didn't want to come off. While she was gone, she told me to call one of the other librarians and give her a message. I called both numbers but didn't get an answer at either one. Shortly after Krista came back, however, the phone rang. It was some strange guy who was calling the number of the missed call on his phone. Yep, I'd turned the numbers around. I can't even begin to count all the times I've done that... I have a number problem. Anyway, Krista called her at the right number after that and delivered the message, no thanks to me. After all of that was said and done, which took about 5 minutes, I was back to having nothing to do, and Krista was back to working on her hands, which had left silver paint all over the nice black phone. Later, though, she remembered her real project for me, which was designing a canoe made of aluminum foil. We both worked on it for a few minutes before deciding that there was no great way to do it. Mine were better than hers though, even if I do say so myself. That was pretty much the end of my night though. The rest was spent discussing spring break plans, or lack thereof, and inconsiderate boyfriends (okay, I only listened to that part... nothing to discuss). The remaining time pretty much dragged on, but we were out the door at exactly 9:00.

Now, I think I'm saving the "big picture" discussion for next time, but maybe I should get a start on it. Overall, I've decided that the library is actually made up of a few small cultures, or subcultures. I guess one could argue that together these make up one larger one, but between sections they hardly even know each others' names. My initial hypothesis that the subcultures are very tight-knit, but friendly groups only partially stands now though. While there are individuals within the groups that are close, not everyone is included. In Children's for example, two of the girls are very close and spend time together at and away from work. The third, however, is not so involved. She works less hours, and I believe she is younger than the other two. I said before that age seemed to be a huge factor, and I still agree with that. The same is true in Circulation. The older employees seem to be close and the younger ones are fairly excluded. Much like myself, they seem to be there to take orders and spend most of their time shelving books.

Okay, that's a start, and this is now really long. In the next entry I will fill you in on my last time at the library and expand some more on what I have observed in the culture of the organization.