New Years Resolutions In the Library

1. To dress more professionally

2. To not empathize unnecessarily with patrons who are confused by the library, for instance, they do not need to know how much I agree the print release station is confusing.

3. To read some genre fiction

4. To go out of my way to make great displays, including putting great books on display

5. To be quieter

The civility of a library to it's employees can be measured by one standard: is the library willing to offer replacement blades for the staff tape dispensers. I was extremely happy to find a rubber banded stack of replacement blades at my current place of employment. My former place of employment would only allow staff to order office supplies from a very short list, claimed they never heard of replacement blades for tape dispensers and always turned down requests for anything sharp like new scissors.

Once upon a time I worked at a library that hired a scissor sharpener to come in for a week every few years. You could put your dull scissors in an envelope and have them returned lethally sharp a week later. They had replacement blades too, so I could mend books for hours without the annoyance of trying to drag a piece of tape back and forth over a dull bent blade to get it to cut.

I feel like this is a sadness reserved for public employees. We need 2" tape to do our job. Since the tape dispenser won't cut it, we gunk up scissors. If we're lucky there is Goo Gone and we can waste our time cleaning scissors because we don't have the proper tape dispenser. With neither tape dispensers or Goo Gone, I've got to shut up and stop trying to help.

On the other hand, with the tape dispenser problem solved, I'm still going to be frustrated that there is a housefly in November that won't leave me alone.

Blog Clean Up

I'm culling my library blog RSS feeds. I'm not going to write for academic library journals nor am I interested in your blah blah blah research you're going to self publish and analyze your sales for the next six months.

So I need suggestions, fun library stuff, book reviews, website reviews, working with urban populations, working with teens, creative outreach, arts and crafts, computer training etc.

What should I read?