Two Weeks Down, Fifty Eight to Go

You guys, I finished my first two weeks of library school! I’m doing the thing!

After all the waiting and griping that you’re all to familiar with if you’ve ready any of this blog, it seems a bit surreal. I’m not exactly sure what I expected it to feel like, but it feels… normal? Exciting and new and nerve-wracking, of course, but it also just feels right. I guess that’s as good of a sign as I could ask for.

If I needed a reality check, though, my first class was all too happy to give it to me – we watched a movie. I drove two hours to class and we watched a movie. Again, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that. It wasn’t a terrible movie or anything, it was interesting enough and on-topic. It’s called The Hollywood Librarian, and was about a lot of different library-related topics. I actually almost cried a little bit – no one should be allowed to show that clip about the library from the beginning of Matilda to someone on their first day of library school. It’s cruel and unusual.

Since then I’ve been involved in some discussions about what it means to be a professional (people are too finicky about librarian as a title), the ethics of internet filters (how about no), what you would do if Kim Davis came to your library and made a purchase suggestion (treat her like any other patron!), and social justice in libraries (yes thank you more please). I made myself attend a networking event, got a library card for the Denver Public Library, was called to the front of the class to write an APA citation, and accidentally became co-treasurer of the student chapter of the ALA (I told myself I would at least put myself out there, but I usually don’t have much luck inspiring people to vote for me – somehow I got half the votes). Reading that back, I’ve done and experienced and learned a bunch for only having been in class for two weeks. Still, the time feels like its slipping away – even more so, probably, because I have an ungodly pile of reading and assignments to get to for this week. Was this blog an excuse to avoid all of it? I’ll never tell!

Until next time, I’ll leave you with this blurb that I wrote for an online discussion response that I’m particularly proud of. Never let a chance to deride Full House pass you by:

“If you ever need practice putting aside your own opinions to enforce the non-censorship policies of libraries, I suggest getting a job/volunteering in Interlibrary Loan. Every single day I have to process at least twenty items that I find problematic – 9/11 conspiracy books, books about how AIDS actually is transmittable through handshakes and that the government is lying to us, Full House DVDs. On a personal level, the world can seem like a scary overload of information we don’t agree with, but that doesn’t make it our business as librarians to restrict it for everyone – you honestly don’t even know what people are going to use it for. I often comfort myself with the thought that patrons request Full House so much just so they can make fun of it and tear it apart on their 90s rewatch blogs.”