Academic Libraries

This week in 511 we were visited by academic librarians, one from Cornell and one from Bird Library. I went into the class being optimistic, actually keeping an open mind to considering academic libraries as a career path. I came out of it absolutely sure I did not want to be an academic librarian. The Librarians themselves were good people, I just found myself getting bored with the subject, which was the killing blow to my interest in being an academic librarian. It may have been the fact that they had slide presentations (one prezi, one powerpoint, the prezi presentation was a little more interesting and I have been meaning to try the tool out since a friend showed it to me last year. It is pretty awesome.), they are in fact the only visiting librarians that had slide presentations, maybe it was the fact that the other librarians didn't stand behind a pedestal and actually engaged us.  Is that just how academic librarians are? The psychology minor in me is peaking my interest in figuring out how librarians in different areas of the field behave and think (cognitive and behaviorist, talk about your oxymoron). Who knows, maybe it will help me figure out how to change how librarians are viewed. Its harder than changing my title as many have thought about, but I think it is more worth our time in redefining "librarian" than calling us something else. If you want to call yourself something else, go for it, but I would rather be called "librarian" and try to redefine it than to be call an "information specialist." That just sounds standoffish to me, something that would scare people away from asking me for help, which is why I want to be a librarian.
That brings up another point I want to make. I have been told several times that saying that you love books in a library interview is a bad idea, but I feel like that is wrong and denying your roots and yourself if you do in fact love books.  Loving books is what brought me to the library in the first place, and if I had never gone to the library, I would never have wanted to be a librarian. Yes that is one reason that I want to be a librarian, but it isn't the defining reason, and it isn't the only reason, but I don't think I should have to deny it or omit it just because some librarians have come to see "loving books" as taboo. The biggest reason I want to become a librarian is that I want to help people, something that I have realized before but not given much thought, but that does not make my love of books any less or any worse of a reason to be a librarian.

Therapy Dogs in the Library

Last week in 511 we were visited by a Librarian from the Syracuse area who brought a therapy dog that their library allows patron/user/member/owners check out for a certain amount of hours. This brought back to my head an idea I have had since my family got a therapy dog, a chocolate standard poodle (pictured on the right) we named Luna.  My mother is a Special ed teacher and she brings therapy dogs (Luna and five other standard poodles owned by a family friend) into the school one day each week of the school year and has students read to the dogs (with a handler in the room with them, usually my Pepere). This allows children to improve their reading skills in an environment where they won't be judged, dogs do not judge and are very attentive because they are getting attention from the students.  Other schools in the area have been working on starting a similar program, and one of our local librarians is training to be a handler.  I think this would be really cool to get started in public libraries, and even school libraries. It gets community involvement and offers a much needed service, and it does not just have to be children that take advantage of it.  There will always be that problem of people who are afraid of dogs, or allergic to dogs, or just don't like dogs but that is a problem that I think we just have to deal with.  That is one of the reasons we chose a Standard Poodle, they are highly intelligent dogs, that are hypoallergenic and though they are highly energetic they listen well and remain calm when they have to be. I feel like this is one service that many libraries can benefit from that will greatly benefit their communities.

I get confused about my train of thought

                This week in 511 we had two School Librarians from Syracuse area schools visit the class. I considered being a school librarian but then decided it wasn’t for me. I liked helping children, in fact much of my volunteering at libraries has been with children, but I think helping the entire range of people would be more for me. I don’t know if I could handle the school lifestyle like many of my friends can. I do find it interesting that the first thing I wanted to do as a kid was be a teacher and I avoided going into education because of my fear of public speaking, and I keep finding ways to get back to it despite myself.

            One of the guests was talking about her iStaff, which consisted of student hires, and it got me reminiscing about my days as a library aide in High School at LFHS. Which got me reminiscing about my days volunteering at Treat Memorial Library. Which got me wondering: Why the hell did it take me until my last year of undergrad to figure out I wanted to be a librarian? I mean, I still would have done the whole creative writing program, doubt of that will never crossed my mind, but I could have planned this out so much better.

                This week in 511 we took a visit to the special collections in Bird Library. For part of it we were lectured by Professor Kenneth Lavender about Special Collections, what they had in Bird Library and what he does for them. It definitely seemed really cool, especially with the historical documents and books he showed us. I cannot lie that I got some nerdy enjoyment in being that close to books from almost the beginning of written language to the 20^th century. Is that enjoyment enough to entice me to go in that direction? Immediate reaction was that it didn’t feel like enough, but now that I have given it a week my thoughts are just as muddled as they were before.

            The second part of the class we met the people in charge of preservation and they taught us about what they do to fix books and other print materials that are brought in to them, including special collections books. It is definitely a cool job to have, though personally I feel like my hands are too shaky for the special collections side of preservation. It is definitely an aspect of librarianship that interests me though. Being from a State and town whose main industry is paper making it was definitely interesting to hear about the history of paper making and how we have been doing it “less right” than the Japanese have for centuries.