HAHAHAHAHAHAH [warning: Brief Librarian Sarcasm]

BLOT: (06 Sep 2011 - 08:50:59 PM)

HAHAHAHAHAHAH [warning: Brief Librarian Sarcasm]

Oh, a good belly laugh makes you fell better about the world, no?

I still understand the appeal of spending my days in the warmth of a library, surrounded by books and people who like to read them.

Ah... wait... wait...

More than 2 out of 3 librarians are aged 45 or older, which will result in many job openings over the next decade as many librarians retire.

HAH HA HA HAH HAH HAAAA!

Ok, I'm just being mean, sort of, but I do warn everyone out there thinking about getting a librarian job so they can have a more relaxing time of things: much like working a bookstore, the idea of idle sorts who sit around and read and talk about books is either a myth or is a thing of the past. Some shifts, I answer as many questions I did working in a call center. Most aren't about books. Those that are, sometimes require complex puzzles to solve (technically, which is pretty awesome) and sometimes require you to put into terms, without going into precise details, issues like budgets, storage space, policies, and a number of other reasons why you don't have exactly the book they are looking for right then. Mix in budget squeezes, working directly with the public ranging all the way from the best to the worst in human behavior, sometimes crunching lots of data for very small results (and sometimes crunching massive amounts of data for huge results), and the process of sorting and trying to constantly improve despite having less than you used to have to work with: it adds up.

It is a kick ass job. I love it and plan to do it the rest of my life, but it does not equate a lack of stress. You will be tired at the end of shifts. The good ones, anyhow. I still manage to learn something just about every day, even if the thing learned is that some vendor or another has changed their entire backend. Again. And I get to recode everything I did the previous week. Just like I had to recode it all last week because of some minor change the one before that. Good times. Good times. As I said, as a reference librarian that one day hopes to be a reserach one, I throw myself bodily in the way of my own ignorance all for the pleasure of getting back out on the other side.

Also, good news on the retirement thing. Thanks to shrinking budgets, job openings are often closed faster than they are opened up. Neat, right? Us fresh MLISers are going to have to bring our A-game, it seems...

Libraries

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: September 2011