Walter Bays

New elementary school

Saturday Aug 18, 2007

photo of schoolWe're all excited here. In just over a week school starts, and we have a brand new elementary school we can walk to. The design, by San Diego architect Frisco White, is both elegant and practical. I took half a day off work to help move furniture, unpack boxes, and shelve books. My sister, a library manager, will probably be amused that I have finally worked my way up in my career to become a library page.

 

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Posted at 01:07PM Aug 18, 2007 by walterbays in General
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Well, I was already exceedingly proud of my brother, but so much more so now that he has entered an elite cadre of workers and volunteers who labor to ensure that books and information are accessible to library clients. It really does take a special person to be a library Page (or shelver). Not only do they have to pay scrupulous attention to detail to maintain correctly filed shelves, but they have to be resilient enough to start over again when just one toddler walks by and pulls out an entire section of books that took two hours to put in order.

Plus, the job is physically demanding with lots of stretching to reach high shelves and bending or kneeling to reach low shelves. Most Pages I know seem to love libraries and enjoy their jobs as they tirelessly push heavy book carts around, set up meeting rooms, and clear tons of book drop items with little thanks or adequate remuneration.

But then if you send them to library school, pay them higher salaries and give them an expense account to attend a national conference, they cease being so productive and end up forming "book cart drill teams." (mouse-over my name and you will see a fun video--I had nothing to do with the silliness in this video, but wanted to share some of the joy of my profession.) --Karen

Posted by Karen Bays on August 23, 2007 at 04:12 PM PDT #

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