i is gonna be a librarian!

[Thora]

Well done! I quite fancy the whole librarian thing. Maybe it's just cos I love libraries and reading and assume I can just chill all day reading.

*heaven*

I kind of thought this too before I actually worked in a library - sadly the reality didn't quite live up to it! I was mostly working on the issue desk, which was busy and basically like working on a shop counter, except with arsey academics (it was a uni library) demanding to be allowed to take out over their limit of 100 books, and braying students whining about huge but totally deserved fines.

I enjoyed telling people to be quiet and take their mobile phones outside A LOT though - it was the best bit of the job

 

[Orang Utan]

We eat a lot of cake in our library. I like our library.

 

[Madusa]

We eat a lot of cake in our library. I like our library.

ooooh library and cake!!! where do you work???

 

[trashpony]

No. The library I work in has tapes in, instead of books. No one's allowed to browse in it - they have to go through me if they want something. And I can have music on really really loud.

Do you work for a TV channel? One of my friends does that too

 

[Orang Utan]

Do you work for a TV channel? One of my friends does that too

aye, the one the tabloids hate.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Well, that could be either C4 or any BBC channel.

 

[Orang Utan]

Well it's not the Beeb, so if you were really clever, you'd be able to work it out.

 

[trashpony]

aye, the one the tabloids hate.

Ahh my mate works for the one that is owned by the tabloid-meister

 

[Ms Ordinary]

hope you find a library assistant role too, Ms Ordinary... keep your eye out at Council employment data bases and local jobcentre searches.

Today I phoned my last full-time employer (OK it was a while back) to check if it would be OK to quote them as a reference.

The phone was answered by a minicab company and the company seems to no longer exist must've finally gone under, maybe changed its name or something but I've no idea how to trace my ex-employer .

I think I'm going to have to start by finding a job where they don't check the references .

I've been doing some voluntary stuff, I was really hoping to be able to quote a reference from an actual employer though.

 

[Thora]

Have a look at university library websites for job vacancies too Ms O.

 

[Madusa]

i think volunteering refs should be just as good though, ms ordinary. as long as it's professional.

 

[equationgirl]

correction,

I iz gonna be a library ASSistant! woo! ...i'll still get to shuuush people, right?

Yeah baby

And say things like 'Please turn off your mobile phone', 'Please don't eat in the library', 'Please don't bring uncovered hot drinks in here', 'What's the author?' and all sorts of fab things like that.

Looking over your glasses sternly really works, you know - PRACTICE!

 

[equationgirl]

I kind of thought this too before I actually worked in a library - sadly the reality didn't quite live up to it! I was mostly working on the issue desk, which was busy and basically like working on a shop counter, except with arsey academics (it was a uni library) demanding to be allowed to take out over their limit of 100 books, and braying students whining about huge but totally deserved fines.

I enjoyed telling people to be quiet and take their mobile phones outside A LOT though - it was the best bit of the job

One of our academics said the library was 'too far away' from his department and couldn't we just bring a trolley down to him, bring his books back, reissue them then take them back down again?

Staff only had to renew their books once a year!

Sometimes I'd let a student off their fines (like if they'd been ill) but the ones that would complain loudest would be the ones complaining about a 30p fine.

 

[Orang Utan]

One of our academics said the library was 'too far away' from his department and couldn't we just bring a trolley down to him, bring his books back, reissue them then take them back down again?

We get that all the time from creatives - 'can't you get a runner to collect/deliver them?' - we don't have a slave, you ignorant lazy fucks Get off your arses and walk one floor down and do it yourselves.

 

[equationgirl]

The library isn't that far away - a ten minute walk from the furthest department.

We had one academic that refused to pay his fines, and they were in three figures. He was a mate of the Head Librarian.

 

[Stigmata]

I wanted to be a librarian, but at the interview they said I lacked authority.

 

[equationgirl]

You'd have fitted right in to my last library.

 

[Madusa]

I wanted to be a librarian, but at the interview they said I lacked authority.

they missed out, init! you are an outspoken chimneysweep!

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

No. The library I work in has tapes in, instead of books. No one's allowed to browse in it - they have to go through me if they want something. And I can have music on really really loud.

You lucky bastard, I was always really jealous of the people who worked in the music library...

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

ALso got to agree with people who say you can't just sit there all day reading. When I worked at Hackney Central Library, it was an hour organising the shelves into alphabetical order (putting books back in the right place where lazy customers have picked something up, looked at it for a second then replaced it somewhere totally different), then sitting doing book checking out all day. Mind you, that was the Central Library, which was always very busy on a Saturday, but the old Eastway library, which I'm not even sure is still open (out in the middle of nowhere near all those old squat parties), was ttotally dead, you actually could sit there and just read as there was nothing to do, there were about 8 customers a day.

But half the time I was sent over there, there was this really annoying guy who actually made us do pointless tasks.

 

[lynne8]

Congrats Madusa!!, I've always secretly wanted to be a librarian, only because I want to get all the new books and DVD's before anyone else.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

By the time the distributors can actually be bothered to deliver, it's usually after everybody else.

 

[Addy]

Well done Madusa !
Just be carefull you dont get defrocked or you could end up with your head so far up your own arse that you dont ever think that your wrong.

 

[Madusa]

Well done Madusa !
Just be carefull you dont get defrocked or you could end up with your head so far up your own arse that you dont ever think that your wrong.

um, ok....thanx. um......anyways.

 

[Addy]

No offence to you intended, just ask a defrocked librarian what its all about if you see one

*cough* "wanker"

sorry about my tourettes too

 

[soonplus]

i've applied for a few library assistant jobs, but have had no luck, maybe i should copy your 'personal statement' section bit...!
application forms are a bore

 

[Loupylou]

I'm a tape librarian though.

NOW i understand!

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

i've applied for a few library assistant jobs, but have had no luck, maybe i should copy your 'personal statement' section bit...!
application forms are a bore

Yeah they aren't that easy to get. I got turned down by Islington Library before getting the one at Hackney, as a teenager...

 

[Madusa]

i had my first day today...and it was great!!!

I love it.

 

[roney]

Good onya. i have worked in the public libraries since 1995 (including a 5 year career break in amsterdam - wooo-hooooo!) and i love the work more and more these days...not a librarian yet but getting there!

and one does need a diploma in library science on top of your degree to be a qualified librarian..apparently Casanova was a librarian