Age and Library Programs

Over the past few days I've had to deal with quite a few library patrons who have been, or will be, mad at me. My offence? Not allowing their underage children into programs.

When our program staff members come up with ideas for programs, they set the age range of the program themselves. They have an extremely good idea of the attention span and general knowledge required for the program, and their experience gives them a good idea of what an average child of a given age is capable of. The people I work with are talented and experienced, and I know they extend the lower limit of the age range down to an age that likely will require a fair bit of assistance.

Nonetheless, we have been overwhelmed with attempted registrations and requests for special treatment made for younger children over the past few days. I cannot (and would not anyway) go into specific details, but each of the parents involved read the program description, and felt that the age range, for whatever reason, should not apply to their child. I found myself wondering today if these same parents will argue with the government to let their children start driving a year early, or if they would expect a teacher to allow an underage student into a class simply because an older sibling is already there.

Maybe I'm being over-sensitive, but it seems like a real lack of respect for the library and its staff -- almost as if these parents feel we're stupid and randomly pick the age range for our programs. *sigh*

Again though, if this is my biggest complaint of the day, my life is going pretty darned well.

Oh, Amanda and I met with our wedding photographer tonight. She impressed me, and I think we'll be very happy with her!

Libraryman

Today at the library, I had a patron ask me a question, then ask "are you a librarian?"

I answered yes. I'm a library technician, not a full-blown MLIS librarian, but in the context she was asking it (ie. a library staff member who doesn't just put books away or sign them in and out), I definitely am.

I briefly felt bad about not being perfectly clear and honest despite the fact that the patron wouldn't have cared about the distinction, but then she followed up by saying "I thought only women were librarians."

At that point, I cared no longer about the accuracy. I was a little annoyed about the double standard. I bet if I had introduced my fiancée to this patron and told her Amanda works at a hydraulic shop, she would have thought it was awesome. But I would also guess she's the kind of person who insists on using terms like "male nurse".

*sigh* It's 2013. For anyone looking for a late resolution, can we please either agree that all people who work in non-stereotypical jobs for their gender are awesome, or give up on the idea that certain jobs are "meant" for a certain gender?

Thank you.

Alternating Weekend

It's going to be an alternating weekend. Amanda has to work tomorrow and I'm working Saturday. So unfortunately, we won't be seeing as much of each other as we'd like tomorrow or Sunday. That said, we'll find stuff to keep us busy. Our Christmas tree is still up, and I should probably pack it up tomorrow, and I haven't spent anytime playing Minecraft lately. Amanda will find something to occupy her on Sunday, though I wouldn't be surprised if she came by the library.
Since I started there, she hasn't visited the library as often as she used to. I feel guilty about it, but at the same time I really don't want to visit the library on my days off from there... In fact, we've sort of reached an interesting compromise. If there's anything Amanda wants to read, we place a hold on it using my account so I can pick it up for her at the library. We save time and save me from being at the library even longer each week. I mean, I like my job. But I spend enough time in that building each week. And this week, it'll be a little more than normal.

Evaluation Time

I'm receiving my first evaluation at work tomorrow. It's weird, but I don't think I've ever received a proper one before. At the mill I worked at, it was mostly just a quick check that I was doing okay on safety stuff, and before that, I was working at summer jobs while I attended university.

When I worked at the library in Tumbler Ridge, we had evaluations on one occasion. I filled out a form with a few goals for the next year, walked into the managers office, and my evaluation basically consisted of her writing "Jacob is above average in all aspects. Excellent overall." On my form. That was it.

So I have no idea what to expect tomorrow. Hopefully it'll be a productive talk about what I'm doing well at and what I could be doing better. Worst case scenario, I sit and talk with my boss about how the GP Library and TR Library are different. Good times! (I hope)

Amanda basically said "You're doing a good job, aren't you? It should be fine then." And, like usual, she's right!

Winter Party Kiss

Amanda and I took this photo together on Saturday night at the Library's Christmas party.  It wasn't officially a Christmas party, as a few people wanted just a winter party, but the point of the get-together was the same.

Anyway, Amanda and I took this photo in front of the circulation desk.  We were both looking fairly spiffy, though I had ditched my tie by this point.

Busy Few Days...

It's been a busy weekend.  After Amanda finished her half-day of work yesterday, we did some running around and shopping, then went to the library's Christmas party.  Today we did a lot more shopping, cleaning, and went to the Santa Claus parade downtown.  Fun times were had!

We're all done shopping for Christmas, and I managed to make enough room in our living room to set up the Christmas tree.  To save on some room, I just assembled the top two portions.  The tree is much shorter, but also fits better in here as a result.  It's kind of a novelty to see my ornaments make the tree seem crowded!

I piled our gifts to other people under the tree.  I'd post a photo of it, but those gifts are still unwrapped and I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Hi ho, hi ho...

...it's off to the conference I go!

I'll be spending the next two days attending the Rural Libraries Conference in Grande Prairie.  It's a little weird because the only conferences I've attended in the past were at least five hours away from home and involved planning for travel, a hotel room, and meals.  But for this one I just need to drive for five minutes.  I'll even be home slightly earlier than normal.

Yay for conferences!

First Week...

I've finished two first weeks as of today.  I finished my first week of work at 5pm today.  So far, so good.  I've learned a lot about the library and my job there, and I'm not banging my head against the wall yet!

This also marks the end of my first week of living with Amanda (kind of).  Last Friday when we made it to Grande Prairie (me at 1am Saturday morning, Amanda a little bit earlier), it marked the beginning of my life in Grande Prairie.  Since then, we've only spent one night in Tumbler Ridge, and it was just so that we could get an early start on packing and moving the rest of my things.

Speaking of which, tomorrow will be our final day of moving.  Amanda, her parents, and I are leaving GP at 8am tomorrow to pick up the remaining things from my condo.  By 1ish (GP time) hopefully I'll be completely moved out of my condo in Tumbler Ridge.  Then my realtor will be all set -- there will be a new stove in place and none of my stuff in the way of showing it!

First Day

I'm currently sitting on the couch with Amanda, resting after my first day at the new job.  Everything went fine, and all my new co-workers seem fairly friendly.  That said, I am definitely suffering from information overload.  We talked about a lot of stuff related to the library and its operations, and I've had a bit of a headache for a while.

But it felt amazingly good to get off from work and see Amanda's smiling face without having to drive three hours first!

Edmonton Bound

By the time most of you read this post, Amanda and I will be on our way to Edmonton.  We've been thinking about it for a few weeks, and decided that it'd be a good way to spend our long weekend together!


So we'll be driving out early Saturday morning and leaving Edmonton late Sunday afternoon.  What's on the agenda?


1)  Shopping

• There are a few neat yarn stores we'd like to check out among other things.

2)  Library

• I've recently read about the Strathcona County Library in Sherwood Park, and I'd like to take a look around it!

3)  Photos

• What would a trip out of Grande Prairie be without photos of the Kissing Couple on the road?  I've got a few photo ideas I'd love to try, but I don't know that we'll have the time or be in the right place to attempt them.  Needless to say, there *will* be photos of us finding time to kiss in Edmonton.

Anyway folks, Amanda and I had better get on the road pretty quick!

Library Adventures

I had to work yesterday.  Amanda walked me to work at 9, then headed off while I got ready to open the library.  She showed up again a few minutes after the library officially opened at 10.

Amanda told me she didn't really want to laze around my condo knitting and playing video games while waiting for me to get off from work.  She had missed me a lot last week, and I felt the same way.  We both knew that it wouldn't be okay for her to just hang out next to me all day (and in fact, during my eight month tenure as interim head librarian, I had to reprimand a staff member for a fairly similar matter).

So Amanda asked if there was some work to be done that she could do.  She thought, and I agreed, that if she was able to do some volunteer work and we made sure to keep our visiting to a minimum and *made sure* it did not interfere with my ability to help patrons, it would probably be okay for her to stay at the library.

I thought about it for a minute, then decided that I could work on adding DVDs to our catalogue.  Quite a few had piled up over the past few months and I hadn't been able to catch up with them.  So while I entered DVDs and created basic DVD cards to put on our shelves and in the DVD cases, Amanda worked on cutting out the DVD cards, attaching barcodes to the DVD cases, and applying our TRPL labels to the DVDs.

With the exception of the final task, Amanda was mostly doing work that I normally do.  So we plugged away at DVDs until lunch at 1, and then from 1:30 to 5.  I estimated that if I had been working alone, I would've only finished around 20-25 DVDs, and would not have cut out the to-be-laminated DVD cards or applied the TRPL labels.  Between the two of us, we finished up nearly 70, and all that's left is for the library's clerk to laminate the DVD cards, make spine labels for the DVD cases, and check-in the DVDs.

It's funny, but even though Amanda and I were only working five feet apart, we really didn't spend much time talking.  It was enough just to be near each other.  I got to be with Amanda all day, Amanda got to be with me all day, and the library had a ton of extra work completed.

Amanda later joked that she should submit a timesheet to the head librarian for the work she'd done.


Late in the day, just before it was time to close the library, Amanda and I took two photos.


Amanda took a photo of my working at my normal desk.

I took a slightly different photo of Amanda.  She was adjusting her glasses and was looking down her nose towards me while doing so.  It struck me that she looked vaguely like a stereotypical librarian at the time.  So I asked her to push her glasses down her nose slightly and hold her hair up in a bun so I could get a photo.

So I present to you Amanda the Librarian:

...that photo makes me happier than I can possibly say.  :-)

Quiet, Dark Place

Amanda and I took this photo just before 9am on Saturday.  I had to work, and Amanda decided to walk me to work before returning to my condo.  She came into the library with me to take a quick look at anything that had changed since the last time she was in, and I convinced her to take a photo with me in front of the circulation desk.

I still had the main library lights off because I was an hour away from opening time, so we took this photo in low light.  It's not a great photo, but I think it turned out interesting.  Amanda and I aren't total silhouettes, but the colours are muted and it just feels different from the majority of our photos.

The only downside is that it looks like I need to shave.  This photo was taken less than an hour after I'd done so.  Is there such a thing as 9am shadow?

Brief Hiatus...?

Good evening everyone!


I'm heading off for a library conference in Toronto.  Tomorrow I'll be driving to Grande Prairie, spending the weekend with Amanda, then flying from there to Toronto on Tuesday morning.


I'm not taking my notebook with me on this trip, so I won't be able to post anything between January 31 and February 4.


Now, Amanda and I will be out and about in Grande Prairie over the weekend (wave if you see us!), and plan to take another batch of photos, including some with her iPhone.  We've talked about it, and she's interested in writing a blog post to accompany some of those photos.  So hopefully you'll be reading Amanda's first post in the next little bit, and perhaps one or two more from me (from Amanda's Macbook) before I fly out.


I'll be back at Grande Prairie again next weekend, and hopefully Amanda and I will have time to take another batch of photos before I return to Tumbler Ridge and my normal life.


Please stay tuned!