Today's 'Unshelved' comic reminded me of the diligence of librarians, who give little kids placeholders in school (at least they did with us) so we'd learn where to put our books back, but who recognise that few ever learn to actually do so, and so we put out little signs that say 'do not reshelve'. Oh, part of it is to keep track of how many books are being used off the shelf, I know. But part of it is, if given a book, the unwritten law is that the book does not, in fact, go where the person thinks it does. Not that the Dewey Decimal system is rocket science (or in my case, the National Library of Medicine one), but we librarians constantly find books one or two shelves up or over than where they should be. When I encounter a mis-shelved book at the public library, I pull it out and leave it to be reshelved. (Okay, I could just do it myself, but I don't know what statistics they're keeping, they have pages whose main job is to do it, and in seventeen years of being a librarian in this town and numerous interviews, they've never actually hired me, so that's my limit to being helpful.)
I wonder if those school librarians giving bibliographic instruction to 6-year-olds could spot the future librarians. I certainly had a knack for it even then, and I worked in school libraries throughout my school career, although I didn't actually consider becoming a librarian (I was going to be an ophthalmologist) until I'd gone through college, gotten a degree in something I loved, and discovered I was terribly unemployable and with my divorce needed to rely on myself. Of course, little did I know of the ups and downs of employment in the library world at the time. Library school should come with a disclaimer or two, in my opinion. :)
Anyway, thanks, guys at '
Unshelved', for taking me down memory lane. I remember the shelf place holders were very colourful and had different animals on it. :)
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