Community Service

The newspaper where I work decided it would help their image in the Woodpile if all the employees did some volunteer community service. A list of volunteer opportunities was circulated through the office. Participation was mandatory. Here are some of the options: There was trash clean up along the pond, scrubbing bird feeders, digging burrows for the senior living complex …. Hmmm, not very glamorous and definitely hard work. What else is there?  What about the Greenwood Public Library? That sounded like an easy one, a quick way to get my 25 community service hours without breaking a sweat.

All volunteers are expect go through library training to learn the Dewey decimal system, how to use the computer card catalog, how to check out and check in books, collect overdue fines, basic reference assistance, and the proper way to eject disruptive patrons from the library. As you can guess there was 25 hours of training before the 25 hours of volunteer service. I never imagined how much work is involved in running a library.

We had to memorize the library's three simple rules:

(1) No cell phones

(2) No drinks or food

(3) No talking

Simple to learn, hard to put into practice!

My first task was shelving returned books. The most popular section of the library is sci-fi/fantasy.  It is well stocked with Star Trek novels, DVDs, and Lord of the Rings books.

Why do libraries have such high shelves that you have rock climb to reach?

I discovered there are two unauthorized “biographies” about me. I started reading them. Wow, I never knew I had so many adventures. Apparently I am quite the party animal in the garden. I have learned so much about myself. This is what you get for being a famous international blogger.

How can I help you?

“I want to check these out.” I asked “What are they for?” The high school student ‘munk indicated he was checking out the cliff notes to “Lord of the Rings.” What? Exactly how big is the actual novel?

The birding club was a week overdue with the bird guide. I really felt bad having to make them pay the fine. (Okay, not really). The fun part of the job is collecting the overdue fines. They are paid in sunflower seeds.

I was a bit hungry that afternoon and ate the fines. Hmmm, I better make sure no one saw me.

Friday was my first day at the reference desk. I was told I must sit behind the desk. How I am suppose to help patrons if I can’t see over the desk?

First task was to count to fines. “Don’t we have a library assistant to do the grunt work? Oh, that’s me. Hey, boss these seeds seems a bit on the light side.”

Head Librarian Nutcracker discovered that some juvenile delinquent paid his fine with sunflower shells glued together. (The youngster got a week of library detention.)

I was looking forward to my role as reference librarian. I planned on being a fountain of knowledge,  dispensing sage advice and helping the patrons. My first reference question was from a biology teacher who was doing a chart for her classroom on the average life span of mammals. I asked “You want to look up every North American mammal?” And she replied “Yup.” …. Doing reference isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. It took all afternoon to answer my first question.

Head librarian yells, “WHOSE CELL PHONE WAS THAT? Where’s my hammer, I going take care of this permanently.” After handling that situation head librarian Nutcracker asked me if I had seen his phone, he was expecting an important call from the library accreditation committee. I pointed to what remained of the cell phone he just demolished and offered him a roll of duck tape to fix his phone.