I have been working in libraries for ... [quick count on fingers] about 17 years now. Sadly[?], apart from some of my early prac placements and a brief stint in the serials department at Sydney University, I have never been allowed to interact with actual library patrons. Having started my library career in Tech Services, first at NSW State Library and then Fisher Library at Sydney University, I have been typecast by my experience as a behind the scenes, tech services, resource discovery, type of Library Technician. Fortunately, some natural aptitude for cataloguing and by now a wealth of experience, has seen me develop a successful and, in its own way, rewarding career as one of the hidden library workers that the public never sees.
I do sometimes wonder though, what it would be like to join my colleagues 'at the coal face', actually meeting and [hopefully] helping those members of the public who [so I hear] actually come in to the library with their questions and their problems and their quests for knowledge, instead of participating in the great unseen work that makes it possible for those questions to be answered, problems solved and quests resolved.
There have been opportunities from time to time, to transfer to other areas of the library, or to participate in weekend rosters and thus come face to face with the fabled library patrons, but so far, family responsibilities and my involvement in various musical groups have kept me to the weekday, daylight hours of the backstage library worker.
One of my musical friends sometimes comes to the library to meet me for lunch. I get a phone call from Reception and emerge blinking from my hidden lair in the depths of the library. Lee tells my other musical friends that I must be locked away from the public areas lest I frighten the patrons with my unnatural pallor and haunted gaze as I emerge from the dank prison in which I work. I have perhaps played down the fact that I actually work on the top floor of the library with panoramic views of the Brisbane River and the CBD on the far side. It doesn't hurt to grab a little sympathy when you can get it.
Perhaps now that my children are teenagers and I have cut down on my musical activities, I will be able to take up any new opportunity to work directly with the public. On the other hand, perhaps I will just keep working away quietly in the background, as so many of us do, to enable the great Work of the Library to continue.
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as someone who worked with the public in the great coal mines, the last job as a circulation clerk at the local public library, i can tell you that at times it can be very rewarding, but most of the time you're left shaking your head and wondering who all these people are :)
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