Nonfiction Book Reviews

A while ago, Stephanie from Rocket Scientist tagged me to write about my job, and hopefully come up with a list of things that the “average Joe” wouldn’t know about their local library.  Since I have never worked at any other library, and I am not actually a librarian myself (see below), I’m going to list out six things that happen to be true for our library, but I make no promises for any other library. With that in mind, here we go:

1) When we first process a paperback book, we put vinyl on the cover to help protect it.  It is ordinary vinyl (we buy it from a local store, actually) and is normally used to line the bottom of people’s kitchen cabinets.  Clear and strong, we use it to make our paperbacks last longer.  If you’re really rough with your paperbacks, you could easily do this at home to your own books.

2) We put thin metal strips (think roughly the shape and size of spaghetti noodles) in between two pages in the middle of each book.  This security strip is then activated, and the book is put on the shelf.  If someone tries to walk out the front door without checking out first, the strip sets off the security gates.  Most of the time when the gates go off, it’s because the employees at the front desk have simply forgotten to desensitize a book, but either way, the patron has to come back to the desk to get cleared.  Otherwise, we call the police.  Which really isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, promise.

3) Not all library employees are created equal.  There is not a single person working at the circulation desk at my library who has any sort of library degree.  The only education requirement to work at the circ desk at our library is a high school diploma.  The reference desk is a whole other story.  There, two out of the three ladies has a Masters in Library Science, and the third one has a Bachelors, and is working on her Masters.  This is why we send all questions to the reference desk - they’re smarter than we are.

There is a debate in the library world as to whether or not a regular clerk like me should be called a librarian.  I have no library training, and no degree.  It’s like the secretary at the sheriff’s office calling herself a cop because she’s in the office with other cops all day long.  It doesn’t mean she actually knows how to be one. But on the other hand, it’s hard to figure out what to call me if not librarian - circ clerk works, but most people don’t know, off hand, what that means.  So the debate rages on.

4) The bigger a library, the more specialized each position is.  If you’re interested in working at a library, then you’ll want to consider what exactly is drawing you to it: Is it the idea of being away from patrons, just working on the computer and cataloging items?  Or do you want to be out and about, answering questions, helping patrons, etc?  In a really small library, one person does both, so if you’re interested in that, you’d want to find a job in a small town.

5) Each book in our computer system gets a code: tanfn, for example, stands for

T - junk code - doesn’t mean anything
A - adult book (as opposed to a child, junior, or young adult book)
N - non
F - fiction
N - new

tapbsf is adult paperback science fiction. tafn is adult fiction new. As strange as it sounds, I actually think in code - one time I found a book labeled tafn instead of tanfn, and instead of thinking, “Oh no, we’ve got a nonfiction book labeled as a fiction book” I thought, “Oh no, we’ve got a tanfn labeled as a tafn!” Which is a good sign I need a vacation.

6) If a book is lost or damaged, we only charge the cost of the item - what we paid for it ourselves, or if it was donated, what the cost would be to replace it. Despite what some patrons think, we do not make money off them. I had to explain this to a guy just the other day. He said that the library was a money making operation, and I told him that there were certainly a lot of people who would wish that were true, but it definitely wasn’t.

Well, I hope I didn’t put anyone to sleep. I don’t know how much wild and new information I brought up here, but hopefully this gives you a little better idea of how a library works. I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can, so feel free to leave a comment below!

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