First of all, I’d like to thank Bobbi at Librarian by Day for putting the Library Day in the Life Project together. The first time I participated in this meme was back in 2008 when I was blogging at Curious Child’s Library Wanderings. I remember I was able to keep track of everyone’s posts and comment here and there, this year whew it has been crazy! Now I know why, according to Bobbi’s reflection post there were just under 250 people signed up on the wiki and about 800 participants on Twitter. That is wild! Congratulations, Bobbi, you should be proud of what you’ve done.
I learned so much from reading the few blog posts I was able to get to and the many tweets that hit my stream. Seriously, you guys were killing my stream with the tweets and I loved it. I think I was most amazed by the diversity within the library field, not just job descriptions but types of libraries, their locations, the people, etc. I also loved that so many library workers shared not just the professional but the personal as well. I saw tweets about knitting, getting together for coffee with friends, etc. It was fabulous.
Some of the “reference” questions posed to the librarians were hilarious! “Is the tall librarian in?” from Sense and Reference made me chuckle. I hope you post pics of the Yoruba art that you’ll be putting in the display case for Black History Month, that just sounds so cool. This tweet by@vonburkhardt about students who don’t know their instructor’s name made me laugh. I don’t know how many students come to the ref desk and ask for books and don’t know the instructor’s name, the course number or the name of the book they want but they expect me to know. Dude, I’m a librarian not a mind reader, although I am a ninja in my spare time.
I also enjoyed reading about Alice’s first time being solely responsible for the library at Alice in Libraryland. You can feel the range of emotions in her post ~ awe, intensity and a sense of a job well done.
When I started this project, my hope was that my mom blogger and homeschooling friends would pay attention to the tweets, blogs and pictures and realize the importance of libraries and how they help their communities. So many libraries are having their budgets cut because of the financial climate because the powers that be don’t realize how useful library services are. We provide more than books ~ we offer resume help, we are the first step in education for children, we provide free entertainment, we teach computer skills, we show people how to find information…. These are life skills that everyone needs in order to survive.
Did you participate in the Library Day in the Life Project? Were you one of my bloggy buddies who followed the twitter stream or read the posts? What did you learn?
