Library Adventures Part Two

One of the things I do in my position as night supervisor at a college library is to straighten up the place before closing. I pick up books lying around, push chairs in, shut down computers, etc. Usually I have to move some of the larger chairs around because about every other night or so somebody decides they need a big cushy chair in a remote part of the library building. I've put chairs, study carrells, and even fire extinguishers back where they belong.

It gets frustrating quite often. About a year ago, the college decided to cut back on its budget in every single department possible. That meant firing about 8 people campus-wide without any sort of warning, as well as telling our head of food services that she would have to work with a smaller amount of money for the coming year. She said she couldn't do it and quit shortly after that. So the college decides to hire Aramark to do the food service. Part of the package deal is that they get to put a coffee shop in our library. Not a single one of the librarians here wanted that, but not a single one of the librarians had a vote in the matter. So now there's trash all over the place every night at closing. I have to throw away empty (and sometimes full) cups of coffee, muffin and cookie wrappers, you name it. I remember back to the first day of middle school, when our teachers told us that no one would be cleaning up after us anymore. Maybe it's the way I was raised, but it's hard for me to understand what's going on in the mind of someone who leaves trash on tabletops in a library.

I didn't really come here to rant, though. I was just using the opportunity of a captive audience (namely, this keyboard and computer screen) to do so, because it would be much frowned upon by my boss if I were to write any sort of editorial to the newspaper to the effect that going to a private university should mean that you're mature enough to clean up after yourself. *Ahem* On to what I originally set out to talk about.

Aside from books, chairs, and trash, I pick up whatever is left behind by students and community members. If it's anything substantial, or something that would be missed and looked for later on, it goes in our Lost & Found pile. Anything less I tend to keep. Normally it's just pens. I now have a massive box of pens, pencils, and markers, half of which come from this library. During our winter break, I went through the Lost & Found, trying to find out if the owners could be identified. When they could, I sent emails informing them as to the location of their belongings. If not, it was trashed, recycled, or kept by me. Mostly what I kept were the books. Textbooks, easy reading, you know, stuff college kids use and lose. I sold quite a few of them on Half.com, and made an extra little $40 or so. I also gave my stepdad a really nice watch that managed to stay here for about two months (I think it might have been a Fossil).

But what makes my day sometimes is when I find something funny. Once, it was a piece of paper in a trash can. Was I rummaging for scraps or something? Do they not pay me enough? No, but I do try to make sure that paper makes it into the recycle bins rather than the regular trash cans in an effort to give half a crap about the environment (which is half a crap more than most people here). This particular piece of paper's back side was entirely filled up with random words, most of them repeated four or five times. "Crevice crevasse crevice crevasse crevice crevasse" sticks out in my mind. The other day I found the little note card that you see above. I think it speaks for itself, so I'll end this post here.