Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Things that shush for $400



Lest you think that all library-type folk do are walk around in sensible shoes shushing people all day, I'm here to let you in on a little secret: It ain't necessarily so.

We do not spend our days in dimly-lit rooms, examining the obscure works of 11th century Benedictine Monks. Nor do we sit at banks of computer terminals, dissecting online research methodology or endlessly tweaking the virtual card catalog.

well...sometimes we sit at computer terminals. And yeah, we work on the virtual catalog. Absolutely! That's what I was doing right then. Yessirree, Bob! Working on the catalog....

My days are currently filled with dust, grime, shelving units and books. Like the flowers that bloom in the spring (tra la!) it's shifting time once again.

Nearly every year we need to do some sort of shift within the collection. Some years it is smaller, and other years it is an enormous task. This year? Enormous. Every single book, musical score and CD will move.

The shift actually began last year with bound periodicals. I thought I had successfully served my summer shifting sentence until a pile of new (actually old, but new to us) shelving appeared 10 days before fall semester began. My response to that was a loud snort, followed by, "well, that is going to sit until next summer."

Which it did.
And now it's summer.
BLEAH.

So forget the skirt set with the sensible shoes, coiffed hair and bookish glasses. I'm wearing grubby clothes, tshirts and tennis shoes. Since I have to get all the shelving in place myself, I'm being none too quiet, either. My technique is to put the two metal end panels in place, set a metal shelf on top, make a fist, and SMASH it into place in a gloriously CAPS-LOCK, LEANED-OVER BOLD TO BOOT kind of way.

I knew that kung-fu SHUSH! would come in handy one day.

1 comment:

lifeonhold said...

Haha, love it! CRASH, BANG SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE DOING THIS! you go, Tuna!