Library Director? People often say to me when learning that I am a librarian that it must be fun working in a library and just reading books all the time. How little they know. As a library director some of my duties include: buying books and supplies, keeping records of all library transactions, checking books in and out, shelving books, attending meetings and conferences and week-long seminars, calling on overdue books and sending reminders, doing bookwork totals daily, monthly and yearly for statistics and reports, publicity, organizing and overseeing various library programs, which include Summer Reading, preschool story time, book discussion groups, family night, teen night, coordinating volunteers, weeding out and discarding old and out of date books, shoveling snow, and spreading snow-melt in winter, sweeping sidewalks and watering shrubs in summer, borrowing books from other libraries for interlibrary loans, picking up mail daily at the post office, trying to keep people quiet so others can enjoy the library and helping patrons find books. We also help people on the computers, clean the bathrooms, wash windows, set up tables and chairs, vacuum the carpets, empty the wastebaskets, put trash out for garbage day, dust, clean and sweep entry. As we say at our meetings: "We wear many hats and small town librarians' jobs are a labor of love." You can prove that just by looking at our salaries. |
