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[Note: this was written over the course of several days, so the meaning of words like "last night" and "today" and so forth varies as you go, and it's not really worth keeping track of which days refer to what. Just roll with the general concepts]
Mostly I pay attention to/keep track of my dreams (the kind you have while you're sleeping rather than the kind you make while awake and not paying attention) just because they're so dang entertaining. Maybe it comes from being a life-long bookworm, maybe just from having an overactive imagination, but my dreams have always been (excepting some rare dull periods usually involving antidepressants) colorful, plot-filled, and twisted, and have been the inspiration for many an actual written story. Other people will say, "I had such a strange dream," and then describe something so utterly run-of-the-mill that I must force myself to smile and say, "Yes. Strange. Right," and wonder if I should mention that I had a similar dream myself the other night, but didn't bother to write it down because the one about the vampire hunters flying kites outside the funeral home was just that much more interesting.
But I'm aware that many people who keep track of dreams do it for the psychoanalytical aspect, to study the symbolism and see what it says about their life and anxieties and dreams (of the daytime wishes variety) at the moment. Personally, I enjoy dream analysis, if it's used properly. It bugs me when people talk about it like it's something New Age-y and mystical, when all it really is is a game of Word Association ("flowers make me think of blooming make me think of growing so this dream about flowers is about something coming to fruition," etc). It's a matter of figuring out the connections your brain is making. But usually my dreams are so complicated and interesting in their own right that I don't CARE what they symbolize, though occasionally I do discover weird meanings in bizarrely complicated dreams (ask me what battling a giant demonic chicken with an umbrella has to do with September 11 sometime. Go ahead, ask). But sometimes the symbolism is just so blatantly obvious that I don't even have to think about it. Which brings us to last night.
In the dream, my Teen Fiction section (which, granted, is not in a library in this dream, but in a large multipurpose sortof-cafeteria-without-food room at what is probably a busy university, judging by most of the people swarming around and by all the tables and by everyone talking about my radio show and by the fact that some guy who was apparently the guy I was madly in love with in high school even though he looked absolutely nothing like him just told me that he liked listening to my radio show. "REALLY? You listen to it?!" "Well, I admit you lost me when you started talking about your kids' experiments with electrical circuitry." Which was how I knew he really had listened to it, because I apparently had done that, although I had no kids in college) anyway, though, so it was MY Teen Fiction section, wherever it was, looking rather exactly like my Teen Fiction section; BUT, I discovered, half the books were MISSING, and somebody apparently couldn't figure out whether to alphabetize by author or title, and the missing books had been replaced by toys and games -- although THEY were, politely enough, alphabetized.
So here is this CHAOS in the section I thought I had organized so nicely! The good books have disappeared and been replaced by games! And nobody told me before making these changes!
Is this not obviously an expression of my anxiety over WHAT MY ACTUAL JOB DUTIES ARE?
At first I saw it in a general light, about the changing landscape of public librarianship: how we're expected to be community centers offering programs and activities that may not have anything to do with books. I could stand back and be philosophical about it: where do we draw the lines? When does focusing on one aspect of public librarianship cause other aspects to suffer?
But tonight I was definitely looking at it from the specific situation at my library.
Our director had a dream (of the daytime variety). A dream about teenagers HANGING OUT AT THE LIBRARY. Imagine, they'd be off the streets and in somewhere INTELLECTUALLY AND CULTURALLY STIMULATING INSTEAD! Brilliant plan! We have this huge new library with, not one, but TWO ROOMS FOR TEENAGERS-- one for the collection and the computers, one --strategically positioned in a corner above the tech offices and blocked from the rest of the library by restrooms and empty board rooms, so noise wouldn't disturb the other patrons-- for programming and hanging out.
Except it didn't quite work that way. We got the teenagers off the streets and into the library to hang out-- it's just the ones we got? Are only using us for a place to get off the streets. And check Facebook. But mostly just to congregate. They have no interest in the books or the programs. But they repeatedly RUN RAMPANT, running, fighting, vandalizing, intimidating other patrons. When the fighting and vandalism isn't happening and it's just rowdy instead, we try to herd them into the Teen Programming room. But then the staff working downstairs in the offices complain of the noise.
And then there's today. Today we had this large but really nice group of teens playing some kind of card-collecting game in the Teen Program room-- exactly the sort of thing we WANTED to see happen at the library. The usual swarm of rowdy kids shows up, so we go with our usual rule, that if you're not going to be sitting and relatively quiet (ie we shouldn't hear you on the other side of the building), you need to keep it in the Teen Programming room. But that OTHER group of kids is already there, minding their own business, and these rowdy kids pile in and start being obnoxious to them. So what the heck? The kids who are being respectful obviously should have the priority-- they were there first, and they're behaving properly. But what are we going to do with the rowdy ones now-- send them to any other room in the building, it's going to bother other people. And yes, we have kicked kids out entirely before. But not for general obnoxiousness. General obnoxiousness we just try to contain to the Teen Program room. When there aren't already other non-obnoxious people there. Can you MAKE a rule against General Obnoxiousness? Can you make a rule like that that can be consistently ENFORCED? Can we kick them out for that? Our director has PRIDED herself in our being a No-Shushing Library, but this rowdiness is going a little too far. It's keeping the people who WOULD actually USE the library resources AWAY.
The actual desk for library workers upstairs here is in the children's room next door to the teen room-- the two rooms are separated by huge windows but the desk faces away from the teen room. But when the rowdy teens are a-swarming, we're supposed to be In There, instead. Doing what? (WHERE, exactly, is another question, on busy nights like these when every spare seat-- and several laps-- is taken, and there's nowhere really useful to stand, either). I am a small woman with a quiet voice and the kind of face that people either ignore entirely or just assume belongs to the ineffectual non-authority that I am. My presence is of no consequence to teenagers who don't give a crap and two-thirds of whom are also, incidentally, taller than me.
Which is exactly why I gave up working in schools.
PUBLIC library, I said! AH! One-on-ONE interaction! People who are there of their own free will! NO CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT SKILLS NEEDED!
But somebody's gone and messed up my properly organized shelves. Figuratively. I thought I was in the position I was made for. But nobody's interested in my deep and broad knowledge of YA literature (hence all those titles that have mysteriously disappeared); I'm supposed to be offering games and entertainments instead, and not only is everything OUT OF ORDER, but there seems to be some kind of mix-up regarding WHAT that order is supposed to be in the FIRST place.
Now I feel lost, wondering what I'm supposed to be doing, wondering if I can really use the excuse "I'm just no GOOD at this sort of thing, and it's why I left that higher-paying career-path in the first place!" (Which, incidentally, says something about the pay rates of public librarians, when teaching is considered the HIGHER paying career-path) (not that they don't TOTALLY DESERVE EVERY PENNY OF IT AND A LOT MORE, mind you). It's not that I expect to be an old-fashioned sit-behind-the-desk-putting-books-in-order-and-never-talking-to-anybody-but-to-say-Shh librarian. I like doing programs. And I really like interacting with patrons when it means I'm helping them to find something. But I don't like being a disciplinarian, and I don't like being forced to cater to people who aren't interested in anything we have to offer beyond a building and a place to access Facebook.
And there are all these teens who WOULD hang out at the library, and would USE it-- would be interested in programs, would check out books, would start clubs based around their interests (like the card-gamers we get on Thursdays), if they weren't SCARED AWAY by the gang that's in here all the time doing next to nothing but bothering people! I want to see teen writers' groups gathering here, and more gamers of various types, and people working on projects, and reading clubs, and people ACTUALLY USING THE RESOURCES WE HAVE HERE! But instead we're supposed to babysit the troublemakers whose very presence is keeping THOSE kind of kids out.
Soooo... this is where I need to write some kind of concluding paragraph to this thing, except I can't think how to conclude it. It just sort of peters out here, inconclusive and unanswered. Obviously, figuring out what my job is actually supposed to entail is something that bothers me even in my sleep. There are always general arguments in the library world over What the purpose and mission of a library ought to be in a community, and those who want to de-emphasize books in favor of programming, and those who think it's about archiving information, and those who think it's about giving people what they want, and those who think it's, well, whatever. Personally, I think the role of the public library is offering Enrichment and Education. Whether that's through books, movies, games, programs, computers, whatever. But if the kids who have taken over the Teen section even WANT Enrichment, they're certainly not interested in any Enrichment I can give them. So what am I actually supposed to do?
Mostly I pay attention to/keep track of my dreams (the kind you have while you're sleeping rather than the kind you make while awake and not paying attention) just because they're so dang entertaining. Maybe it comes from being a life-long bookworm, maybe just from having an overactive imagination, but my dreams have always been (excepting some rare dull periods usually involving antidepressants) colorful, plot-filled, and twisted, and have been the inspiration for many an actual written story. Other people will say, "I had such a strange dream," and then describe something so utterly run-of-the-mill that I must force myself to smile and say, "Yes. Strange. Right," and wonder if I should mention that I had a similar dream myself the other night, but didn't bother to write it down because the one about the vampire hunters flying kites outside the funeral home was just that much more interesting.
But I'm aware that many people who keep track of dreams do it for the psychoanalytical aspect, to study the symbolism and see what it says about their life and anxieties and dreams (of the daytime wishes variety) at the moment. Personally, I enjoy dream analysis, if it's used properly. It bugs me when people talk about it like it's something New Age-y and mystical, when all it really is is a game of Word Association ("flowers make me think of blooming make me think of growing so this dream about flowers is about something coming to fruition," etc). It's a matter of figuring out the connections your brain is making. But usually my dreams are so complicated and interesting in their own right that I don't CARE what they symbolize, though occasionally I do discover weird meanings in bizarrely complicated dreams (ask me what battling a giant demonic chicken with an umbrella has to do with September 11 sometime. Go ahead, ask). But sometimes the symbolism is just so blatantly obvious that I don't even have to think about it. Which brings us to last night.
In the dream, my Teen Fiction section (which, granted, is not in a library in this dream, but in a large multipurpose sortof-cafeteria-without-food room at what is probably a busy university, judging by most of the people swarming around and by all the tables and by everyone talking about my radio show and by the fact that some guy who was apparently the guy I was madly in love with in high school even though he looked absolutely nothing like him just told me that he liked listening to my radio show. "REALLY? You listen to it?!" "Well, I admit you lost me when you started talking about your kids' experiments with electrical circuitry." Which was how I knew he really had listened to it, because I apparently had done that, although I had no kids in college) anyway, though, so it was MY Teen Fiction section, wherever it was, looking rather exactly like my Teen Fiction section; BUT, I discovered, half the books were MISSING, and somebody apparently couldn't figure out whether to alphabetize by author or title, and the missing books had been replaced by toys and games -- although THEY were, politely enough, alphabetized.
So here is this CHAOS in the section I thought I had organized so nicely! The good books have disappeared and been replaced by games! And nobody told me before making these changes!
Is this not obviously an expression of my anxiety over WHAT MY ACTUAL JOB DUTIES ARE?
At first I saw it in a general light, about the changing landscape of public librarianship: how we're expected to be community centers offering programs and activities that may not have anything to do with books. I could stand back and be philosophical about it: where do we draw the lines? When does focusing on one aspect of public librarianship cause other aspects to suffer?
But tonight I was definitely looking at it from the specific situation at my library.
Our director had a dream (of the daytime variety). A dream about teenagers HANGING OUT AT THE LIBRARY. Imagine, they'd be off the streets and in somewhere INTELLECTUALLY AND CULTURALLY STIMULATING INSTEAD! Brilliant plan! We have this huge new library with, not one, but TWO ROOMS FOR TEENAGERS-- one for the collection and the computers, one --strategically positioned in a corner above the tech offices and blocked from the rest of the library by restrooms and empty board rooms, so noise wouldn't disturb the other patrons-- for programming and hanging out.
Except it didn't quite work that way. We got the teenagers off the streets and into the library to hang out-- it's just the ones we got? Are only using us for a place to get off the streets. And check Facebook. But mostly just to congregate. They have no interest in the books or the programs. But they repeatedly RUN RAMPANT, running, fighting, vandalizing, intimidating other patrons. When the fighting and vandalism isn't happening and it's just rowdy instead, we try to herd them into the Teen Programming room. But then the staff working downstairs in the offices complain of the noise.
And then there's today. Today we had this large but really nice group of teens playing some kind of card-collecting game in the Teen Program room-- exactly the sort of thing we WANTED to see happen at the library. The usual swarm of rowdy kids shows up, so we go with our usual rule, that if you're not going to be sitting and relatively quiet (ie we shouldn't hear you on the other side of the building), you need to keep it in the Teen Programming room. But that OTHER group of kids is already there, minding their own business, and these rowdy kids pile in and start being obnoxious to them. So what the heck? The kids who are being respectful obviously should have the priority-- they were there first, and they're behaving properly. But what are we going to do with the rowdy ones now-- send them to any other room in the building, it's going to bother other people. And yes, we have kicked kids out entirely before. But not for general obnoxiousness. General obnoxiousness we just try to contain to the Teen Program room. When there aren't already other non-obnoxious people there. Can you MAKE a rule against General Obnoxiousness? Can you make a rule like that that can be consistently ENFORCED? Can we kick them out for that? Our director has PRIDED herself in our being a No-Shushing Library, but this rowdiness is going a little too far. It's keeping the people who WOULD actually USE the library resources AWAY.
The actual desk for library workers upstairs here is in the children's room next door to the teen room-- the two rooms are separated by huge windows but the desk faces away from the teen room. But when the rowdy teens are a-swarming, we're supposed to be In There, instead. Doing what? (WHERE, exactly, is another question, on busy nights like these when every spare seat-- and several laps-- is taken, and there's nowhere really useful to stand, either). I am a small woman with a quiet voice and the kind of face that people either ignore entirely or just assume belongs to the ineffectual non-authority that I am. My presence is of no consequence to teenagers who don't give a crap and two-thirds of whom are also, incidentally, taller than me.
Which is exactly why I gave up working in schools.
PUBLIC library, I said! AH! One-on-ONE interaction! People who are there of their own free will! NO CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT SKILLS NEEDED!
But somebody's gone and messed up my properly organized shelves. Figuratively. I thought I was in the position I was made for. But nobody's interested in my deep and broad knowledge of YA literature (hence all those titles that have mysteriously disappeared); I'm supposed to be offering games and entertainments instead, and not only is everything OUT OF ORDER, but there seems to be some kind of mix-up regarding WHAT that order is supposed to be in the FIRST place.
Now I feel lost, wondering what I'm supposed to be doing, wondering if I can really use the excuse "I'm just no GOOD at this sort of thing, and it's why I left that higher-paying career-path in the first place!" (Which, incidentally, says something about the pay rates of public librarians, when teaching is considered the HIGHER paying career-path) (not that they don't TOTALLY DESERVE EVERY PENNY OF IT AND A LOT MORE, mind you). It's not that I expect to be an old-fashioned sit-behind-the-desk-putting-books-in-order-and-never-talking-to-anybody-but-to-say-Shh librarian. I like doing programs. And I really like interacting with patrons when it means I'm helping them to find something. But I don't like being a disciplinarian, and I don't like being forced to cater to people who aren't interested in anything we have to offer beyond a building and a place to access Facebook.
And there are all these teens who WOULD hang out at the library, and would USE it-- would be interested in programs, would check out books, would start clubs based around their interests (like the card-gamers we get on Thursdays), if they weren't SCARED AWAY by the gang that's in here all the time doing next to nothing but bothering people! I want to see teen writers' groups gathering here, and more gamers of various types, and people working on projects, and reading clubs, and people ACTUALLY USING THE RESOURCES WE HAVE HERE! But instead we're supposed to babysit the troublemakers whose very presence is keeping THOSE kind of kids out.
Soooo... this is where I need to write some kind of concluding paragraph to this thing, except I can't think how to conclude it. It just sort of peters out here, inconclusive and unanswered. Obviously, figuring out what my job is actually supposed to entail is something that bothers me even in my sleep. There are always general arguments in the library world over What the purpose and mission of a library ought to be in a community, and those who want to de-emphasize books in favor of programming, and those who think it's about archiving information, and those who think it's about giving people what they want, and those who think it's, well, whatever. Personally, I think the role of the public library is offering Enrichment and Education. Whether that's through books, movies, games, programs, computers, whatever. But if the kids who have taken over the Teen section even WANT Enrichment, they're certainly not interested in any Enrichment I can give them. So what am I actually supposed to do?
