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Liz Burns over at A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Teacozy and a couple of her librarian friends I don't know as well put together this CELEBRATION OF THE AWESOME THINGS LIBRARIANS DO for the month of May, called, fittingly, "Show Me The Awesome: 30 Days of Self Promotion."
I'm not as awesome as those librarians, though. I don't get huge turnouts at my programs. I don't win grants and invite speakers and create brilliant innovative things that I can teach other people to do. I'm not that special as far as librarians go.
But then, I feel that way about every part of my life. Unremarkable. Not bad, but nothing special. Pretty good, but not amazing. I'm terrible at selling myself. Frankly, I don't really believe in myself. It's something I've struggled with for years. And today*-- maybe it's because I've been feeling still knocked out from the mono, and the house was getting messy, and the kids were whining and the husband was yelling at them and complaining that the house was a mess-- I felt particularly useless.
But maybe that's why I NEED to find the Awesome in myself today, to make an effort to self-promote, whether as a librarian or as a person.
It's actually in my role as a librarian that I feel MOST confident. Even in the worst of my depression, someone would come to me with a reference or readers' advisory question and I'd find them even more than they thought they were looking for, and I'd, for a moment, FEEL AWESOME. I KNOW I'm good at that! I'm good at asking the questions to find out what someone is TRYING to say that they want. I'm good at thinking up many possible ways to find the answers, and many possible answers, too. It's not particularly fancy. It doesn't get attention. A lot of people don't even realize it's a skill, and think anyone off the street can work a library desk. But, one person at a time, I build the patrons' trust and satisfaction.
And I have coworkers who, when they get a tough reference question, will immediately send the patron to me-- even if they're not looking for information in the children's or YA sections.
Once at the grocery store a family I, admittedly, didn't even recognize ran up to me waving cheerfully and proclaiming that they were ALL reading their library books in the car RIGHT THEN and thanked me for recommending them, they were so awesome. And that wasn't bad at all. Nor was the line of schoolkids in my kids' preschool building who all started yelling "HI MISS AMY!" when I took my son to his first day of school.
And these weekly programs I've been running-- sure, they don't get a huge turnout, but everyone who DOES come raves, "Why aren't there more people here? Don't they know WHAT THEY'RE MISSING?" I've gone all out, making hobby horses from scratch because I felt the program NEEDED hobby horses.
We had a moviemaking program where kids wrote, performed, and directed (I wouldn't let them handle the camera themselves. Not THESE kids) their own movies. And there were wild programs I've done in the past, like my birthday party for A Wrinkle in Time, or my Read Across America Program with Three Cheese Trees.
I like to dress to the theme, sometimes in costume even-- "I have a feeling I may be turning into Ms. Frizzle," I said to a coworker the night I wore my pajamas to the bedtime-themed Family Night.
Ooo, and anybody remember the Teen Cooking Program I did a few years back?
And I know where to go for great ideas-- I do my research! A post at the ALSC blog inspired me to check out Squishy Circuits, which gave us quite an interesting program one week. And this week'sPenguin Day was an opportunity for me to go back to my One Book Every Young Child Activity Guide from 2009. Of course that WAS actually me who wrote those activities.
...hey. THAT WAS ME who WROTE THOSE ACTIVITIES.
You know the thing that I'm most proud about my programs? I've gotten people excited about BOOKS. A lot of my other coworkers who do programming don't even bother to booktalk related books during their programs, because no one's interested. BUT I'VE MADE THEM INTERESTED. And I still love thinking about the time I read A Tale Dark and Grimm to the Summer "Reading" Club.
And non-programming related-- once, ON MY DAY OFF, on a whim, I posted this to the library's Facebook page and it went viral! It was shared by the official @your library page! DANG!
...Okay. So. Maybe I do have something to brag about. But it seems to me that that's just what I'm SUPPOSED to do. That's what a youth services librarian is FOR. Nothing so out of the ordinary. But then, for someone who struggles daily to not feel like a failure as a mother or wife or writer or housekeeper, to actually feel like I'm doing all RIGHT at something? That's pretty Awesome indeed.
----
*Not really "today" anymore. I wrote the bulk of this yesterday. But then I had to go to sleep. Because, you know, mono.
I'm not as awesome as those librarians, though. I don't get huge turnouts at my programs. I don't win grants and invite speakers and create brilliant innovative things that I can teach other people to do. I'm not that special as far as librarians go.
But then, I feel that way about every part of my life. Unremarkable. Not bad, but nothing special. Pretty good, but not amazing. I'm terrible at selling myself. Frankly, I don't really believe in myself. It's something I've struggled with for years. And today*-- maybe it's because I've been feeling still knocked out from the mono, and the house was getting messy, and the kids were whining and the husband was yelling at them and complaining that the house was a mess-- I felt particularly useless.
But maybe that's why I NEED to find the Awesome in myself today, to make an effort to self-promote, whether as a librarian or as a person.
It's actually in my role as a librarian that I feel MOST confident. Even in the worst of my depression, someone would come to me with a reference or readers' advisory question and I'd find them even more than they thought they were looking for, and I'd, for a moment, FEEL AWESOME. I KNOW I'm good at that! I'm good at asking the questions to find out what someone is TRYING to say that they want. I'm good at thinking up many possible ways to find the answers, and many possible answers, too. It's not particularly fancy. It doesn't get attention. A lot of people don't even realize it's a skill, and think anyone off the street can work a library desk. But, one person at a time, I build the patrons' trust and satisfaction.
And I have coworkers who, when they get a tough reference question, will immediately send the patron to me-- even if they're not looking for information in the children's or YA sections.
Once at the grocery store a family I, admittedly, didn't even recognize ran up to me waving cheerfully and proclaiming that they were ALL reading their library books in the car RIGHT THEN and thanked me for recommending them, they were so awesome. And that wasn't bad at all. Nor was the line of schoolkids in my kids' preschool building who all started yelling "HI MISS AMY!" when I took my son to his first day of school.
And these weekly programs I've been running-- sure, they don't get a huge turnout, but everyone who DOES come raves, "Why aren't there more people here? Don't they know WHAT THEY'RE MISSING?" I've gone all out, making hobby horses from scratch because I felt the program NEEDED hobby horses.
We had a moviemaking program where kids wrote, performed, and directed (I wouldn't let them handle the camera themselves. Not THESE kids) their own movies. And there were wild programs I've done in the past, like my birthday party for A Wrinkle in Time, or my Read Across America Program with Three Cheese Trees.
I like to dress to the theme, sometimes in costume even-- "I have a feeling I may be turning into Ms. Frizzle," I said to a coworker the night I wore my pajamas to the bedtime-themed Family Night.
Ooo, and anybody remember the Teen Cooking Program I did a few years back?
And I know where to go for great ideas-- I do my research! A post at the ALSC blog inspired me to check out Squishy Circuits, which gave us quite an interesting program one week. And this week'sPenguin Day was an opportunity for me to go back to my One Book Every Young Child Activity Guide from 2009. Of course that WAS actually me who wrote those activities.
...hey. THAT WAS ME who WROTE THOSE ACTIVITIES.
You know the thing that I'm most proud about my programs? I've gotten people excited about BOOKS. A lot of my other coworkers who do programming don't even bother to booktalk related books during their programs, because no one's interested. BUT I'VE MADE THEM INTERESTED. And I still love thinking about the time I read A Tale Dark and Grimm to the Summer "Reading" Club.
And non-programming related-- once, ON MY DAY OFF, on a whim, I posted this to the library's Facebook page and it went viral! It was shared by the official @your library page! DANG!
...Okay. So. Maybe I do have something to brag about. But it seems to me that that's just what I'm SUPPOSED to do. That's what a youth services librarian is FOR. Nothing so out of the ordinary. But then, for someone who struggles daily to not feel like a failure as a mother or wife or writer or housekeeper, to actually feel like I'm doing all RIGHT at something? That's pretty Awesome indeed.
----
*Not really "today" anymore. I wrote the bulk of this yesterday. But then I had to go to sleep. Because, you know, mono.
