SOME OUT OF THE ORDINARY LIBRARY JOBS
Recently I invited librarians with unusual jobs to talk about their work. Here are some of the responses.
DANIEL ALONZO:
I am the Archivist and Librarian at The Old Jail Art Center in Albany, Tx. If you don't know where that is, don't worry, most people in Texas don't know either. However, more people are discovering the Center every day. Built in 1877 out of limestone, the county jail became the "old jail" when a new building was built in 1929. This building is still known as the "new jail."
The old jail was saved from destruction in 1940 by Robert E. Nail, Jr., a local playwright who purchased the land and the jail for $400 and used it as a studio. In 1977, his nephew, Reilly Nail, along with his cousin, artist Bill Bomar decided to turn the old jail into an art museum. The four room jail opened as The Old Jail Art Center in 1980.
24 years and 2 expansions later, the museum has the Robert E. Nail, Jr. Archives, the Bill Green Art Research Library, and over 1500 pieces of art including works by Amedeo Modigliani, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henry Moore, John Marin and Grant Wood.
The Green library is a non-circulating collection of art books and periodicals. Most of the collection contains works that provide detailed background and criticism of the art pieces in our permanent collection.
Since coming to the library, my main goal has been to transition from a card catalog system to an OPAC. The only way we'll be able to afford to make this change is to partner with the local county library and combine our holdings into one catalog using Athena. The library is primarily used by the museum staff, however, I anticipate more use by the public once the catalog goes online with the county library.
In the Robert E. Nail, Jr. Archives, I've just recently completed an inventory/cataloging project of our 90 year collection of newspapers. Most of the requests I get in archives are from genealogists, so the newspapers and census records are used heavily. We also have a growing collection of research files on individuals that either lived in Shackelford Co. or grew up in the area. And for some reason or another, LBJ and JFK have snuck into our files.
Also as the youngest person on staff I am also the webmaster by default, so please check out our website: http://www.theoldjailartcenter.org
STEVE WEBBER, DC Public Library:
My job itself is nothing out of the ordinary; I'm a children's librarian in a large urban system. The interesting part is that I share the job with my wife. We started our job share when our oldest son was about a year old. We generally work on alternate days.
We each bring different skills to the table. I think of myself as a reference librarian, and try to keep up with what's out there online and in print. I've never been much of a fiction reader, but try to keep up with current reviews and know where to find appropriate booklists. My wife is an avid reader of fiction who loves reader's advisory. Our programs for preschoolers are different but both draw large crowds. The best part is that we've been able to both keep our careers going and see our two sons grow up.
JASON A. FIELDS, Indiana University Residential Programs and Services Libraries:
I work for Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana in the Division of Residential Programs and Services (RPS). RPS is responsible for housing in residence halls and on-campus apartments ("dorm" is a bad word in the campus housing profession). Within RPS, I work in the Department of Academic Initiatives and Services (AIS).
My official job title is Manager of Residence Hall Libraries. I coordinate and manage a library services programs for all residents of the IU Bloomington (IUB) campus (about 10,000 folks). We have a collection-based program which houses approximately 38,000 items across 11 locations, including books (fiction and non-), videotapes, DVDs, CDs, video games and CD-ROM titles. I also work with residence hall staff to promote information literacy, for example, as well as other library-related educational programs. I think of our unit as a public library in an academic setting.
I supervise one 30-hour-per-week support staff person. The rest of our staff is students, about 75 total. I have two student Assistant Managers, who are typically graduate students in IUB's library school. They, in turn, share supervisory responsibility for a student management team of 6 library school graduate students and 5 undergraduates (who can be from any major). Those 11 students work as on-site managers at each of our locations (think Branch Manager). They each supervise 6 to 7 students who are paid an hourly wage to work at our circulation desks. All of our locations are open 7 hours a day, 7 days a week. (Ten locations are open 5pm-midnight. The one that serves apartment housing and houses our children's collection is open from 2pm-9pm.)
I graduated from library school at IUB in June 2001; this position is my first professional job. I really enjoy working with college students, so it's a perfect fit for me. Residence hall library systems are fairly uncommon; I only know of two other collection-based systems like IU's. One is at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and the other is at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
As you might imagine, I'm the only librarian on staff in RPS. My supervisors are not librarians, so I've come to rely on other campus librarians and conferences for professional development as related to librarianship. I also participate in a regional housing professional organization, and sometimes it is challenging to explain my job and how it relates to learning beyond the classroom (which is a mission of many college and university housing departments).
TOM RINK:
And for "the round-about story of the “Gun-Carrying” Librarian, Officer Tom Rink, Tulsa Police Department, MLIS, see his web site, http://www.rose.edu/lrc/careers/rink.htm.
DO YOU HAVE AN OFF-BEAT LIBRARY JOB YOURSELF? TELL ME AND MY READERS ABOUT IT!
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COOL QUOTE:
When people talk about mixed-use developments, generally they mean mixing stores or offices in with housing. But that’s not the only way building types can be mixed. Take the new library going up in St. Paul, part of a development with 98 units of affordable rental housing, a first for the Midwest. (There are several library and housing developments on the West Coast.) Local leaders are excited about the Rondo Community Outreach Library and its housing. “Here was a place where the city could use a major intersection to build a library to help spur and achieve a larger development,” Mayor Randy Kelly said at the groundbreaking ceremony. But city leaders are also excited because of what the development will replace: This stretch of University Avenue was once a seedy porn district. “This is about more than just a library,” said one former city council member who was at the groundbreaking. “This is about a rebirth of a troubled community spot. ... [Twenty-five years ago] you wouldn’t want to walk down this avenue right here because it was so vile.” The city ran off the porn businesses by getting tough about license violations and, when possible, buying up the buildings themselves. It took years longer for the city and private developers to come up with the idea of the library and housing. One neighborhood leader said she never despaired through all the delays. She quoted from the Bible: “If the vision tarries, wait on it. For surely it will come.”
"I’m Going Downstairs. Anybody Need a Book?" Otis White's Urban Notebook, Sept. 21, 2004. http://www.civic-strategies.com/resources/metros/
minneapolis-st._paul.htm
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