SRP will set you free

Okay, now that I've dispensed with the poor me post, here are some cool things that happened this week at the library.

First, I was on desk with the seasoned tech librarian on the music floor of the library. A patron called in and at first got my colleague. It was clear from the side of the conversation that I heard that the patron was not making much sense.

He was asking if we had the CD of a song, but he didn't know the name of the song, the artist, release year, or any lyrics, just the melody. My desk buddy was very thorough in his reference interview but alas, did not have enough information to guess the song. So he politely asked the man to call back with more information.

I found out later that the patron had also called down to telephone info. While my desk buddy was talking with our telephone info librarian about that, the patron called in again. This time I got him, and though still very hard to understand, he'd called prepared. He actually held the phone to the speaker as I searched the lyrics of the song. Unfortunately, we did not have a CD with the particular song, but we did have a few compilation CDs with the artist's other music and that sufficed.

Then, I had a lady who wanted to get Scott's The Sorceress on her tablet. Unfortunately, the tablet had a memory problem and kept crashing. So I got her a paper copy. The cool part was how excited she was about the book. I went out and purchased the first book in the series (The Immortal Nicholas Flamel) The Alchemyst just on her say so. And I am highly impressed and engrossed so far.

Finally, something I am excited about. My reading world is almost entirely inhabited with juvenile and YA fiction books, what with it being Summer Reading Program season. I just found out that Rick Riordan added a Percy Jackson/ Kane Chronicles short story called The Son of Sobek to the recent paperback release of The Serpent's Shadow. I am a crossover junkie. And Riordan has said that the next book in his Roman mythology series will be coming out in October. So now, I'm squeeing like the rabid fan girl I am.

Career Conundrums

I have been working at my library for over a year now in an hourly capacity. The money is more than my other part time job, and I have been getting a fluctuating amount of hours. I love working at my library, so my overall work life tends to fluctuate with my hours. The more library hours, the better I feel about my career.

The problem (and I say this loosely, because it's all relative) is that due to recent events in my personal life, I am becoming less satisfied with my other part time "pay the bills" job. I recently got engaged to to my wonderful partner J, and we have been making plans for the future. We've been discussing the path of our careers, the possibility of the traditional house with 2.5 kids and a dog scenario. Knowing us, we may end up in a condo with one kid, a Delorean and a muppet, but that is beside the point.

Neither of us is in a financial place to roll the dice on a mortgage right now. He is freelance, and I am part-time hourly in two jobs, so while we could reasonably afford payments on an older or foreclosure home, down-payments and closing costs may be a problem. We also really like the apartment that we are in at the moment. So the house can wait.

As far as the one to two point five kids go, I am very committed to not having any until I can financially support them. Our work situations being what they are, neither J or I get benefits. Without a stable healthcare plan, I cannot justify having kids just yet.

My career conundrum comes down to this. I have been interviewing for full time positions in my library for about as long as I have been working there. Having got my foot in the door, I've been trying to wedge my whole body in. But at the moment, the job market is such that a lot of older more experienced candidates are  getting the jobs I apply for. I cannot begrudge them this. The library deserves the best, most qualified people in each position. However, it is hard to gain the experience to be competitive if all the jobs go to more experienced candidates. It's an old story.

My career situation is by no means dire in comparison to unemployed and much more underemployed Americans, many of them with families to support. Nonetheless, I am faced with the choice of seeking full-time employment outside my library, that may not be as fulfilling but pays benefits, or waiting it out. I do not want to abandon the dream that I've spent years of my life and thousands of dollars in student loans pursuing. It is just hard not to get discouraged when my interviewers and co-workers tell me that I am an ideal candidate for the library, but they keep finding others that are more ideal. I've just gotta decide whether to keep trucking or veer off the road.

RSS Spring Cleaning

Okay, so it isn't Spring yet, as evidenced by the now constant fall of snowflakes from the sky. But regardless I need to clean out my Google Reader feed. It has become a runaway train.

I have a tendency to Subscribe to any blog that I find intriguing (title, background, subject, etc.). This is especially true when others in the library world recommend them. I currently have over a hundred feeds coming through Google Reader and a good 60-70% are written by librarians or library staff.

The problem is that not all of them are relevant to my life, library or otherwise. Still less of them do I read on a regular basis. But my pack-rat tendencies kick in when I try to clear out the feeds.

I always think, "Oh but this one is so well written! That one had that humorous take on e-book publishers that one time! Certainly I cannot disrespect this blogger by throwing out her feed like yesterday's socks!"

I do respect each and every one of the bloggers whose feeds I subscribe to. But sometimes, it is so easy to get overloaded with ideas and career solidarity, and well ...life,  that I end up with 400 unread posts in a day and end up chucking them all. And so I have committed myself to clear out Google Reader like I would clear out my wardrobe.

Just like I would toss clothes that I have not worn in a year into a Goodwill bag, so I will UnSubscribe to feeds whose posts I have not actually sat down to read in a month. Please don't hate me all you wonderful bloggers!

Question of the Day 1/26/13

A patron came up asking how to spell "AmusementMonkeys.com" While I was happy to spell it for him, I thought I should check the website to make sure it was live, which it wasn't. Nor did Google return any results for "Amusement Monkeys".

The patron informed me that he was a carnival worker and that they called themselves Amusement Monkeys because they have to climb on the rides to take them apart and put them together. He was looking for work. He was very nice, and very inebriated. 

After a bit of a long search, I found one employment result for carnival employment with listings by state. I told him there were a number of different company listings and he yelled. "I only need one! Thanks honey!"