Showing posts with label hate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hate. Show all posts

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Shelf Dilemma

Tonight is Open House for our school and I have been cleaning like a mad person trying to get things ready. I really don't want parents coming into the library and thinking that there is some slob crazy person teaching their kids. I know that I shouldn't expect to have everything perfect when we haven't even been in school for a month and when I am taking over in a position that hasn't been really filled in years. Does that mean I don't want things to be perfect? Um, NO! Throughout the day I barely sit down because I am so busy cleaning areas of the library, hanging signs, organizing closets, and so much more. Personally I strive every day to make this place as perfect as I can, and then the students come in and I have to accept the mess and move on. By the end of each class period I am struggling to keep tables lined up and books from falling over on shelves. I am picking up forgotten notebooks and pencils even though the students know better. The truth is that I clean here as much as I clean at home and it is equally as exhausting and I barely have enough energy to clean my house!

With that I have made a decision that many librarians will not agree with but we have to pick our battles, do we not? It is well known in libraries that books should be shelved with the spines out and lined neatly up about half an inch from the lip of the shelf. This helps the shelves look even and doesn't allow for smaller books to be pushed further back than larger ones. Like this:


Looks nice, doesn't it? Well I want to be the person to tell you that it is all a sham! Those neat rows of books are a horrible pain in my librarian rear end and I am not afraid to say it. See students come in and they pull books off those shelves, and in the process shove the entire row or parts of the rows back which leaves me with half neat shelves and half messes ones. And here is where my dilemma arises. I spend hours a week fixing shelves where the books have been shoved back--pulling them back into their neat little rows--just to have a student come in behind me and wreck it all. So, do I keep wasting this time making neat rows as is "proper" library shelf etiquette? Well of course not.

From now on all of my shelves will hold books that are pushed back and not neatly lined up. I mean why fight it? Today is the day I push all the books back and rejoice at not so neat, but otherwise cleaned and organized, rows! 





Blue Isn't Just for Boys: Five Ways to Break Gender Stereotypes in Your Child's World

"I have two boy colors and three girl colors," my three year old daughter said holding out her markers for me to see them. We were...