Dante's Inferno

Thursday 25th February 2016

It's frightening how quickly February is flying by! Apparently while I was off on Tuesday the new community librarian came and interviewed a  volunteer in Silverdale. I'm not sure who it was - someone said possibly a woman from the parish council. One member had actually asked me for a leaflet - she is 74 years old and very nice. I'm not sure how competent she is with computers though.
It is all very dispiriting. I had an email from the Chief Executive to say how wonderfully the volunteer project was going and I had to make sure that all the leaflets and posters were very prominent in my library. Also, it is my job to ask every person who comes in if they want to volunteer.
This made me very angry and upset. Am I supposed to say "Oh the council is making me redundant from this job that I love - would any of you like to take over? You'll get a bit of on the job training (although if they saw the manual that is currently being prepared by library staff at Newcastle - they'd run a mile!) but no money Please feel free to jump in my grave!"


When I think of the post- graduate diploma in Library and Information Science at Manchester - while working at Staffs Uni - and then another two years doing a Masters - it makes me want to weep.



Cool Wall Art

Still, it was a happy Thursday. The poets were a delight as always and lots of my favourite customers came in. I think word of my Last Day Tea Party is getting around - I am looking forward to a good turnout. The birdwatchers were in too during the afternoon - some lovely birdsong coming from the bottom rooms. They tell me that they will be on a field trip next week - so won't be in the library.

I had to chase a request today for a customer. Mr B has been reading his way through all the Patrick O'Brian books in our collections. He wrote the Aubrey–Maturin series, sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The first one was Master and Commander and there are 20 of them!  Now, he has decided to move on to Dante's Inferno. I looked through our catalogue - but any copies listed were missing or long overdue. Libraries these days don't have room for much reserve stock - only clean and popular books are given space on the shelves.



I had requested that we buy a Penguin Classics version a few weeks ago but nothing had appeared. I checked again today - and it had been ordered - but never arrived. My boss ordered it again - so I relayed this back to Mr. B via email. He seemed happy to be kept updated at least :-)

The posters we sell in the library are still very popular. I have sold quite a few recently. They are great! I bought the periodic table and a world map one for my new home office. Of course, most are purchased for kids rooms :-) One of my favourites - which I have up behind the counter in order to advertise them - is the Six Wives of Henry VIII. Good to know who they were and what happened to each one - it's the kind of random information that comes in useful in pub quizzes! :-)

My Blast from the Past today is a photo I took of my New Books shelf which accidently had a rather unfortunate juxtaposition books! Oops - Sorry Alfie :-)