{"id":57,"date":"2007-10-29T21:38:58","date_gmt":"2007-10-30T04:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=57"},"modified":"2008-08-19T06:23:12","modified_gmt":"2008-08-19T13:23:12","slug":"confessions-of-a-deskaholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2007\/10\/confessions-of-a-deskaholic\/","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a Deskaholic"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m Steven Engelfried, ALSC member and Children\u2019s Librarian in the Early Childhood Outreach Department of Multnomah County Library.\u00a0 And I\u2019m a Children\u2019s Deskaholic.\u00a0 It all started with my first children\u2019s librarian job, with the Alameda County Library in
\nCalifornia.\u00a0 I was fresh out of library school, nervous about story times, clueless about partnerships…but on my first shift at the children\u2019s desk, a child wanted a rain forest book.\u00a0 I found two for him!\u00a0 He was happy.\u00a0 I felt great.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve been hooked on the children’s desk ever since.\u00a0 Reference interviews, homework help, reader\u2019s advisory.\u00a0 I loved it all.\u00a0 Sure, there were downsides to the desk too.\u00a0 Truly impossible school assignments.\u00a0 Multi-hour shifts without a break.\u00a0 And maybe over the years I cleaned up one too many\u00a0baby\/toddler\u00a0\u201caccidents.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 But most of the time, the Children\u2019s Desk was one of the best places to be.<\/font><\/p>\n

About a year ago, I started a new job.\u00a0 It’s\u00a0a good job.\u00a0 A cool job.\u00a0 An important job.\u00a0 And I really like it.\u00a0 But for the first time in 20+ years, I don\u2019t work at a children\u2019s desk.\u00a0 Ever.\u00a0 And it\u2019s been rough.\u00a0 <\/font>I get these cravings to answer questions that watching Jeopardy or doing crossword puzzles\u00a0just doesn\u2019t fill.\u00a0 I\u2019ll read a new book that I know Gail Carson Levine and Patricia Wrede fans will love (Dragon Slippers<\/em>) and have no Levine and Wrede fans to recommend it to (other children\u2019s librarians and my daughter\u00a0don\u2019t count).\u00a0 But I get by.\u00a0 I take it one day at a time.\u00a0 My family supports me when they can.\u00a0 Like every once in a while my daughter will pretend she can\u2019t find the book she\u2019s been reading, and I\u2019ll eagerly do a “shelf check,” search all the possible places, track it down for her, and finish with a \u201cI hope this gives you the information you need, and if not, please let me know.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 Or my wife will ask me to recommend a good humorous book for third graders, and I do (\u201chave you tried Clementine <\/em>yet?”).\u00a0 But I know it’s just a pity request because she doesn\u2019t think third grade humor is nearly as funny as I do.\u00a0 They mean well, but I still want the real thing.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

So finally, after about a year off the desk, I decided to be an occasional substitute librarian at the Hillsboro Public Library, in my own home neighborhood.\u00a0 In my first half hour on the children’s desk I helped a grandma find \u201cthat book where the girl has a fight with her teacher\u201d\u009d (Lilly\u2019s Purple Plastic Purse<\/em>), showed two boys where the football books were, and\u00a0worked with\u00a0a girl looking for \u201cpoems from different cultures.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 And all was right with the world.\u00a0 It\u2019s only a couple of shifts a month, but I think\u00a0it will be just enough to\u00a0cure my desk withdrawal symptoms.\u00a0 <\/font>Has anyone else left the public desk and missed it\u00a0the way\u00a0I have?\u00a0 Or do you just leave and never look back?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m Steven Engelfried, ALSC member and Children\u2019s Librarian in the Early Childhood Outreach Department of Multnomah County Library.\u00a0 And I\u2019m a Children\u2019s Deskaholic.\u00a0 It all started with my first children\u2019s librarian job, with the Alameda County Library in California.\u00a0 I was fresh out of library school, nervous about story times, clueless about partnerships…but on my first shift at the children\u2019s desk, a child wanted a rain forest book.\u00a0 I found two for him!\u00a0 He was happy.\u00a0 I felt great.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve been hooked on the children’s desk ever since.\u00a0 Reference interviews, homework help, reader\u2019s advisory.\u00a0 I loved it all.\u00a0 Sure, there were downsides to the desk too.\u00a0 Truly impossible school assignments.\u00a0 Multi-hour shifts without a break.\u00a0 And maybe over the years I cleaned up one too many\u00a0baby\/toddler\u00a0\u201caccidents.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 But most of the time, the Children\u2019s Desk was one of the best places to be. About a year ago, I started a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slice-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}