Slasher Movies

I have to provide information quickly and accurately to patrons, but at times this can be challenging at the reference desk, especially when patrons ask me about subjects/topics I don’t know much about.

I had one male patron, who wanted to discover the world around him through movies that scared the shit out of him come to my desk. “Do you know of any really good scary movies? Something that’ll scare me so bad. I want nightmares.” Through my signature big smile, I asked him which horror movie has been his favorite. Now, I hate horror movies because of this exact reason- I can’t sleep after watching a good one. Of the horrors I do watch, I’d say I am a classical horror film type of girl- Psycho, Mike Myers films, A Nightmare on Elm Street, maybe because of Johnny Depp, but that’s not the point, the point is that I generally do not willingly pick a horror to watch by myself!

I concluded by his fav. movie that he liked what we catalog in our system as “slasher” horror. I have seen some gruesome stuff, so I first thought of what I already knew, starting with Wes Craven’s 1972 first film “The Last House on the Left.” This movie is just wrong. They torture the hell out of these girls, which is so not my thing, but I did watch it. This also is not technically a slasher type film, so I only mentioned this one to him last, along with a precaution.

I searched solely for slasher films, and I already knew from other times the patron would share with me his music, video, and book selections that he liked world music, foreign films, and books in Spanish. I knew I HAD to recommend Spanish and Japanese titles like “Ju on” and a few others, which he admitted he had never heard before. He looked intrigued with the list, and thanked me over and over again, and I felt like I was on the right track, and I knew watching, reading, or listening to obscure things would come in handy at some time.

Fear Factor at the Library

Last week was 6^th graders VIP Night at the Library. I loved it. Only 4 kids vomited, and survived through 10 rounds of pungent mystery foods. I loved watching the table of 6 boys gather around a gagging boy, as he tried to keep his food down, so that he could show me his cup was empty to go on to the next round. And once 1 boy signaled his other friends that his boy was gonna hurl, I thought, great! Liquid food spewed out of his covered mouth, as he proceeded to turn around to show me what he had just done. After asking him if he was alright, I quickly gave him a handful of napkins. His supportive friends cried to keep him going. “You can do it! Come on, you are almost done!”  Wrong. He was only on round 4, with 6 more rounds to go… With overwhelming support from his friends and now other kids knocked out from the competition, this kid kept going. But soon he was down for the countdown, answered a question from a book incorrectly, and had to leave the tournament. His friends, some girls, and younger kids gathered around their buddy, patting him on the back. I went over to him, and told him he did very well. I could tell that even after losing in the 7^th round, that he was still proud of how far he had gone. That night we had 4 winners who survived all rounds, and all participants received prizes sometime later probably at home.

Librarian by Day

What is a librarian’s day really like? 

If you have ever wondered what a typical day is like for a librarian, then I will try to paint that awesome picture. I will start from my first day’s experience as an extra help librarian. I think by starting from the beginning of my librarian career will help show new librarians how I adapted to using my practical experience from the theories you learn in library school. “Library school” is a term I use whenever I’m trying to explain to someone else not in a School of Library and Information Science program. I think it is easier to roll off the tongue, and it is straight to the point, even though the number one question I get from my family and friends immediately follows with a “You have to go to school to become a librarian?” If you want to become prepared in this profession, I would strongly advise those prospective students to not only enroll in the program, but also start working in a library or volunteer at anything library related! The transition was easier for me this way also. I started out as a volunteer then worked my way up!

So, once I graduated from the library school program, I became an extra help librarian fairly quickly. This was an exciting time for me (:  I was being trained at a very busy library, much bigger than my home library, and I was extremely nervous and anxious because I wanted to do well. I remember I was working an afternoon shift right when all the kids were just getting out of school.

Here’s a sampling of all the different types of questions I received on that glorious first day:

-Do you have any books on Pearl Harbor?

-Why isn’t my library card working on the computer?

-I’m doing a book report on owls.

-Do you have any Harry Potter books?

-Do you have How to Speak Dragonese?

During my short shift that day, I learned how to keep asking the right type of questions in order to find out what they really needed. In school, the reference interview is probably the most important thing in getting the patron what they really want. So, this is a skill that you have to practice. Not only did I have to locate the items on the catalog system, I had to learn sometimes along with them because that was my first time at that particular library. The only way I could do this quickly was to go into the stacks, once I knew the call number, and write down all these notes for myself like: J paperbacks are near the computer station, autobiographies are interfiled with non-fiction, romance novels are interfiled with fiction, etc.  I already knew how to do some things, like how to transfer a call, or what the library’s policy was from my clerking experience. Even though at times the amount of people asking questions seemed to come in waves, I still was satisfied knowing that I helped out so many different types of people, and I couldn’t wait to do it again.