Bibliosaurus?

The one thing that really caught my interest this week, as evidenced by the plethora of exclamation points surrounding it in my notes, was the idea of production librarians to help people assemble their information into reports or scrapbooks or displays, or help digitize it, or analyze it. Which I love. And am great at. And want to do. Maybe on the weekends? Or at night? Or in the alternate, same-time universe that we need to get on discovering? I need space in my life to be a school librarian, a production librarian, a cat rancher, a turtle rescuer, a custom framer and a velociraptor. (Maybe I'll save velociraptor for retirement.)

The thing is, I really want to be a school librarian. I did my interview this morning with the woman who was my librarian in 3rd grade, and it was awesome. Everything she said was just great. We talked about how committed the district is to having certified librarians in each school, and the collaborative projects that they're able to do because of that. She told me how the librarians have been able to access test data and develop programming to address achievement gaps, and about how she still believes that literature is key to getting kids excited about learning. She talked about how even with almost everything about her job changing, her role has stayed the same. I seriously did not want to leave. I wanted to sit there and listen to her and learn to do her job.

I recognize that choosing school media limits me in some ways - obviously no electives. But it was a conscious choice about the kind of work I want to do. I just wish it wasn't so exclusive. I guess I can't complain...there are enough people who can't think of even one thing they'd like to spend their lives doing.

"It's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I'd had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her." ~Jonathan Safran Foer Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close