A/V Librarian, Esq.

A friend in Albany has chided me, in effect, for not keeping up with this blogging business -- OK, so not so much for not posting as for leaving my last post as "Tornado Alley Pt.2" for weeks on end. What was one to think? It's been a month ago now -- going on 2 --but really, the first two nights I worked at the library --Thursdays both--we ended up in the basement for a tornado warning. But I'm not worried. I was never really worried. I just got fascinated with tornadoes and put it in the blog. But YES, I need to leave a different impression for the "folks back home" -- (Does anyone bedsides Roger read this? I'm not convinced). Anyway, here's the scoop.

I'm adjusting remarkably well to life in Wichita. I'm like an A/V librarian at the public library. Actually that gives the wrong impression. But somehow I like it as an ironic, self-effacing comment on my work. Or rather, something that sends up a smoke screen. "Pay no attention to the librarian west of the Mississippi River. West of the Missouri even." In fact I live just west--about 2 clicks, I'd wager-- of the Arkansas River. I heard someone pronounce it "AR-Kansas". How cool is that!? And don't you forget it.

Ahem. Got a bit sidetracked there. So I'm actually one of the AMV librarians (not really an A/V Librarian): ie, Art Music and Video. Yee-Haw! It's really great. Really. I'm very impressed with their collection -- CD- and book-wise especially, and DVDs too. (Also VHS-wise, which will change in the next couple years. They--I mean, WE are not buying VHS anymore but there is a large collection of them, especially non-fiction. And I have been given responsibility to purchase -- order -- non-fiction DVDs. Which includes Anime and Musicals and Opera but not TV except for Japanese Animated TV even though the American TV shows are shelved with the non-fiction at 791.45 -- more than you wanted to know? You must not be a librarian.) So I realized that with the collection this wonderful library already has, I will, inevitably ,--if I do my job at all well--learn an awful lot here. And grow and develop as a porfessional. It's scary, isn't it? --Yeah it is. Thank you for validating that.

The interesting thing right now is that I get to order non-fiction DVDs for ALL subject areas, even though the general collection and Business and Technology BOOKS are all on separate floors. (See, theres AMV, B&T, and the GC -- general collection -- three floors). ALL of the DVDs on any subject are in our department and so I get to order them all. And my dad could beat your dad up anyday, I don't care what you say. I get to order DVDs even for travel, language, computers, science, nature, anime, history, biography, music-, craft-, and dance-how-to, ESL, SAT, etc etc, et cetera -- if it's a DVD, I can order it. And nonfiction. You know what I mean.

I guess that's why I like to call myself an A/V librarian. I'm starting to peruse all these catalogs and websites for educational DVDs some of which seem scarily similar to the 1980s and 1990s VHS tapes that I will be replacing on our shelves -- and uncannily also like the 16mm films we watched in the pre-VHS days in grade school. But best of all, I get to watch and order Anime for my job. OK so I don't get to watch Anime on the job per se, but I can take it home for research and decide that we need to get the complete first two seasons of All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku! How many people can do that on the job and get an Attaboy! instead of just quizzical looks or worse in the staff lounge?

Actually that was a request from a patron. Hey cool! We actually buy stuff people request! interesting...

I'm like the all purpose cultural cat girl AV librarian guy. But really Wichita is not half bad and if i was writing a book about my life I'd say that I adjusted remakably well to its environs in an extraordinarily short space of time. Yes, remarkably well. Oh, and the staff lounge has an electric piano in it. Honest. I kid you not.