librarian – Page 14 – Dumpling in a Hanky

A quick question for librarians

Are you overdue?

Do you have any books that you’ve borrowed, from any library, currently past the date they should have been returned?

Are they lurking, looking longingly at the door, seeming like they want to go home, making you feel ashamed?

This week, I have discovered that quite a few of my librarian friends are guilty of keeping books until they’re overdue. Yes, they know how to renew online, or on the phone, or in person, but…it doesn’t quite happen.

Is this one of the awful, secret truth about librarians? Do we know the rules so well we have a wild disregard for them? Is it one of the rules of Librarian Club? Are you an Overdue Librarian?

Happy birthday, UK Library Bloggers wiki! Be free!

Yeeesh, it’s been 2 whole years since I started building you out of the results of Google, Yahoo,Technorati and other random searches. Very quickly I realised that I couldn’t bring you up properly on my own, so Auntie Jo, Auntie Christine, and Uncle Phil stepped in to help. Without them, you might have gotten a bit unruly, and grown up all scraggly and without any discipline. I think that together, we’ve done quite well, keeping you nicely in shape and making sure you’re as well informed and as up to date as possible.

And now that you’re all grown up, we’ve realised that the time has come to set you free in the world, to let you make your own way, meet new people, make your own changes, grow and develop in ways we might not be able to help you with ourselves. So….we’ve unlocked you, and now anybody (who registers with PBWorks) can edit, update and add to you. We know it’s a risk, but we think you’re old enough now to be able to look after yourself. Just avoid the bad people who might want to corrupt you, and be nice to the people who want to add useful things to you.

And remember, you can always come home if you need to, mmkay?

If all else fails, call the Doctor!

“Knock knock?

Who’s there?

The Doctor?

Doctor who?

You just said it!”

Yup, that pretty much summed up the height of wit and humour in my early childhood…have you heard the one about the two fish in a tank?

Anyway, that minor flashback was triggered by reading this story, about a school library using a lifesize, working (well, apart from the kinda odd internal dimensions and time-travel aspects) replica of Dr Whos Tardis.

It certainly makes it a bit more fun than my school library was – it’s great when departments can work together to make the unexpected happen 🙂