Thursday is my favorite day of the work week! It's when I get to go back to the Children's Department [I am now working in Outreach most of the time] and work at the service desk. I worked here for over 2 years as a page, and while my back doesn't miss all the shelving, I do miss being in and around the collection all the time, talking with my co-workers, and above all, interacting with the patrons and really being able to connect with them. So Thursday's are like going home for me.
I love that when you work in the children's department you really are working with all ages. You have toddlers, preschoolers, older kids, and teens. You also get to work with adults, too. There are families that come in together, nannies, parents and grandparents who come in looking for books for their kids and grandkids, college students taking kid lit classes, and special needs adults or adults who never developed good literacy skills looking for books for themselves. I love the variety and all the different types of reader's advisory and customer service that I get to do in the children's department!
Today was a pretty typical day. I took advantage of the less busy times to clean up, fill displays, straighten shelves, pull items for transfer to other branches, and sort the shelving carts for the page. When it got busier I had the usual helping patrons check things out, find materials, and place holds, issuing passes for the computers, reminding young kids to stop running and monitoring teens' noise level and language. I had the privilege of issuing a young lady her first library card, which is an exciting milestone for most kids. She was very cute and precocious and told me all about how much she loves to read, read, read while I was putting her information into the computer. Then I had two of our summer reading prize drawing winners come in to claim their prizes, which they were very excited about. I was impressed when one of the moms told me that her kids had both participated and agreed that if either of them won, they would split the prize ($25 gift card).
But the highlight of my day was when Batman and Robin stopped by! Last week Batman was in full costume and Robin was wearing his mask, but today they were incognito as 3 year-old Clay and his father. I was so impressed last week that his father not only let his son wear his Batman costume, but that he was willing to wear the Robin mask in public, even answering to the name Robin. Today I chatted with them a bit as I was cleaning up the play area. I found someone had dumped all the pegs from the pegboard into the drawer under the train table and started pulling them all out; when the boy realized what I was doing he started helping me, all on his own.
I decided such behavior definitely needed some positive reinforcement, and I went to see if we had any Batman stickers. I didn't find stickers, but I did find what looked something like trading cards that must have come from book, and there was a Batman one! I told Clay, aka "Batman", that I really appreciated him being such a good helper and gave it to him, and you should have seen his face light up and the expression of awe! I love these moments.....
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