Behind the Librarian...

This post was inspired by a recent post by woodsiegirl and also after a very hectic week.

I've spent the majority of this week out and about in Branch Library world, shadowing and being inducted in preparation for Monday 15th March, when I'll move for 6 months from the Central Library, where I've been Librarian for the past 7 years. As part of the preparation for the move out to Branch Libraries I've begun sifting through my filing cabinet and finding all sorts of strange and wonderful things that I thought might be of information value at a later date, but as often happens sits in a folder for 'x' years, never to see the light of day again.

After working my way through several folders and reliving the past like a member of an archealogical dig from the TV series Time Team, I realised I'm really bad for hoarding and that my filing system is while methodical (alphabetical) is not really fit for purpose when it comes to retrieving documents and in fact my filing cabinet has served no other purpose than being a black hole for the past 7 years... the first thing I've learnt from my upcoming secondment is to devise and develop a better filing system and regularly review what's in my cabinet more often.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I recently read woodsiegirl's post about what a bookshelf says about their owner. I've been the proud owner of a bookshelf since I was old enough to hold a book. Over time its content has developed and been selectively organised. In fact, it's the first thing, besides my cat that most visitors come across when coming to see me. I've had various comments about my bookshelves; the majority of which are usually along the lines of they can tell I'm a Librarian with my shelves organised into fiction alphabetically by author and non-fiction by subject in almost Dewey sequence order!!!! I'm slightly embarrassed by my bookshelves around non-Library folk, but woodsiegirl's post and attached photos made me smile... looking at her bookshelves was almost scarily like looking at my own. Not only are her bookshelves organised in almost the same way as mine, but the majority of her fiction section is the same as mine dotted with the likes of Iain Banks and Terry Pratchett.

Not only does a Librarian's bookshelves and filing cabinet say something about their owner, but also what the Librarian reads... When I get a moment, I shall take some photos of my bookshelves so that comparisons can be made...