Two other programs that I remember from my local public library were author events, something that I schedule regularly as part of my job today. These authors were “local” in proximately, but both well-known authors in Canada – Alastair MacLeod, who it turns out was a good friend of my uncle and Farley Mowat, who lived nearby in the summer months. I still have the Alastair MacLeod book and was able to get another one signed many years ago in New York City at a reading sponsored by the Canadian Consulate, which has a great newsletter of events by Canadians in New York called The Upper North Side (www.uppernorthside.com)
Once I got to high school I became a page at the local public library, which as I mentioned in Thing 10, shares a facility with the high school library. After that I worked at my college library and the Library of Parliament, which was great for doing research for my degree in Political Science. Working in libraries was something that I had done all along, but hadn’t planned on making my career. After university, I ended up applying to library school with three friends, two of whom ended up going to library school at the same time that I did, but at two other library schools. This means that among the three of us, we attended 50% of the library schools in Canada. It still amazes me how many colleges/universities that there are in the States. I used to drive past at least 4 or 5 on my way to work in New York City.
I graduated from the University of Western Ontario’s GSLIS (then the Graduate School of Library and Information Science) which allowed you to take additional courses each semester and graduate in 12 months, which I did and then headed to the Queens Library where they needed librarians. Quite a few Canadians were working at Queens at the same time that I did, thanks in part, to the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. I worked at Queens in a number of positions and was the Head of Adult Services when I left. Tech-savvy husband and I decided to move out of the city and had been in upstate New York on vacation and really enjoyed it. We both found jobs quickly after we arrived and have been working in public libraries every since. And to think, it started with a story time craft!
Taking a look at the Library Routes wiki (http://libraryroutesproject.wikkii.com/wiki/Main_Page ) has been interesting, particularly since I’ve been reading the blogs of some of the contributors throughout the 23 Things project. I decided to read about those outside of public libraries just to get a sense of how people have ended up in academic and special libraries. This has been very interesting, and I’m always impressed by those who can write about their experience in entertaining and informative ways. It’s “to each his own” for libraries and making something interesting, that might not seem so at first glance, is a great and sometimes rare, skill. I’m often amazed by people who found libraries later in life and had never considered it until someone else mentioned it.
In the case of one person, thanks to a nine year-old girl in a doctor’s waiting room! http://jimbethmag.blogspot.com/2009/10/nine-year-old-to-me-you-should-be.html )
I’ll work on adding the link from this blog post to the wiki, but you can see the wiki directly at: http://libraryroutesproject.wikkii.com/wiki/Main_Page
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