Where do we come from?

[Elizabeth Hart <ehart@supreme.cde.ca.gov>]

I have been interested in this discussion, and finally decided to describe
my own situation.

I was an anthropology major in college, with my concentration in physical
(forensic) anthropology.  I had visions of working in some ancient
archaeological site, deciphering skeletal remains--until one of my
professor's former students brought in color pictures of the cadavers he
had analyzed in his work in the coroner's office in Florida.   I decided I
was not cut out for it.

I was able to work one summer in the archaeology lab at St. Mary's City,
Maryland.  It was an exciting time, as it was the year the actual center of
the town was unearthed.  St. Mary's City, by the way, was the first capital
of Maryland, from 1635 to 1690, when the capital moved to Annapolis.  Once
the capital moved, there was no reason for the town to exist, and so the
town disappeared by 1710.  Because of this, the site had not been disturbed
much until that summer, and great things were uncovered.

However, minimum wage was not going to help send my husband through college,
 and a year after my son was born I needed a better job.  I saw a job
opening for a library assistant for the St. Mary's County Public Library
and applied, and thus began my career in libraries.  I worked for 7 years
in public libraries in Maryland, doing a little bit of everything,
including working in the children's area.  When we moved to California, I
took a year off to take care of my youngest son, then worked at the Alameda
County Public Library as a library assistant.  Unfortunately, I was riffed
from that position, and was unemployed for several months.

After working for five months as a library clerk in a chiropractic college
library, I was able to get the job I have now.  Even though I had worked
with children in my years in Maryland, I was not quite prepared for working
in a school library, particularly in a school where all of the students are
blind or visually impaired, and most have additional disabilities.  I have
learned more about blindness, visual impairment, and braille in the last
three years than I ever thought possible.  I can even read braille
(visually, anyway)!

I am grateful for all of the library experience I had before I took this
job.  Because this is a library technician position, not a librarian
position (and the pay is low for a library tech position in California),
there have been several individuals who have worked in this position who
have had absolutely no library experience at all--and it showed.  No card
catalog, no shelf list, no index at all, books arranged by title (including
using "the" and "a" as the first word) in the fiction section, and no order
at all for the nonfiction.... well, you get the idea.  The books are at
least in some kind of order now, and we are finally getting ready to
automate.   I do think I would benefit from additional education,
particularly because of the great changes taking place in the field.  While
much of what is discussed on this listserv does not apply to the students
here, because of their disabilites, I would still like them to have the
opportunity to learn as much as they possibly can.   While the MLS might
not help much with the disability part of working here, I would eventually
like to earn it, even though I doubt it will make any difference in my pay.

Elizabeth F. Hart
Library Technical Assistant
California School for the Blind
Fremont, CA  94536
ehart@csb.cde.ca.gov