Re: Library "Immediate" Specialist

["Madeline L. Buchanan" <mlbuchanan1@CHARTER.NET>]

I find the title of library "immediate" specialist very amusing, but true.
When students come into the library, most of the time they want something
immediately, no matter what the request is, what you are doing at the time,
and what resources you have.  Many of them wait until the last minute to
start an assignment, their printers at home don't work or are out of ink,
and they must print it now.  It doesn't matter if their file is Word Perfect
and all you have is Microsoft Word but it is due immediately and you are
responsible for it getting turned in on time now.  Or they can't understand
why using electronic resources is not an immediate fix because they want the
information now.  The teacher assigns a novel for each student to read and
they come into the library to check it out now, even though all copies of
that title were lost the year before.  Teachers request a book in the middle
of your kindergarten class and they want it now.  Teachers need information
to prepare an assignment for their college class now, even though you are a
K-8 school and have no resources that are scholarly enough for college work.
The instructional technology department calls and says that your laptop
inventory must be signed by you and your principal (although there wasn't a
place on the laptop list sent to you by them) and they need it now.  You are
talking on the telephone to a parent and a student comes and stands close
enough to you to hear the conversation so that you must give them attention
now.

Even though the student who put the title under the picture should have
proofread it, the title is a fitting description of what our teachers and
students perceive us to be.  If a teacher is teaching a class when you need
something from them, they tell you to wait until their break time.  Why
don't we get the same respect?


------------------------------------------------------
Madeline L. Buchanan
Retired Library Media Specialist
Birmingham, AL
mlbuchanan1@charter.net
http://www.mlbuchanan.com
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