All My Gettings

So today I experienced what many have called a librarian's dream. And it pretty much was. I got to go to Barnes & Noble and send just over 2k dollars on anything I wanted. Now, granted, what I wanted here means "materials to support the curriculum and students" of the school I work for. You see, I was hired all of three weeks ago and we need something that looks like a library for when students show up. Which is Monday. Yeah, it's a lost battle. I don't even have shelves! I mean, what I am supposed to do, splay my recent purchases across the floor and kindly inform students not to step on them? It's absurd. But then, I feel like I'd really have to screw up to get in trouble. This, dear Reader, is the joy of low expectations. Well, low expectations and my well-trained ability to make others think I know some librarian secrets. But, as most of you know, there are no librarian secrets not a one.

Case in point: collection development. In library school, we make a big deal about how librarians are specially trained to match patrons and information packets. This may be true. However, in B&N today my primary qualification for buying a book was thickness. Yep, how many pages. Preferably a low ratio of cost per page. I got some great cookbooks and some gorgeous interior design tomes out of it though.

How unethical would be to keep some of those books for myself?*

This experience, like many others as I've started getting this library going has shown me just how clearly ridiculous library school was. Nothing useful was learned. Sadly, neither was much interesting. But, the job is good. So, just keep it under your hat that I don't know what I'm doing, ok?

*N.B. That is not a real question. I would like to keep my job (for now).