Friday at the Library

I went in again for my library volunteer time. It was quieter than it was yesterday, but I figure that's because of the holiday weekend.
One of my friends, Shelby, came in. She and I worked together last year on The Offbeat. It turns out that she got on the Poetry Board for The Red Cedar Review. I congratulated her. She told me that they've already had their first meeting this summer, and that they've been working through their archive. (They're going to be publishing a retrospective issue this coming year.) It's good to hear that things have been going well for them.
I was asked to file student's papers, indicating the kind of reading they had done this Summer. It was mostly fine, but about ten students only had first names on their sheets, which made it hard to file. Luckily, one of the other librarians there had their registration forms, and tried to figure out which students had those papers.
The librarian asked me if I'd like to set up a database again of the information on the students. No problem, I said. So next week, when I get a chance to go in again, that's what I'll be doing.
Otherwise, I finished two more essays on feminism (one on feminism and autobiography and another on feminism and modernism) and then I read three chapters of Little Dorrit.

Mistaken for a Librarian

I went in today for my first session of volunteering for the Summer Reading Program at the library. I originally was going to have my first day tomorrow, but the Children's Librarian called, asking if I could come in to help train a young man who has never done it before. And I guess it's a good thing I agreed, because that young man never showed up to volunteer.
Since it was the morning shift, it was relatively quiet. A few kids came in to turn in their reports on the books they read. One of them had read a book named Sophie the Awesome, and she told me she really liked the character. Her sister really liked a book called The Pigeon Wants a Dog, because she too wants a puppy. Then I gave them each their prizes, which right now are little rubber sharks. (Why sharks I'm not sure.) And I signed a few extra families up for the program.
One of the things that is a little strange is that people often treat me as if I am a librarian, which I am not. Several adults approached me today with questions. I can answer some of the more general ones, like where certain genres of books are located, but today a Mom asked me where the Junie B. Jones books were. The library is organized alphabetically by author, and since I haven't the foggiest notion who the author of the books are, I couldn't tell her. And I don't have access to the computer system that the librarians have, so I couldn't even look something like that up. I'm not totally sure how to feel about the whole mistaken for a librarian thing, since I don't think I look like a librarian, just a student.
When I'm not doing stuff, I sit and read. I'm still slowly working through the essays on feminism I've wanted to read. What's taking a long time is not so much the reading but the follow up stuff. I find that I'm always having great and interesting thoughts that I write down in my notebook. And then I'm slowly making lists of books and people to look up to get a better sense of the other secondary and primary sources that went into a particular essay.