The True Archivist
At some point in time, a student must venture to …“that place with books”. Not by free will but because they must. They received an assignment a month ago and its due in 30 minutes. “Pause….Sigh….Crack fingers….Its “B.S-ing” time”. But First!!! They must look at that librarian that always tells them to keep their barely audible voices down and gaze in pity. For they are unfortunate to be more boring than this assignment due in half an hour. However, next time you must “B.S” a paper, or maybe you actually care, I suggest you salute them. Not because they can take being so boring (give them a chance geeesh!), but because they have a job that few can do. After I visited the Botanical Gardens in Cleveland Ohio, I realized just how demanding and significant a librarian’s job is. Were it not for them, the sharing of writings could not happen at the level it is today.
The recording of one’s findings, stories, or thoughts is what created the written history we see and learn from today. However, written history would be pointless if no one could read it because it was destroyed, lost, or illegible. This is where the librarians come in. Written history is obviously extremely extensive, as it goes back for many years. Preserving these works takes much care and knowledge. My class visited the Botanical Gardens and the (not so boring) librarian, Gary Esmonde, gave us an overview of his job and all it entails. A big part of his job was preserving books that date over 100 years. These books have to be stored in room at a specific temperature and be handled a specific way. An example is that originally there was a fountain in the library. Sounded great and looked beautiful but according to Esmonde the moisture endangered the books. Without such knowledge, these books would have been worn away and we would have lost valuable pieces of writing. Despite the librarian’s skills however, he cannot do everything himself, he must pass on this knowledge to others.
Esmonde has many employees and even more volunteers; literally hundreds. In order to teach them all he must give them procedures. They must write manuals and procedures for others to follow. Esmonde stated that before he arrived, there was no orientation for new employees. In fact, upon receiving his job, he was simply shown the place and left to his vaguely described duties. Another problem that arose was that tour guides had almost no instruction and some found themselves rather unsure about certain details. As a result, some of the tour guides began making up information. To solve this problem, Esmonde wrote up job descriptions for the employees and volunteers. Along with job descriptions, he wrote policies, agendas, and schedules. He continues to write new policies to this day. Already, the job of a librarian seems daunting, but this merely scratches the surface.
There are millions of books from millions of places. Yes, finding the newest Harry Potter book wouldn’t prove to be very difficult. But for the adventures who want to read the stories that can’t be found at Barnes and Nobles or Borders, the task is much harder. What makes this easier for us however, is organization. If one were to go into any library, the books will be organized through some system. Scientist have yet to prove that books can arrange themselves, so some had to the job; the job of a librarian. Esmonde told my class how he had to rearrange all the books in his library into a new system with the help of only one other person. As if this wasn’t enough, he realized that the bibliographical records for his books were accurate 40% of the time. So he had to check and correct over 15,000 books! Another challenge that he faced is that he wanted to put all the books on an online catalog. So those same 15,000 books had to be listed and then arranged on a website as well.
For those librarians who feel underappreciated, I assure you a few more people appreciate what you do. As for others, I hope you now realized how intense the job of a librarian can be. Giving you a hard time may what they need to get through the day. Though many jobs were listed above, there are still more not mentioned here. Understand, that a librarian's job is one of respect.
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