Sunday, January 28, 2018

A library with commitment








We had a huge snowstorm earlier this week. At least a foot of snow fell throughout the afternoon and evening. A foot of snow is a lot. It's 12 inches, even more in centimeters! Chaos gripped the city. Small children were trapped on buses without bathrooms for hours, or stranded at their schools until late in the evening. Cars littered the road shoulders. No one plowed our library parking lot. It was ugly.

But at my library we still stayed open until our regular nine o'clock closing. Libraries all across the twin cities shuttered their doors early. Ha! Quitters. Not us. We soldiered on for the full duration. There wasn't a ton to do so we staff gathered in little groups to complain about the county and how they failed to plow the parking lot. Then a librarian reported that a man harangued her about the county and their failure to plow our parking lot. We were all outraged; only we were allowed to complain about the county!

A little later, downstairs, we were at one point down to a single patron.

I ambled over to offer a rare personal touch because I had nothing else to do. 

"I bet you're wondering why it's so busy in here tonight." I said.

He raised an eyebrow.

"It's because all the other libraries are closed."







2 comments:

  1. Just waiting for our own snowstorm in western Newfoundland. Are you Feldenstein, Calypso? Or did your parents really name you Feldenstein?
    What sort of art book?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I hope you like snow then.

      I am Feldenstein (first name) Calypso (last name), but it's a nom de plume. I'm not sure what you mean about the art book. Perhaps you are referring to another post where I write Phaidon Press about a book of art essays I am trying to publish? Anything like that is largely hypothetical as regards to what the book is made of, but presumably would be a collection of my posts in this blog. I have written daily here for nearly five years and there are over 1800 short essays. If just under the essay you click on one of the labels (for instance in this post there is anecdote, libraries, patrons, weather...) it will take you to all my essays with that label. So if there was a label that said "art" you could click it and that, more or less, would be said "art book".

      Unless you are referring to something else?

      I hope you enjoy the blog. Good luck with the snow.

      Delete

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