The Clerk Manifesto

I have worked for a long time at a busy library. Year after year more and more people have come to this library every day. Or, that's ho...

I have written enthusiastically here about Bob Dylan. Perhaps I have been immoderate in my praise, throwing around gaudy bangles like "...

We all like to present our best face to the public, and irascible bloggers like myself are no exception to this rule. I'll occasionally ...

Perhaps I would not go on so much about our dramatic weather conditions here in Minnesota if my readership were primarily local, but my read...

Was it just yesterday I was talking about the stages of grief in returning to work after time off? Somehow it feels like more than a day, li...

I may be a bit glib about all the ease of my work life. All this talk of constant latte breaks, and the pleasant leisure reading, the exhaus...

In yesterday's piece I could be said to have been teasing the Internet. I suggested perhaps that the Internet has an ever so slightly li...

Good morning Internet! What have you been up to while I've been away? Oh, my, that's terribly interesting! Ha ha ha, hilarious...

As a lost child myself, there are few things at the library that rip my heart out like a lost child. Frozen, dazed, full of quiet despair, o...

For this post I have run uncharacteristically close to deadline. I post every day in some sort of compact with myself that I only half under...

I find myself often driven by two engines in composing this blog. One of these engines is my consciousness of having readers. I know people ...

We have been reading a fair bit of Michael Pollan at my house. In our current book he is now doing a lot of mushroom hunting. Like much of w...

After a 20 year adjustment period I am suddenly having an fairly easy time with winter here in Minnesota. It is odd that this grace seems ...

I have recently passed a compelling numerical threshold in blog readership. I crossed over the line of 50,000 pageviews. That is, 50,000 vis...

This example has been chosen almost at random, from out of watching the Olympics a lot, but it could be another sport, say figure skating, o...

Nothing darkens my mood at work more than receiving a dig, pointed instruction, or correction from one of my managers. It makes me angry, ve...

I live my life, usually using my breathing and eating and circulatory system and stuff. Things happen. Sometimes they show up in the blog, s...

There are, grievously, no Olympic events of any kind directly related to library work. However, Curling bears some real resemblance to ele...

Chills. Fitful dreams of ice. A restless sleeplessness keeps me up into the wee hours of the morning. I am seized with paroxysms of nervous...

I like it when it's slow out at the front desk. I can catch up on some important internet reading, maybe put a cart in order in a desult...