The Clerk Manifesto

Living, as I do, a fairytale life, momentous events happen to me in sevens. For instance, I once broke my library's all time record by r...

In my youth, which I think of running murkily from somewhere around age ten to well into my twenties, I was quite often informed that I was ...

Because public libraries are so well organized, straight forward, and easy to understand it hardly seems necessary to create a guide for you...

Sometimes it is meditative and peaceful when I am working on the automated check in machine. This happens usually when the work flow is slow...

Sometimes lately when I am at the front desk I like to stand there, looking alertly out upon the library, with a pleasant, welcoming smile o...

I know that the thought of getting a library card is almost overwhelming to most people. I too would be profoundly intimidated by it if I di...

I don't know him. But he walks among us. I run into him occasionally. He knows me even less than I know him so we have nothing to say. B...

As you may know, from one of my jokes here, the children's room at my library has an aquarium full of caterpillars during the summer. Th...

When life lowers the hammer, when it starts raining heavily and darkly and metaphorically , when the kinds of grief that cannot be measured...

Have you ever read any Karin Slaughter? Yeah, well, me neither. It's amazing how many authors' books I've been handling for year...

Occasionally it occurs to me that not everyone is inured to the detailed workings of libraries. There are people out there, even ones who re...

Up at the Children's desk they keep an aquarium full of caterpillars and milkweed. When the caterpillars have gorged themselves on milkw...

How many jokes do I make each day at the library? One hundred forty-eight. See, there was one. That was probably about average, in terms...

I am not a casual toucher. I do not reach over instinctively when I am talking to you and pat your upper arm as I make some warm point. Outs...

Someone told me the other day about Jackson Browne describing himself as a recovering people pleaser. This set off a complicated array of re...

Some melancholy morning. It's gray and warm out, rising to its strange, steaming August heat. I walk in the staff entrance of the libra...

A week after vacation I am still struggling to adapt back to work at the library. But part of me understands that what I really came back wi...

Sorry about the trick title. I am well aware that all people are fascinated by the cities of Ohio, and that some of you will be disappointed...

The vacation book I am currently in the middle of is Mama Makes Up Her Mind by Bailey White. These are short essays verging on short storie...