What do librarians think about?\u00a0 Every week I exchange words with them and every week I walk away wondering:\u00a0 do they ever read the books that put food on their tables?\u00a0 Where is the quirkiness that goes with bookishness?\u00a0\u00a0 They have, instead, certain employer-imposed behaviours that can make or break my day in a two-minute encounter.\u00a0 National Library librarians are silent and serious, always well-dressed, sometimes helpful, seldom more knowledgeable than me about the book I seek.\u00a0 National University librarians are closer to retirement, slow to attend the counter and slower to answer my questions.\u00a0 Public library librarians are young and energetic, more of them male, more of them migrants, at once serving two customers and aiding three other librarians. But of all the librarians that fill my week, none can compare with the women in the little Catholic University on the corner, five minutes\u2019 bike ride from my house.<\/p>\n
The Catholic librarians are a special group.\u00a0 Quiet, controlled, suspicious, pale-skinned and small-smiled.\u00a0 Employed through a joy filter.\u00a0 Practical women who can explain the system without expression or superfluity, leaving me to wonder if they ever read more than the call number.<\/p>\n
And yet!\u00a0 When I need to fire young imagination or teach literacy through literature, all I need is the Catholic library, the most excellent of all for tutors like me.\u00a0 If I need to teach perfect pronunciation to adults or social justice to children, there are posters listing the books I need.\u00a0 Shelves are loaded with children\u2019s literature and mind-changing novels and histories, filled to the ceiling with up-to-date books by broad-minded authors,\u00a0 about family and culture and\u00a0 difference and music.<\/p>\n
The women behind the counter, did they acquire these books?\u00a0 Surely they are mistresses, hunting out secret pleasures to please their book-lovers.<\/p>\n
When they don a pious mask and slip behind the counter to take my book selection, scan it, swipe it and push it back to me with a small comment and a smaller smile, what are they thinking about?<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What do librarians think about?\u00a0 Every week I exchange words with them and every week I walk away wondering:\u00a0 do they ever read the books that put food on their tables?\u00a0 Where is the quirkiness that goes with bookishness?\u00a0\u00a0 They have, instead, certain employer-imposed behaviours that can make or break my day in a two-minute … <\/p>\n![\"ACU_statue\"](\"http:\/\/worth.id.au\/wish\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/acu_statue.jpg?w=750\")
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