Our intrepid librarian braves the world of witches to deliver the magic of information
Our library is filled with staff and students ready to get their fill of treats for Halloween. Luckily no tricks, the joy of living in a fairly rural and polite region of the country. Earlier today I was at the administration building for a meeting and the children from the child care center came through. The halls were filled with laughter and talk, something unusual for a more serious and business-like building. There were dinosaurs, Iron Men, Spider Men, princesses, she-devils, chickens, construction workers and the like. There were rushes on candy and a lot of smiling faces. Everyone looks forward to their Halloween visit. I was glad to be there. I worked at a somewhat rural community college library as a reference librarian, and there was a period of about three years where the questions on October 31st took a decidedly macabre turn. I think it may have been the same group of young men trying to overset the librarians. Having grown up with three exuberant brothers and other prankster male relatives, I could handle that stuff without flinching. The questions weren’t that weird, but definitely a little off the usual research questions. “Did Mary Shelley do weird stuff with cats?” and the history of the electric chair were two of them as I recall. Our library celebrates this holiday very creatively. We use it as a fundraiser for our social events. It’s always been fun and creative. This year we had a department vs. department decorating contest. For my department, the librarian action figure emerged from her sabbatical to, as the picture demonstrates, to deliver information to the witchy and wicked. I would share their questions but that would violate their privacy and I would have to turn you into a frog.
Who needs a house to fall on you when there’s a copy machine. Don’t kill the trees or this could happen to you.
Alas, we did not win the contest, but we had a great deal of fun decorating, laughing, and touring other departments. And of course we had a party with lots of good food. Happy Halloween.
