Reflecting on a completely normal week in the school library a few years ago, by which I mean finding an old task list in the bottom of a bag and fondly remembering organized chaos held together with book display tape and determination.

SCHOOL LIBRARY LIBRARIAN LIFE BEHIND THE SCENES

A few years ago, and a month or so into my new gig at the middle school, I attempted to focus on decorating the library with a “You Belong Here” theme. Banner letters, lots of better-than-paper to disguise the circulation desk, a new display shelf arrangement. The works.

I was also, simultaneously, managing an inter-library loan backlog (of my own making), responding to a parent complaint about an LGBTQIA+ title, helping navigate new-ish equipment loaner protocols, getting to know the co-teachers in our shared space, hustling for a circulation desk redesign, welcoming a pop-up planetarium, and making sure the puzzle and game carts were ready to go for testing week.

You belong here, I was telling my community. Also, please hold, I seem to be juggling more than I anticipated.

TUESDAY

The Day I Basically Ran a Small Municipality

Tuesday started with a database usage review and purchasing meeting, which led to submitting a building use request for the library itself — because yes, librarians sometimes have to formally request use of their own space sometimes, and yes, that is as delightful as it sounds.

In between: following up on the parent book concern (more on that in a future post), processing a requisition, fielding professional development arrangements, sorting out shared space logistics, thinking through our role in testing accommodations, checking out books to students, welcoming the lunch kids to the library (while also asking them not to disturb others), processing more inter-library loans, visiting with 8th graders who needed a place to be because they couldn’t go outside for physical education, managing student printing, refereeing a disagreement over board game rules, overseeing randomly arriving study groups, and setting expectations for the learning center which had recently taken up residence for a class period each afternoon.

At the end of the day, I stopped at the local public library to pick up their calendar and grab some books for the book swap cart. Because the day wasn’t quite full enough just yet.

WEDNESDAY

New Colleague, New Desk, New Display

Wednesday brought a new employee to set up, a virtual department check-in, more inter-library loans flowing in both directions, teacher concerns about specific titles (those concerns seemed to be coming from every direction at this point), and a slew of mentoring questions from a heartfelt and promising young librarian, which I answered as well as I could while almost certainly also doing something else.

I connected with the circulation desk designer and requested a quote. I restocked the book swap cart. I hosted Lunch Bunch. I worked on collection development guidelines. And I kept decorating — the circulation desk, the games shelves, the display shelves. Bit by bit, the space was starting to say what I wanted it to say.

You belong here.

THURSDAY

The Day a Planetarium Appeared in My Library

Classes all day. Regional updates first thing. A teacher expressing concern about the number of students visiting the library — which is, I’ll be honest, one of my favorite concerns to receive. Unscheduled testing accommodations that needed to be sorted in real time. Approval of a database trial. Lunch Bunch, plus the additional puzzle of figuring out how to run Lunch Bunch during testing.

And then, at some point, a pop-up planetarium. In the library. Because our ceiling is the tallest in all the land, and because I got an email from a high school science teacher, and because my mantra is “Why not!?”

It was wonderful and slightly surreal and I cannot overstate how normal this felt by that point in the week.

FRIDAY

Setting Up for Everyone Else’s Week

Friday had the particular texture of a day that is partly about wrapping up and mostly about setting up what comes next. Name updates. Student printing, board games, study groups, learning center — the reliable Friday hum of students being people in a space designed for them.

A full class checkout appeared with approximately no notice, as they do. I restocked the free book carts. And then I set up the puzzle and game carts — carefully, purposefully — so that teachers would have options ready to go for testing week. A small act, that would hopefully quietly make their days better.

That’s most of it, really. The invisible small acts.

I’ve been thinking about why I chose “You Belong Here” as the theme for the library that year. Part of it is that I mean it literally — I want every student who walks through the door to feel like the library is theirs. Part of it was perhaps convincing myself that I, indeed, belonged in my new building with new-to-me coworkers and students. But part of it is something I keep learning in this job: the library belongs to everyone’s needs at once. The student who needs a quiet corner. The teacher who needs a room for testing. The 5th grader who just wanted to play board games. The 8th grader who needs to browse. The colleague who needs someone to field a tricky parent concern. A library colleague who needs a sounding board. The whole school, sometimes, when a planetarium shows up.

All of it gets to be here. All of it belongs.

The banner went up in pieces, between everything else. That felt exactly right.

Dog-Eared & Overdue is written by a middle school librarian in northern New York who sometimes finds an old “To Do” list and marvels at what she gets done in a day.