I am proud to be a Librarian. When people ask what I do, I tell them. I am never sheepish, but I admit I smile when I say it because I know what their reaction will be: Awe. Wonder. Amazement. Incredulity.

I am not embarrassed to say I love books, or the Dewey Decimal System or my Nancy Pearl Librarian action figure (with amazing sushing action). I would never hide that I am purveyor of knowledge and information to the masses. But I wouldn’t tattoo myself.

But Justin the Librarian has decided to. Yes, he is so proud that he tattooed the international library symbol to his forearm. In his blog post at 8bitlibrary.com he shows how dedicated he is to our profession. I am not going to knock him. I think it takes a lot of guts to get a tattoo (but it seems he has 5, but of what I don’t know). I don’t have those kinds of guts. I am going to ALA Annual in Washington, DC. And I might get a temporary tattoo. What about you? Do you love libraries and being a librarian enough to get a tattoo of the ILS?

Today I popped on over to a branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia to start an internship. In the midst of beginning and introductions the branch manager told me that he’d like me to help with a group of Montessori school kids (8 of them) that come in once a week. On Thursdays when I will be volunteering as it happens.

They also happened to traipse in as we were talking. “Here,” the Branch Manager says as he thrusts a book into my hands, “Help me read a book to the kids.” [no, that's not really how it happened, but come on, I have to have some drama here]

So he read one book, and then I read the other. Snow Sounds: An Onomatopoeic Story. It was really cute and the kids were nice.

In the end I survived and realized that maybe reading children’s books to a bunch of little kids isn’t all that bad.

A new trend in libraries is the “bookstore” model of shelving books. the idea is to group items together like they do at bookstore by general topic [see this article on the topic].

Today I visited the Walnut Street West Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. While perusing I noticed something was different. In the quiet of the stacks I could hear the light bulb go off in my head. There were no call numbers on the fiction just genre stickers. usually fiction has a sticker on the spine with the authors last name, these didn’t. I asked the very nice and helpful librarian who explained they did not do that because the authors name is already printed on the spine. This does name sense but to browse you have to turn your head sideways to read them. From a shelving perspective it is much easier and quicker to have a uniform label to look at. she did inform me that the Non-fiction had call number labels as well as some other materials.

I wandered over to look and saw what I thought was a book out of shape. It had a “j” before the call number (which in library parlance means its a “juvenile” book, some libraries use “Y” for “youth”). Before I could pull it off and place to to be re shelved I noticed more. Then another light bulb went off. “They interfiled the youth and adult nonfiction.” With truly only the second floor available to hold materials space is as a premium. Some adult nonfiction is more mature than others. Should children’s nonfiction be interfiled with adult? Should we do our best to keep a third grader from discovering the “Joy of Sex” or simply let them stumble across it as they browse?

I don’t think I am unusual for a Librarian in the sense that I have every Library card I ever was issued. Shocking, I know, but the more I think about it, it really isn’t.

My first memories of the Library are in Sacramento, California where I lived til I was 9. We went to a branch library and I remember reading Curious George and knowing exactly where he was. I recall my sister also having a fondness for the Francis stories. Later, towards the time we moved I was reading the Wizard of Oz. I realized there was more than one (a series even!) and determined to read all of them. We moved and at the next Library (in Dearborn, Michigan) I resumed the quest and read as many as I could get my hands on. Looking back I wish the Librarians would have introduced me to Interlibrary Loan because there were some they did not have.

Most of my Library cards have been issued as an adult. They chronicle my adventures moving around the country as an adult. A card from Alabama, two from Oregon and of course the Library card from the Library I first worked at during high school and college (which I still have the barcode number memorized).

Recently, I wondered what had happened to my first library card. In my head I could see perfectly the design and its vertical orientation (versus the traditional horizontal). It had been years since I remembered seeing it and thought it was lost.

Around Thanksgiving I was helping my Dad clean the basement in preparation for Christmas quests. As we moved boxes, halfheartedly going through them because we were simply moving them not sorting my eye caught something in the bottom of one of the boxes: my first library card. It was exactly how I remembered it. I picked it up and nearly squealed like a 12 year old girl meeting the Jonas Brothers.

And so blog readers, I give you “The First Library Card”:

You can see the back, which was what I saw in my mind. Notice that even in the 80′s it was a “Public Library and Information Service”, way ahead of its time I think. On the front you can see where I wrote my name in the box (I was probably only 5 or 6) and above where the Librarian (at least it doesn’t look to be my parents writing) wrote my name so it could be legible.

I think the fact that I kept this card shows how long I have loved Libraries and what they represent. What about you? What are your earliest memories of a library? Do you still have your first library card?