[H]ave you ever wondered why you are attracted to the role of librarian?

Actually, I'm not. I write. I draw and design small art, which can be reproduced, with help and individually interpreted, by small hands. I'm a storyteller both in little marks on paper and as performance art, though you'd never know it from reading me here. And I research my work, because every little thing has its own backstory. History is the biggest story of all in the human realm. Science is the overall big story, but my grasp of mathematics is too fragile for me to pursue that seriously.

I also teach. Would you learn about the Japanese? Tell their stories, view their art. The young will grasp things that will put Japan into a context they haven't seen before. Would you improve your handwriting? Tell the history of the Western alphabet; teach calligraphy. The young will learn the skills better because they want to produce the pretty work and give a gift to someone that they have made themselves; and much better than by practicing the circles and score marks of Palmer Method exercises. Would you learn about optics? Show how colors blend; produce a rainbow. The young will remember what they manipulate. The more senses are involved, the more memorable the learning. To teach is to learn; to develop learning programs is to learn how to research. To learn is to avoid brain atrophy and dying of boredom.

"Librarian", and specifically, "librarian for youth", is the only profession I have found that includes all these things, and lets me bounce around from thing to thing as more or less part of the job description. If I were to teach in schools, my range of subjects would be constricted by the inflexible, overstuffed curriculum. I would be confined to one age group. It's a calcifying prospect.

In a world full of experts, I aspire to a shallow knowledge of everything, so I can pull all those little pieces together into one picture as I sleep. The dreams are never remembered, but their story lines pop out in occasional moments of inspiration. It may amuse you that I aspire to shallowness, as much as I feel rueful admitting it. I comfort myself that the sea in its depth is known by few, but that everyone can appreciate wading along the beach and looking out at the vast beyond. I live as an interface, that place where the land meets the sea. What passes through my fingers is important to me, but its destination is more important than its passage. That destination varies with each wave of inquiry and each alluvial deposit of knowledge. It's never the same twice.

Library work also requires a certain amount of administration, which I absolutely loathe. I also hate the constant begging for money, which takes me away from things I would like to accomplish and share, as we are not allotted a line item in any taxation scheme and we are not in this business to turn a profit -- not a monetary one, anyway. But there is nothing perfect. This will do.

Regards--
Mary Anne