Transitioning from an Academic Library to a Public Library

I spent my two years as a graduate student working part-time at my school’s reference desk. Our library was fantastic. Besides having dozens and dozens of computers available for both Office and research use, we had five floors of books and materials. One floor was devoted to computers and reference books. One floor was devoted to periodicals and academic journals, both paper-based and in microform. One floor was study carrolls, professor offices, and even leather couches for studying in comfort. And the other two floors were just books.

To keep such a library functioning required a small army. Besides the typical acquisitions, circulation, and other departments, we also had a large reference department. Though there were one or two all-purpose librarians, there was also one librarian devoted to every major subject area: arts and music, sciences, English and foreign languages, etc. Each subject librarian, besides being an expert in researching his or her area, was also a key player in the acquisition of hot new books and submitted requests for purchases regularly. As such, the library had nearly a million books on its shelves and was constantly cycling them: new books in, old ones out.

When I was on duty, sitting at the main reference desk waiting for a student, faculty member, staff member, or community member to ask for help (because our library was a repository for government documents, it was open to the public, despite belonging to the college), I would often search the New York Times website and Amazon.com for the latest, greatest titles in American literature. A quick search of the library’s catalog, some scribbles on a piece of scrap paper, and I was free to hop off my librarian’s seat, scurry down the stairs, and search the shelves for the books that I wanted. During the summer between my first and second years in the academic program, I took home an average of 3 books every week. Sometimes, the titles I wanted were already checked out to someone else; sometimes, they weren’t even in our system, though this was exceedingly rare. I never ran out of books, just time.

Now I live in a large suburb of Washington, D.C. I am a regular community member perusing the shelves of the public library. There aren’t that many computers there, and I don’t want to have to dig out my library ID every time I want to log on to search the catalog, so I search it from my computer at work. If I have a list of 20 books I’d like to read, I typically find that fewer than 5 are available, either because the library doesn’t own them or because they’re already checked out for an undetermined amount of time. I print out those records and swing by the library after work, where I’m usually able to find one or two of the five that should be available, and have to settle for other works by the authors that I’m looking for.

Sometimes this turns out well, as I’ve discovered books that turned out to be really good, like The Namesake by Lahiri. But other times, it’s just plain frustrating. Last night, I returned from the library feeling annoyed and pissed off, rather than excited about the new books under my arm. Better luck next time.