Belle is Lost in the Stacks!

I am very excited to be starring this weekend in Danielle's Lost in the Stacks feature on A Work in Progress. Here you will get to see my bookshelves and read about a few of the books that hold special meaning for me.

Danielle's is one of the book sites I followed for a year before I stepped out and started Belle, Book, and Candle on January 1, 2012. Danielle and I also exchanged snail-mail postcards as part of this year's Month of Letters Challenge held in February. 

I am posting here some additional photographs showing my bookshelves in situ. Closer shots of my shelves are on Danielle's site.

If this is your first visit to Belle, Book, and Candle, please stop by again. 

The Personal Library Kit

For all of us old-school librarians!

I have the soul of a librarian. My first job was as a Page in a small branch. I was in high school, worked an afternoon a week, and got paid fifty cents an hour to shelve books.

My mother worked in the local library system for years. Eventually she became head of one of the city's busiest branches - a job she held for over twenty years. On her last day, my father and I picked her up in a limousine and feted her with flowers and champagne.

She was a kind manager but one of her favorite sayings was, "This is not a democracy." That put the kabosh on any dissension concerning policies or duties. Nothing worse than a rebel librarian!

All this leads me to tell you about the perfect birthday gift I received from a friend who knows me, oh, too well. 

The Personal Library Kit is just the thing for those of us who miss the pockets in the back of library books and the stamped date-due cards. Here all in one compact box is a collection of items to make any librarian swoon:

20 self-adhesive pockets
20 checkout cards
Date stamp
Stamp pad
Genuine pencil

All of this old-school paraphernalia will allow me to keep track of books borrowed from my own library. 

My favorite item is the Date Stamp and I can't wait to use it soon.

Would anyone like to borrow a book?  

Paging the Library

My first job was as a Page for the public library. I worked at a small branch in my neighborhood after high school maybe one or two afternoons a week.

My duties consisted of shelving books, keeping general order, and occasionally checking books in and out. I got fired "for spending too much time with the books." Oh. It must have hurt the branch librarian to let me go because she was a good friend of my mother.

Mother was a librarian. For 20-some years she was head of one of the largest branches in the system. When she retired, my father and I picked her up in a black limousine and greeted her with flowers and champagne. Even after her retirement, she continued to work for the library system as a substitute.

I still run into people who worked with her and recall her with fond memories. She was a kind manager but one of her favorite sayings was: "This is not a democracy." That put the kabosh on any dissension. Nothing worse than a rebel librarian.