Toria Hamilton's Leftover Fluff: Reasons my job is better than yours

1. The job comes with a title.

“This is a really nice library!” said the elderly British lady, visiting from overseas.

Her daughter Rebecca, one of our regular patrons, agreed. “The kids love it here,” she said.

“And it’s so big, too! You can’t really tell from outside, but there’s so much space!”

“Actually, ma’am,” I interjected. “it’s bigger on the inside.”

“Ooh! Like a Tardis!” said Rebecca.

“Well,” I said, “it can take you to other times and places…”

But wait a minute, I thought. If I’m driving this Tardis, does that make me a Time Lord?

2. The Dewey Decimal System is flexible.

I was putting spine labels on the new books when I came across a book about cabinetry. "Nonfiction..." I thought. "740s... possibly 749 for furniture..."

I checked the sheet of spine labels in front of me...

But none of those looked right.

I used my barcode scanner to look up the book in the computer.

"Fiction? That's not right." I put a note on it and prepared to send it back to Cheri, our cataloger, for correction.

Then I wrote a fictional story about cabinetry to go with it.

"Once upon a time, in the mythical land of Cabinetry, there lived a bookcase who dreamed of being a knight. Now, as it happens, a built-in from the village down the lane dreamed of being a squire. 'Let us set out together,' said the bookcase, 'and seek adventures!' One day, just after the spring festival, a dragon came to Cabinetry..."

3. There are dinosaurs involved.
Originally created to advertise an event, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates (from left to right) now live in the craft room and delight the children after story time.

Things I got to say at work that totally made sense at the time: "I need more paper. That was just a practice dinosaur." See also, "I'll get right on that. Let me just hide this T-Rex in the closet for now."

4. It's the finest library in the empire.