I started my career in education as an elementary classroom teacher. During that time I had the opportunity to teach in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. My favorite grade was 2nd. 7-year olds have this wondrous way of showing you how much of the awesomeness of life you are missing when you view the world through the jaded lenses of old-fartness.

I distinctly remember, for example, looking out across the play field and seeing rain clouds crest over the mountains above our campus and tumble down the valley toward us. I calculated that the rain would arrive just in time to assure us of another day of indoor recess. “Well, that’s just great. Indoor recess, again…” I remember thinking. At the very moment that, that thought crossed my mind, my 2nd graders gathered at the lanai railing, looked out, and someone exclaimed, “Look how BIG the rainbow is!!!” After which we all spent the next few minutes just soaking in the beauty of our Hawaiian rainbow. I remember looking at my kids and thinking, “I can’t believe how lucky I am. I actually get paid to hang out with these people all day!!!”

Flash forward many, many, many years. My youthful old-fartness has progressed into end-of-career old-fartness. An affliction that makes me compelled to tell a listserv of librarians that on the outside my librarian persona is mostly calmly asking students in my crowded library to “Please keep voices conversational,” but in my head I’m thinking, “SHUT UP!!! SHUT UP!!! SHUT UP!!!”

Well, it is in this context that I find myself hosting a practicum student from the MLIS program at the University of Hawaii. Christian Mosher, our amazing practicum student, is a video arts teacher at another independent school in Honolulu. He is completing his final semester of work in the library program’s school librarianship track and is spending ten to twelve hours a week with us in the library. Christian has partnered  with us on everything from cataloging, to planning and presenting PD sessions for our faculty, to teaching a variety of library classes for a variety of age groups. I asked if he’d share a bit from his practicum journal about his perspective on his experience as a soon-to-be librarian and he decided that he wanted to share a little about his first day in our library.

Mr. Mosher in Action

This is what librarianship looks like through his not-old-fart eyes…

Today was my first day working with Dave Wee at Mid-Pacific Institute. I engaged in many different activities over the six hours I was there, but I will focus on one specific incident for this post.

It was early on in the day and I had just completed a walking tour of the campus. Dave and I were discussing the upcoming schedule for the day on the main floor in the library when the other librarian, Nicole Goff, walked a young boy up to us. He had already received assistance at the reception desk. A small slip of paper had the Dewey call number of 952 on it. Dave and I were asked to assist the young boy with locating the exact book. I observed how Dave handled the situation and eventually I stepped in and helped too. First, the call numbers were prominently posted on the ends of the shelves, so Dave asked the boy to find the 900’s. This boy may have been 10 or 11 years old. He found the right shelf and all three of us walked down the aisle. The young boy was looking all over for 952 when Dave reminded him that we read from top to bottom and from left to right. The boy organized his searching this way and found the 952 call number. Then a discussion was started about why the boy was looking for a specific book. David asked questions like what class is this for? And who is your teacher? The boy answered and we narrowed down the topic to Japanese Festivals. An awesome tip that was given to the boy was to look at the books to the left and to the right of the book that he located. Dave brought down five or six books for the boy to look through. Again, a search strategy was explained to the boy when David mentioned that oftentimes books have a table-of-contents in the front. The boy located the table-of-contents and went on to find the chapter on festivals. David and I flipped through a few books as well. A suggestion was made by Dave that the boy should be able to read and understand the content in the books. Those five or six books were narrowed down to three and the boy was sent on his way to check them out at the circulation clerk.

This impacted me because it was the very first experience that made me feel like a real librarian. Those that know me know that I am very passionate about integrating 21st century skills into library curriculum. This incident put me into a position that I never really evvisioned myself in. My assumption is that many LIS students do hope, desire, and envision themselves assisting patrons in the stacks. That hasn’t been the case for me; until now. The way that David interacted with the young boy was something that I now see myself doing. The satisfaction that the boy had when he left with three useful books is now something that I can strive to achieve when I assist students in the future.

The best standard to fit this incident would be Standard 3: Information and Knowledge. The specific element would be 3.1: Efficient and ethical information-seeking behavior. The young boy needed had a specific information need and David and I were able to help him locate it. What was exemplary was the fact that David modeled for the young boy how to locate the book on his own and how to locate other relevant books that would have similar or better information for him. This was also a collaborative effort as the boy was first assisted by the other librarian, then handed off to us, and then sent to the circulation clerk to complete the checkout of the books.

Like it was with my 7-year olds, sometimes I get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of doing school librarianship, that I don’t stop to take a moment and savor just how incredibly lucky we are to do what we do in our libraries every single day. Thank you, Christian, for reminding me to slow down and savor the joyous moments.

And please join me in congratulating Christian for PASSING HIS ORALS last week!

Our profession is in good hands…