If You Give a Librarian a Library....

If you give a librarian a library, 

she might want to clean it up a bit...

because she will want it to be the most productive and beautiful library of them all.

When she gets it all cleaned up, she will realize how beautiful it would look with a new rug.

When she gets a new rug, she will want round, colorful tables sitting around the new rug.

When she gets new rugs and tables, she will want to rearrange things.

When she gets bookshelves moved, library cleaned, books organized, library weeded, classes taught, thousands and thousands of books checked in and out, and every book in its place with new books on the shelves for the next school  year, it will be time for summer vacation.

When she comes back from summer vacation, she might find that a teacher and numerous students have created a classroom in one-fourth of her library space. 

And they might be there for the entire school year.

And she might find that her desk and work space have been transformed into a teacher workroom for the coming school year with bulletin board paper, laminator, cutting boards, copy machines, etc.   

And it might be there for the entire school year.

She might find books removed from shelves and shelves removed from the library space, furniture stacked up, and the contents of her desk and files loaded on a cart in the back of the library.

When she gets the much smaller, more crowded library space cleaned up and shelves rearranged, she will want work space with a desk for her,  and a quiet, private space for her library students.  

She might not get either one.

When that (long) year is over and she is told she will have her entire library space back for the next school year, she might want to rearrange the library.  

Again. 

She might want to move the teacher workroom out, move the classroom furniture and furnishings out, and move the shelves and books back to where they need to be.  She might move 3,000 books back to the shelves where they belong. 

She might be very tired.

Then she might want to get the library all cleaned up and place new books on the shelves for the students to see when they come back for the next school year.

When she comes back to her library at the end of the summer, she might find that she had received a surprise gift of new carpet installed in the library.

She might not be able to think of one single reason why a librarian would be happy about such a gift.

The carpet installers might have forgotten what bookshelves went where.

And they might have forgotten to clean up after themselves.

When the librarian looks at the chaos around her, she might want to cry.  

But then she might notice that the library needs to be painted.

For the first time ever.

When she gets the library painted, she might need to move the shelves, organize the books, and get everything clean and in its place and ready for the students.

And then she might like to hang some big, colorful kites.

And when she hangs some kites, she might look around...

and think that this surely must be the most productive, beautiful library of them all.