Adrienne's been posting about her wonderful sabbatical week and I have to say that I'm completely jealous. Instead of having a sabbatical, I'm treading water until August, just trying to keep my head above the waves.
Don't get me wrong - we love that it's busy at our library! We're so happy that families are coming in to sign up for Summer Reading Club and attending our programs and using their library. But the other work doesn't go away just because you have 200 kids in your department on a rainy day. You still have committee meetings and time sheets to sign and book orders to place... on top of signing up kids for Summer Reading Club, doing programs, constantly straightening shelves and refilling displays, and helping kids find books (and placing holds on oh so many books that are all checked out).
During 9 months of the year, our paperback shelves are so full that we have to put half the books in storage. During June and July? Those paperback racks are empty. We had so many little ones at our Toddler Time this week that we're adding another weekly session. We are offering double the number of programs that we offered last summer and they're all full.
Our new-book shelves are nearly empty. On the (very) rare occasion that we get a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book in, we'll put it on a new-book shelf and time how long it takes for someone to snatch it up. It's been under 10 minutes every time*.
So, this is just to say... if you have a public librarian in your life, say something encouraging to her or him. We're treading water trying to help all the patrons, shelve all the books, and keep our departments in some semblance of order. And, even though we love it, we're counting down the days 'til August. When we'll be back to just the normal amounts of work. :)
*Yeah, all two times that we've actually had a DOAWK book in our department this summer...