Impromptu Storytimes

Who says a librarian's job is boring?

Not me, that's for sure.

I had kind of a long day at the courthouse, and I still had a ton of schoolwork to do, but I also had to work at the library from 5 - 9. I was scheduled to be at the children's desk, which was kind of a relief because there are fewer interruptions (since we only have 2 public computers in the children's room, as opposed to the 13 or so in adult reference) and I'd probably have more time to catch up with schoolwork. Boy, was I mistaken!

I asked if there was anything going on tonight, and was told there wasn't. Things were reasonably busy, but nothing extraordinary. Until about 6:50, when some folks came in and asked where the storytime would be.

...What storytime? I checked the calendar, and sure enough, there it was: Storytime: 7 - 7:30.

Great. I'm only here one, sometimes two times, a week. So I started calling some of the other children's librarians to see if maybe someone was just running late, but no one picked up their phones. Even better.

So next thing I know it's 6:58 and I'm scrambling around the library trying to find spring-themed pictures books for the rather large crowd of preschoolers and their parents gathered at the back of the library. I eventually settled on When Will It Be Spring? by Catherine Walters and Wake Up, It's Spring! by Lisa Campbell Ernst, partly because they looked cute, but mostly because they were two of maybe four or five spring-themed books that weren't already checked out.

I didn't have the key to the storytime room and didn't want to waste anymore time looking for it, so we had to settle for pulling together a bunch of chairs in the back of the room. Amazingly enough, the storytime went really well, with kids commenting on the pictures and getting so close to the book that I actually had to ask them to back up. A much better problem to have than a lack of attention.

I didn't have enough time to plan any activities, but the stories took up most of the half hour, and the parents just seemed grateful that I was able to pull something together for them.

And to think, last summer I was absolutely terrified of doing a PLANNED storytime. My, how this librarian has grown. ;-)