Here’s a question: how tidy should a library be?
You will have guessed by now that I am not a tidy person by nature. I try, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. I do my best to keep the shelving and pupils’ areas tidy so they can be used appropriately, but my own workspace is a guddle.
Unfortunately you have to walk past the guddle to get to the tidy.
I try to prioritise, but where should tidying come in the priority list? The library is a place where resources are constantly arriving, pupils (hopefully) constantly working, pages being printed and discarded, new purchases being delivered around your desk. Pupils walk away and leave things behind. There’s no time to clear up completely between classes. Maybe you need to keep the same materials for classes not coming back for a few days. Maybe you just get into a task needing lots of bits, like preparing books for shelving, and someone comes along and asks for your help. How are you supposed to keep on top of it?
I could tidy non-stop all day and I still wouldn’t clear the place. So how important is it? Well, I suppose I give myself away by the fact that if I know visitors are due, I go into overdrive clearing things away, staying late to sort it all out if necessary, so obviously it means something to me or I wouldn’t do it. And yet, it annoys me that the appearance is what suggests how good you are at your job.
Or maybe, it’s only annoying because I’m not a tidy person.
