The Nights at the Library

Usually, I do not get called out to work at this particular library too often. But this night I am to report to the university Curriculum library (is where education majors can sign out old textbooks to complete various course projects using old schoolbooks) and start their yearly perpetual inventory. For those you do not know a perpetual inventory is where librarians and if there are assistants count all the books in said library to make sure all the books were returned. This is one tedious job duty, but if one really loves books no matter the content the job is not that bad, and it gives one a sense of accomplishment.

I reported to the university curriculum library at 9PM that evening for I had wait till night classes were finished for the night. The head director of the curriculum library led me where their library was located, which in a way is kind of spooky for it was in the basement of this old university. She led me to the main room and said for tonight the only two things that you need to do is reshelve a few of the old school textbooks that were just brought back and then start the inventory process. She showed me which section to start. This job will take a few nights and if you want you can come back this whole week and complete the job. You only have from 9PM to 2AM each night for the cleaning crews and a few other ancillary staff needs to be done before night security gets here.

At precisely 9PM I started to reshelve those few old schoolbooks and straightened the desk. That first duty only took a few minutes, and all got quiet and suddenly I heard those all familiar words "Read the book. Read the book." Really, I did not expect to hear those words at this library, but I did. This is going to be a kind of fun night for me for actually I had most of the textbooks as a student from elementary through high school. I started with the old basal readers that were used way before I started school and worked through Betts-Welsh readers moving on to the Houghton-Mifflin readers and so on through all the readers. It was kind of fun picking those books up and you could if you closed your eyes see yourself as a student learning the skills these books taught. "Read the book."

I looked around I as usual I did not see any book laying out anywhere, so I continued on doing the inventory working through old Math books, English books. Each section was from kindergarten through high school. We were allowed a short break of 15 minutes just enough time to get a drink and small snack. For me this snack was a can of pop and a granola bar or maybe a candy bar of some kind.

After break I continued the inventory working through the social studies textbooks. The director said that if I could make it to this section I could pick from that point the next night. "Read the book." With a laptop computer this inventory is kind of fun for I back during an old summer job we had to use the old card catalog and flip each card to make sure it was on the right shelf, and it was a two-person job. Now all one has to do is read the screen and look at the books on shelf for the correct order and if one is missing write it down. I looked at the clock and it was now 1:30AM and I marked where I stopped and wrote a note to the director where I stopped. "Read the book. Read the book." I heard one more time, so I looked around all the bookshelves and saw on the desk there was a book.

For some reason I approached this desk as if it was an old teacher's desk for it looked like one of those old wooden desks that they used back in the early 70's if your elementary school was old and been around for years. As I walked up to the desk I could have sworn, I heard all my old teachers now saying that phrase "Read the book." This book was a pre-primer of the Betts-Welsh readers 'Time to Play" where Jimmy and Sue find all certain ways to play and have fun and still learn the rules of living safely. I had this book and remembered. One must play by the rules no matter how old one gets to be.