The OkieLegacy

Castle On The Hill
1937 The Ranger Annual
Northwestern State Teachers' College

Typical Day in the Library

by - Betty Remmle

The day opens at 7:50 a.m. when the students come scurrying in to check in the books they had out over night before, they hurry on to meet their first hour classes. The student workers appear and are greeted with a cheery "good-morning" from the head librarian. A faculty member wanders in and jots down titles to give to "us poor students" to read and report on. As everything settles smoothly into running order a faculty member calls up and would like to have information on a certain book that he wishes to order. While he holds the line we all rise to our feet (at the same time trying to rise to the occasion) and hurriedly look through the various U.S. catalogs to find the needed information. This found, again we all settle to work. Suddenly the bell right outside the office doors crashes the studious quietness. Most of us jump to our feet again, shuffling our work materials together and rush off to meet a class. Students hurry to the desk to sharpen pencils and to slam their books down on their way to classes.

About the middle of the hour when everything is quiet again, doors begin opening and students rush through the hall talking in rather loud tones about the test they had and remarking as college students often do, "I didn't know the answer, I just wrote something down." It is rather amusing to piece together the bits of conversation that float in on our stillness from the students in the halls and at the library desk. In the midst of the turmoil the head librarian appears at the door and quietness reigns again!

By mid-afternoon all of the student workers have returned from classes. The typewriters have to be moved onto the floor to make sufficient table room for our work, and then have to be replaced when typing has to be done. About the time we are settled another student worker appears with an armload of mail and adjustments must be made all over again. Then some cheerful worker remeinds us all that our surroundings have been greatly improved since this time last year. About the time we are finally settled at work a big box of books arrives on the scene. Our interest shifts. We begin unpacking them, trhilling to see the new titles and mentally choosing the ones which we would like to read but which we never seem to get to because our time is spent in trying to get them ready for other people. While unpacking the books an enthusiastic faculty member comes in and explains how necessary it is for him to have a certain book for his students to use just as soon as, or sooner than, possible. We hurry to find the desired book and begin to prepare it for the stacks. We soon discover that we received a different edition than we ordered so we leap over to that faculty member's office to inquire whether or not we should keep this particular edition in hand.

Another thrill is to see the faculty members come to the stacks and find new books on the shelves. Like ourselves they are as pleased as children over new tyous. Then again a faculty member will wait and watch for several days for some of his books that have arrived. When he repeatedly asks us when his books will be on the shelves we feel that he must surely onder what librarians do that it should take them so long to get a few books ready for use.

The books having been catalogued (sic), the necessary cards must now be typed. Someone discovers that someone else has typed several titles in red when they should have been in black so we begin erasing them. We wear out all of our erasers and one of the boys hurries over to the office to get some new ones. There they ask him (or would probably like to) how many typewriters we have in our department that we use so many erasers. We often wonder how we who work so carefully can make so many errors but we are surprised to find that it does happen. Before the error is corrected the NSTC newspaper reporter appears and would like to know the number of volumes we have in the library and the list of new books which we received this week. We look it up and inform her that there are now nearly 6000 volumes in the library. As we all settle to work once more someone appears to inform us that there is to be a luncheon served in the library in a few days so we begin to look forward to getting ourselves and the books shoveled out of the way until the library atmosphere wrecking event is over.

Quite often when several students are waiting at the desk for the books they want, someone's fountain pen goes dry and he would like to have some ink. In the confusion we almost offer him the paste pot from which to fill his pen. Another student would like to come into the stacks because he doesn't know what book he wants but we librarians are very firm and students must not be allowed in the stacks. Sometimes the students expect us to know a great deal more than we are capable of knowing. We are amused at times by the manner in which some students ask for books and again we are embarrassed when we don't know things which we should know. We have heard that in one library a person asked for "that pruple book that I had last month." Of course nothing like that has happened in our library but it seems to be a general belief that we should have a very good memory which we sometimes fail to have. Quite often the heads of the circulation and the reference departments are rather surprised at some of the information that they are asked to give but they very calmly set about the task of finding it and you would never guess that they were in any way confused.

The necessary material found, a student with only a few mintues to prepare her lesson settles feverishly to work. Another student comes in and sits down across the table from her and begins to tell her about the good time she had at the skating rink last night. Hereupon Miss Rader appears at the head of the table and informs them very nicely that they must be quiet. At times the men are hammering noisily in the stacks but the students go on working very calmly as though nothing is happening outside their study world. But evening does eleiminate this outside noise. Finally and at last 9:00 p.m. is reached. The students are informed that closing time has come. Lights are turned out. Doors are locked, and behold another day in the library slips into history.

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