Happy Trails For Us: My Reluctant Blog

I think I read about doing this on the blogging ideas thread, and it seemed like a very good idea for starting off the month. However, I started late and seemed to jump in with our new grandbaby and well, you know how it goes. Yesterday I remembered to take my camera to work and then actually remembered, at the end of the day, to take some pictures.

So what is it that I do? For the past nine years, I have been a high school librarian, at a Catholic girls' high school in mid-city Los Angeles. The school is called Bishop Conaty Our Lady of Loretto, a rather cumbersome name, but many years ago there was a merger with Bishop Conaty and Our Lady of Loretto; this was before my time. Bishop Conaty is the oldest girls' high school in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles; it started out decades ago known then merely as Girls' High - I am not sure what years Bishop Conaty reigned in Los Angeles but there is a lovely portrait of him in our foyer; somewhere along the line the school took on his name. While the demographics of the neighborhood have changed over the years, we have always served the daughters of the working poor.

I am the Jewish librarian at a Catholic school, which sometimes just amuses me, but really I like to think I bring another perspective, a certain vibe if you will, to the table. I am not required to teach religion, and I am more than capable to adhering to certain guidelines in my collection development. Beyond that, I think actually that working in a religious institution for most of a decade has certainly brought me closer to my own religion. And my administration has been nothing but generous in allowing me to take time off for my own religious observations.

This is the view from our parking lot, so this is where I head in the mornings:

This is actually the back of the school, the front is on a busy street, we come and go from the back.

My library is actually a very nice room, spacious and airy - the school was remodeled in the early 90's, post a major CA earthquake, to bring it up to code. Visitors from the diocese, many of whom apparently work in more cramped surroundings, always comment on the room.

Here's my traditional desk, where I actually don't sit very often - it is a relic from the days of Sr. Helen Clare, who ran this library for 26 years, taking it into the digital age, before she retired due to old age and illness. I only met her once, but every now and then I find something of hers in this desk:

This is actually where I spend my days:

And even though the bane of my existence is that my students really don't read, nor are they asked to read, we have a lot of very nice books:

Every library has some ephemera, those little things that give it some personality:

So how did I get here? After graduating from college, and after working in the university library part-time for 3 years, I went to UCLA and enrolled in their MLS program, for a master's in library science. I actually only did one year of two then, took a leave to marry and live in Canada for 3 years, then returned to school at UCLA, finishing my thesis pretty much the day I went into labor with our oldest. I actually never saw myself as a school librarian, as I had been working in the research library at UCLA, and then when the children came along, I had a very nice part time job in a public library not too far from home. Eventually I was a SAHM for many years, but the day my youngest matriculated from elementary school the principal offered me the job of running the elementary school library. Even though it was a classified position, it afforded me a small salary and a lot of flexibility while the two youngest finished school. When our second child headed for university I decided I would like a professional salary, what with two children in that tuition tunnel, and that's how I came to Bishop Conaty. Without a teaching credential, I am only "qualified" in the private sector; unless the Archdiocese closes our school or unless David makes a move to another part of the state, I will probably be here until I retire. In lieu of the big bucks, which is our joke, I enjoy summers and holiday breaks off; when I retire I look forward to actually traveling in those "off" seasons.

And that is what I do.