Thursday, June 12, 2014

The German Problem


Well, we are done with the students for the summer. My last two days will be mostly clerical and organizational work in the library. We got back every student checkout except one, which I think is pretty darn impressive.

I got off work at noon yesterday and came straight home. I thought I'd do the laundry, clean a bit and take a nap, but instead our neighbor Chris dropped by and stayed a while. I washed clothes while we talked, but I had to forego the rest.

At work we've been having a debate about what to do with our two shelves of German language books. The school no longer offers a German program except through independent study with a tutor, and they are rarely if ever checked out -- so a few days ago we decided to discard the books to make room for others. (They're mostly sad, decrepit '80s paperback copies of Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll, as well as a German version of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," called "Die Möwe Jonathan.")

Well, no sooner did I remove the books from the system than a student told me he's taking German independently next year -- and I also realized that we have a handful of other books in languages we don't offer, like Danish, Swedish and Italian. How can we justify dumping the German and keeping those? So I decided in the middle of the night last night (when I think about these things) to put one or two German books back on the shelf. Maybe Jonathan will live to fly another day.


We display a lot of student artwork in the library, including a series of animal heads. Some of that artwork will be removed this summer, so I took a photo of this rabbit -- which I particularly like -- just in case he disappears!

(Top photo: Maida Vale, on Tuesday.)

7 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

What difficult decisions a library has to make which I never really considered!
And you know what- I would BUY that rabbit head. It's awesome.

ellen abbott said...

I read a definition of the word 'junk' on FB...stuff you keep for years and then throw out two weeks before you need it. Love the rabbit head.

Linda Sue said...

yes, we all agree that the rabbit is glorious and cool! German books are probably easily got, the other languages, not so much. Hope your move goes well.

Sharon said...

Fliegen Jonathan fliegen!

Lynne said...

Funny Bunny!

e said...

Do the public libraries, retirement communities or OXFAM take donations of books? You might inquire should further weeding become necessary...

The Bug said...

So I just caught up on THREE WEEKS worth of your posts - ha! I really wish I had the discipline to write something every day - it's such a great way to journal (at least journal the public stuff). Maybe I'll try to be more intentional this summer. We shall see.

And I LOVE the rabbit head!