L is for Librarian

I could not find any occupations starting with L, so I decided to be a bit creative. I thought I might like to be history teacher when I left school but my life went down a different path and I gravitated towards working in a library.

My own occupation starts with L and over the past 45 years, has had many versions of Library Assistant, Library Officer and for the past 30 or so years has been Local History Librarian.

Working in a Library has changed over the last 4 decades but fundamentally stayed the same. Customers, reading, writing, listening and watching have stayed the same, but how we do things is vastly different.

When I first started, everything was done manually. Every book had a card, which had to removed when someone wanted to borrow, their membership was handwritten on the card and at the end of the day, all of these cards were put in order.  The average price of a book purchased by the Library was $9.72 for hardbacks and $2.24 for paperbacks. Membership cards, overdue & reservation notices was were all typed up on a typewriter and the catalogue searching through hundreds of cards in drawers.

Card catalogue drawers bring back memories. Photo: M. Nichols.

In 1984 our library joined the Australian Bibliographic Network and we began entering our holdings on a computer to the National Library of Australia. In the following two years our service was computerised. The card catalogue removed and replaced with public access computers (OPACS) to access the collection and new smaller style borrower's cards issued. The first public PC (an Apple IIE) was introduced for use by the public in 1988. Technology in libraries had begun. 

Who would have thought, when I started work in the 1980s, we would be reading or listening to books via online platforms on our phone or tablets? Today the average price of a book purchased by the Library is about $50 for hardbacks and $25 for trade paperbacks.

Family history in those days involved accessing pamphlet files, microfiche and microfilm. These days we still have the pamphlet files and some fiche and film but the majority of the searching is done online. We have more access to original documents online, digitised with more and more collections such as photographs and manuscripts  Research in some ways, is more thorough as more and more material becomes available online, but I think those people who have been researching for pre-2000s have more appreciation of where we are today.

Over the years, libraries have been reinventing themselves, and continue to play an important role in my life, as well as many others. Where else could I combine my passion for reading and history, in the one occupation?

This is my contribution to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (#AtoZChallenge)