Library Maintenance

Location: Walt Disney Magnet School

Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2013; 6-8 pm

It had been little over a year since my first Chicago Cares project, though I remember those early days as if they were yesterday.  It was shortly thereafter that I started maintaining my blog and I said in my introductory article that I had started volunteering with the intention of finding heroes. And I had, everywhere, in all of my projects.  Plus I had been exposed to many remarkable causes and organizations; the lives of the clients that we touched.  Then came One Brick, with its more social aspect, bigger projects and the fun. I had thoroughly enjoyed making new friends and attending events, something which I had never imagined just a year ago.  But recently I had found myself getting a bit tired, perhaps a bit burnt-out.  Or perhaps because all the parties and gala's that I had attended through One Brick had made me realize how lonely I still was.  But that was an unfair sentiment.  I had been privileged to be a part of this world, something that not many have had a chance to experience.  Maybe all I needed was to remember how it had all begun… I needed to go back to my roots.  I had said that it was unlikely that I would ever return to the Walt Disney Magnet School Library, but I felt a strong urge to return. So a day before the one-year anniversary of my first visit there, I found myself headed back the familiar way to this welcoming library.

The familiar Disney Magnet School

I was 10 minutes late in getting there and the group had already relocated to the first floor of the school.  I went upstairs to see Lori, our volunteer leader, along with Katie, the librarian. I remembered Lori from last year, and my first visit to the library had also been her first time as well.  And now she was a leader.  Well done!  The other volunteers were newcomers, including a mother and her teenage son.  It seems like he gets a school credit for volunteering and had chosen this activity.  Of all the projects on the Chicago Cares calendar, this is the one of the very few where the volunteers do not have to interact with clients and can work solo.  Thus it is extremely popular with those who want to volunteer, but not have any contact with others.  I think it is a great start for someone’s volunteering career and something that they can build on.

Katie started by asking the dreaded question, “Who wants to handle the Dewey section”.  My encounter with Dewey last year had taught me to avoid, and so I kept quiet.  Thankfully an unsuspecting new volunteer raised his hand and was dispatched to that section.  This meant that I was on the Fiction side with two other people.  I started carrying books down there and tried to avoid crowding by selecting aisles which did not have the other volunteers already present.  After stacking a few books, I got a sense for where everything was located and so things started moving much rapidly.  During one of my trips to an aisle, I saw that one of the volunteers had placed some books in the wrong section.  When I pointed it out to him, he said that he was temporarily stacking them while he put away some of the books; and looked irritated that I had called him out.  Oops!  I apologized, beat a hasty retreat, and tried to avoid him for the rest of the session.  Fortunately, he soon moved to the non-fiction section along with the other woman, meaning that I had the entire fiction section to myself.  I thoroughly enjoyed moving through the free aisles by myself and got a good workout carrying books from the front – where Lori was doing a fantastic job of organizing them - to the back of the library for stacking.  As I looked at some of the titles, they appeared to be interesting.  Besides the popular series like ‘Harry Potter’, there was something called “Midnight Mystery Stories”.  Looking at those, I felt that it was something I would have definitely enjoyed back in the day…or may even enjoy now, when indoors on cold nights! 

Slowly, fatigue was starting to set in, and Lori came over to help expedite the process for the fiction aisle.  Soon we were done with the section, and I dabbled a bit on the non-fiction side before our time was up.  Katie thanked everyone for coming and I walked back to the train station with Lori.  I complimented her on being a leader and she said that she was still learning, this being her second time.  She asked for advice and said that she wants to request Chicago Cares to increase the number of volunteers.  I told her that it would only make the aisles more crowded, and there was a way we could improve the process with the people that we had.  One way would be to go to a ‘buddy system’, where one person is arranging books by last name – say A to G, - or the Dewey code – say 500’s, - while the partner is stacking in one specific aisle.  This way the process not only becomes streamlined, but also prevents crowding.  Also, this is one of the more laborious projects and so as a leader if she was to spot someone out-of-breath or having difficulty in bending down, she should reassign them to less stressful tasks.  She listened closely and I hope that some of my suggestions would be implemented. 

It had been a good experience to come back.  Yeah, it had still been as exhausting as I had remembered it and something that I may not want to do every week.  But from a personal point of view, it had allowed me to remember what it was like in those early days, when it was just you and the task, either like this or with the clients.  Sure, I will still go back for the One Brick events and have a great time with the folks there.  However, sometimes you just need to step back and hit a reset.  This evening was all about that.