2 lousy kids

I came in yesterday morning after a weird, confusing (and yet still totally fun) weekend to a note from my supervisor saying that even though we hadn't talked about it, she was assuming I wouldn't be in until noon, since I had a program that evening. Hey, I don't know--so basically, long story short, I was staring down at a 12 hour day. One where I was the only youth services person in, since the other two were both at a children's librarianship conference. Yesterday was also the first day of storytime signup, so guess what all of my phonecalls were about. But I didn't care, because I had gotten a look at the signup sheet for that night's program and three 10th graders had been added, meaning-Hooray!-not just me and a bunch of middle schoolers. (In defense of myself: I don't dislike middleschoolers per se, just wasn't as sure what to do with them. And 12-yr-old girls in packs are still scary to this former social pariah.)
Thursday I had been at a videoconference where Patrick Jones was the speaker. Patrick Jones is also the man, despite all the shit I talk about the end of Things Change. Anyway, I was all fired up about doing stuff for the teens, to the teenhole, etc. So on Monday morning, I grab the page of face-front shelving copied out of the Demco catalog and head to the director's office. "I want to have the graphic novels separate," I say, "and I'd like this shelving for them." Fine and good. Done and done. Then comes, "When we have a large enough collection that they have to be put in order, I want them shelved by main entry." In other words, none of this half with fiction, some by author and some by title, half under the 741 Dewey number (don't ask me what the class is there--Dewey is completely beyond me still) and the handful where the subject pops out immediately to the cataloger-in-publication in their respective Dewey areas. What did all that mean? Our comics are all over the damn place, and there's no logic to where they get put. Director says no, gives a lot about library instruction, the intent of the catalog, insinuates that I'm not giving our patrons the benefit of the doubt. He'd look for Understanding Comics in the art section. He wants to know what I'd do with the ones that aren't actually novels. Now, something that people need to remember about the term "graphic novel" is that, at this point, it's being used by librarians who are too afraid to just call 'em comics. I don't care what prize Speigelman gets, or where Crumb's work is shown--it's still comics. "Graphic novel" denotes format, not content. And as far as the library instruction/dumbing down patrons angle, I was annoyed the first time I tried to find Maus in a library.
Then I mentioned that, when I finally get around to ordering Barry Ween: Boy Genius, I'd like to be able to place them next to Pedro and Me. Under the current classifications, I wouldn't be able to do that because catalogers have decided that the most important thing about the book, the thing that patrons will look for it under (which, after all, is the point of cataloging stuff), is that Pedro had AIDS and he died. I'd like more if all of Winick's stuff was together, in the same way that all of any other visual artist's works should be grouped together in a catalog.
Yeah, we didn't agree at all, but my immediate supervisor seems to think that, as the front-line person, I get to make the final call. I mean, he did have a point about the theoretical stuff, but nothing says chasing kids out of the library like having them not be able to use logic to find what they're after.
So I make it through the rest of the day, even get to collect some quotes for embroidering hankerchiefs in between signing up children for storytimes. The best part of that? Trying to guess age based on the quality and tone of the kid screaming in the background.
Then...my program. Which only 2 kids attended. My brainstorming party got rained out. And one of the kids, the girl, was kind of bitchy. Like, when I asked the boy (who was a couple years younger than her) about his favorite book, and then I asked her if she had read the book in question, she said, "Yeah, in like fourth grade." Just kind of mean, if you ask me. I kind of think she meant well, b/c she kept saying things about what other kids would be drawn in by, and I don't know if she meant to sound patronizing and pitying, but that's kind of how it came out. And no one wants to be patronized like that. But I've rescheduled for tomorrow night and most of the kids can make it then, so we'll see how it goes.
Oh, and there are kittens in the Bookmobile Annex and I've got dibs on one of 'em. Should I bother to clean Grace and Oscar's hair off my sweaters when there's just going to be more kitten fur on them soon?