Library visitors and love notes

We had a great day in the library yesterday.  Everyone was breathing a sigh of relief that standardized testing was done, and we were back to our usual schedule of Friday assembly and class visits.  We were fortunate to have not one, but two WATCH D.O.G.S. on our campus, and they almost always have library time on their day's schedules.  Two more pairs of hands to shelve books is always a treat!  One of the dads opted to join his daughter during our read-aloud time in the Book Nook, and got to listen to my rendition of Library Lil in honor of National School Library Month.  I was sure to extol the virtues of free access to books and intellectual freedom!

Several of our usual volunteers also came by and lent a hand getting books back on the shelves, returning "strays" to their rightful places, and getting flyers ready for our upcoming book fair.  It's not hard to imagine how wonderful it is for my assistant and me to walk out of work on a Friday afternoon with shelving carts cleared, shelves straightened out, and one more task crossed off the neverending to-do list. 

Here's another detail to add to this fairy-tale sort of day we had...and it involves several sets of hairy legs and a bag of insects.  I walked out of the library restroom in the middle of the day to a delivery man from the district.  He was ready to hand off a half-dozen plastic terrariums with a tarantula in each, along with their requisite food supply of live crickets.  I knew one of our grade levels was working on a PBL unit on spiders, and I know that the library is the usual drop-off location for live animal loans, but I was not expecting this delivery!  

Luckily, I am not arachnophobic, and thanks to a former colleague who kept tarantulas in her classroom, I'm kinda fascinated by the creatures--as long as they're enclosed in glass or plastic.  I could even tell that one of them was going through a molt, and passed that info along to the teacher who came to pick them up.  

Later in the day, I was visited by three lovely young girls who presented me with a handwritten-in-marker acrostic note of my name, with admiration for my job.  I received some wonderful notes during Teacher Appreciation Week, but this one, out of the blue, just made me smile from ear to ear.  During an email exchange hashing out the details of a project, I had a colleague compliment and thank me for my efforts.  By the time I left work, I was bursting with the feeling that I am right where I need to be.  

Some colleagues who were lunching in the library were not as thrilled as I was during our arachnid visit, but for me...it was just another day among the stacks.  And I am one happy librarian, glad to be  there for all of it.