Being Positive

I have a difficult time being positive. I tend to be naturally pessimistic. I don't know why, I just always have been. I've had this attitude that if I expect the worst, when it doesn't happen, I'll be happy. Someone once told me that was defeatist. I always saw it as realistic.

Anyway, my point: I've been feeling cautiously optimistic lately. And that's saying a lot since last week I had a slight melt down at work. It wasn't truly a melt down but I got frustrated by constantly hitting that wall of resistance that you tend to meet not only in libraries but in higher ed. And then today a faculty member needed some research help and during the process we began to talk about libraries. We discussed our library, other libraries, and libraries in general. We touched on the issues libraries face when it comes to collections, balancing access versus ownership, collaborative space verses collection space, and so on and so forth.

He had all positive things to say. That's really nice to hear since so much of what we hear from faculty is negative. They want to know why we don't have a specific book or journal or some obscure item that only two libraries in the world own. Why aren't we like Harvard/Yale/University of Chicago/University of [insert Big State U name here]? Why? Because we're not Big State U, and we aren't trying to be Big State U. So it's refreshing to have someone wander into the library, ask a few questions, start a conversation, and then tell you why you as an organization are doing things right.

It's so easy to focus on the negative. This has been a busy quarter. I'm in the process of putting together my annual review file for my job, and I can barely wrap my head around what I have done in the last three to six months. I didn't get everything done I wanted to, but I was damn close. Instead of focusing on what I didn't do, I'm trying to be impressed with what I did accomplish. And I kind of am.

About a month ago, a student came looking for me. He was looking for tax resources he thought were in gov docs, and he couldn't find them (they were in reference). Out of the blue he said, "You've really helped me out over the last few years." He made my day.

Librarians don't get thanked by many students, really. It's happened a few times in the last couple of years. One student came to see me the day before he graduated to thank me and tell me he couldn't've done it without me. He gave me a gift certificate to his parents' restaurant. I've never used it because they have little that's vegan. Instead I tacked it to my bulletin board as a reminder of why I do what I do and why I love what I do.