10 Deadlines Only a Librarian Would Understand Posted on November 20, 2019 in Posts in 2019 by BrodartBrodart For librarians, deadlines invite a special chance to embrace the sometimes absurd—but always rewarding—task of meeting patrons’ unique and changing needs. Here are 10 deadlines that only a librarian can fully understand. Buy $100,000 worth of books in three days—but only titles NOT available in the U.S. Spanish Language Selector Nerissa Moran: “My funniest book deadline would be buying at the book fair in Guadalajara. Talk about a rush order!” Become a master on The Masters as fast as humanly possible. Richard Hallman, M.Ln.: “Way back when I was a news librarian, we had many deadline requests.” Here’s one Richard remembers well: “Find out everything you can, as fast as you can, about everyone who’s a member of Augusta National Golf Club, AKA ‘The Masters’ golf club.” Order at least 1,000 books per day. Fern Hallman, M.Ln.: “This was back in the day, before Bibz and the World Wide Web (1988), ordering an average of 1,000 books per day for new library branches in Atlanta.” Give children a library tour of a building you’re completely unfamiliar with. Gwen Vanderhage, MLIS: “The only crazy deadline I have faced would be: Show up as a substitute librarian at a branch and find out I need to take school kids on a tour in half an hour—but I've never been in this building before!” Set up a camera to welcome students to school on live TV—with NO prior experience. Suzanne Hawley, MLS: “I was hired to open a new school… My attention was solely focused on unpacking and organizing the collection on the new shelves, as well as managing the set-up of computers in the library… The principal mentioned to me that I would also oversee a TV studio. Late on the Friday before the first week of school, she told me she expected to welcome students live on TV for their first day. I Had NO idea how to operate ANYTHING in a TV studio. Wearily, I unpacked the camera and tried, without luck, to figure out how it sent signals to the classrooms. Never underestimate a librarian! The principal was seen on the TVs in every classroom at 9 a.m. the first day of school.” Find a way to wheel a TV downstairs for a group of toddlers—while the elevators are down. There is no limit to the lengths to which a librarian will go to help little ones gain a literary edge. Desperate times sometimes call for creativity. Luckily, librarian ingenuity often strikes at the eleventh hour. Never bet against a librarian under pressure. Find 26 wine corks and make a pumpkin out of them. Post-haste. Autumn opens the door to all kinds of unique opportunities for librarians. And that means unique challenges. Programs like Wine-Cork Pumpkin Making provide a chance to feature special activities for adults, giving them a new excuse to visit the library. Get an assignment to create an escape room in time for the library’s grand reopening—and on a shoestring budget. Escape rooms challenge those within to use problem-solving skills and sometimes motor skills to successfully unlock a door and emerge with a sense of accomplishment. Such a program, with adult supervision provided, could benefit library goers. Organizing the event, though? That’s a different challenge altogether! Learn everything you can about ska, starting yesterday. Maybe a fellow librarian was going to lead a program on ska featuring instruments the young attendees could make themselves. Unfortunately, she’s come down with a nasty bug and asked you to fill in. So you dive in and get to work. Librarians are masters of the impossible. Dress up as a children’s book character when the person scheduled to play that character suddenly cancels. There’s a unique adrenaline that comes with undertaking such a substantial feat with little to no prep time. But nothing beats putting a smile on someone else’s face or eliciting giggles. This is just a sampling of the quirky obstacles librarians often face. Odds are, you have your own fun anecdote about a library deadline no one else would understand. We hope some of these have brought a smile to your face. Remember, you’re not alone!