cross-posted with my librarianship/writing blog:
Twenty years ago, on May 9th, I started my first full-time job.
It was a new library building in a new type of library: a hybrid large-public/community college library that supported the public reading (popular titles) and the academic (research books and journals).
It started just as the Internet exploded on the scene, before emailing took off and the demands for computer use increased. Back then the job was answering questions and finding articles off these newly networked online databases and making sure nobody was looking at porn in the far corners of the second floor.
It was my first full-time job. I had a workdesk and a staff lounge with new furniture and carpeting and chairs with rollers and everything (except a computer at each workdesk: computers back then were expensive, we had to share a staff computer to get work done).
So much has changed over those twenty years. Nowadays I suspect most of the college students and the public will come in with their own laptops and tablets to use instead of the public machines. I'd like to think the circulation numbers at North Regional has kept up (there *is* a nice-sized retirement community across the street so...), although Northwest Regional *was* the circ-checkout king of the system when I left Broward Libraries in 2003...
I hope to go back this year to the library's 20th anniversary. It started when I did. I'd like to go back and see who's left, who's coming back like I am, who's saying farewells and all...
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