Okay, I'm a librarian.

I've been one for 20 years.

I've never shelved books.

Ever.

Until last week.

Our two-story library is undergoing a renovation, requiring us to live on one floor while the other floor is under construction. We just re-opened the second floor and the circulating collection, and unpacked the books we stored for 4 months in cardboard boxes. It's great to see the books back on the shelves again.

I volunteered to shelve some of the extra books that were in circulation before we closed the collection down prior to the move from upstairs to down.

There's something wonderfully calming about replacing books back on the shelves. You see, the Library of Congress Classification System arranges books by subject - each call number forms a topic sitting on a shelf.
To take a wide range of books on creme brulee (we teach cooking), Albert Wendt (we teach literature), and introduction to logical reasoning (we teach philosophy), and place them on the shelves...well, it sounds weird, but it was a lot of fun. LC call numbers will do a number on your head, as working with them for long periods of time enables you to forget about the outside world, forget about your aching feet, and to forget about how friggin' cold the building is now that the air-conditioning is finally balanced correctly (the reason we closed was to replace the a/c).

One can find joy in the simplest of things. The reordering of chaos is one of these pleasures. The work has to be done for the benefit of others, right? Work is more fun if you can make a game of it.

And I did - I put aside at least 10 books I want to read! (I'm gonna have to put them on the floor next to my nightstand, where I have at least seven books I'm in various stages of reading.

What can I say?

I'm a librarian.

Go read a book and support your local library!