Library Ireland Week 8-13 March 2010: @ Your Library

What is your name?
Ann Marie Brophy

Where are you from?
Thurles, Co. Tipperary - the home of hurling.

Where do you work?
I’m Executive Librarian in Thurles Library, one of 12 branches in Tipperary Libraries. We are located in The Source, a building we share with an Arts Centre and public car park. The library element is made up of the branch library and Tipperary Studies, our local studies department. There are 9 of us working here – 2 based in Tipperary Studies, 6 in the branch and a library attendant.

What do you spend most of your day doing?
When you work in a public library, you just do what you have to do! So in any given day I can change a fuse, order stock, shelve, work at the desk, change the toilet roll, flex my Mary Fitzgerald muscles with a bit of make-and-do and give library tours.

However, most of my time is spent in administration. The library shares a building, so that brings its own set of building management guidelines. For example, I work with the Arts Centre and Town Council on snag lists, ordering oil and on general maintenance of the building. I also represent Tipperary Libraries on County Council partnership committees e.g. Play and Recreation Policy Advisory Group and Social Inclusion Measures. And of course, a big part of my day is planning for future events e.g. organising exhibitions for the gallery we share with the Arts Centre, booking authors for World Book Day, liaising with literacy tutors for National Adult Literacy Awareness Week – I could go on!

Did you always want to be a librarian, and if not what did you do before you became one?
I did an Arts degree in UCC, thinking I’d keep my options open. However, I was certain I didn’t want to teach. But I knew I loved reading and working with the public so this added up to a career in librarianship for me. When I was in college I did a short stint in the Boole Library and in the Royal Irish Academy and I was hooked. The variety of libraries and that you could end up working in anything from a public to an academic library really appealed to me.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
I think anyone working in a public library would agree – it’s the variety! I love that in one day I can go from talking about servicing boilers with engineers to discussing the works of Jodi Picoult with a borrower. And most importantly libraries are service driven, so answering borrower queries and just chatting with our users at the desk is very rewarding.

What do you avoid doing most?
Telling our users to keep quiet and trying to explain why our Internet sessions start on the hour. When it gets into rules and regulations I feel myself quickly slipping into ‘typical’ librarian mode.

Are you a ‘typical’ librarian and if so, how does this question make you mad?
Well, I have been known to wear long dangly earrings and say ssshhhh sometimes. And I own 2 Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figures – given as gifts I should add. I don’t know what’s typical anymore in librarians, but of all professions we are desperate to shake our uncool image. Think of websites like the Bellydancing Librarian, Lipstick Librarian, the Modified Librarian. Why do we feel the need to do this? I haven’t come across a Bellydancing Bankers website yet – have you? So this question makes me mad because whether we are ‘typical’ or not we should still be proud to be librarians!