Why A Librarian?

Today a woman came into the Children's Room looking for reading material for her husband.  She was older than I was, so I think I can get away with calling her elderly.  Her husband had had some sort of episode that was like a stroke a year ago, but has fully recovered physically and has all his memory back.  Unfortunately, he is frustrated by his reading.  He can sound everything out - he recognizes all the phonics stuff - but the process is so agonizingly slow that by the time he finishes a paragraph, he can't remember what he read.  She was hoping that some children's books, with simpler sentences and more familiar words, would give him the practice he needed.  And he is now desperate enough to try anything.

I started by showing her the adult literacy materials we have (which still might be a bit advanced for him at this point) and then the beginning readers.  She asked about a particular book she remembered reading to her own children and a copy of that happened to be in as well.  I told her that I did storytimes and now and then could hold up a book and say, "This book is even older than Miss Marf."  We reminisced about favorite stories and I asked about Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.  She wasn't familiar with it, but knew her husband loved that sort of stuff.  She took a sampling from each area and then asked me, "Are you always here?"  Mostly in the mornings.  She would see how this went and maybe next time she would bring her husband in.

Maybe next time we can look at the children's book kits - the ones that come with the cd.  I wonder if they have a cd player in the home.  I know they don't have one in the car.  We were looking for books on cassette in the adult audios.  She went away very pleased.

Moments like this make me very happy in my job.  Moments like this show how much more useful a librarian is than a computer.