Although I disagree that a place is just a place.
I am moving into a new position at a different library and am very excited about the change. For four years I have worked in a large, urban system - we have a certain 'battle' mentality here. We are battling our worst patrons, battling our city for money and respect, battling to keep our librarians employed and libraries open, and for a while there, battling our dramatically leaky roof . . . it's exhausting. And through it all, we buy books and cds and movies and ebooks and audio books and fiction and non-fiction and subscribe to databases and learn as much as we can and sit at our desks and help our patrons with a smile on our faces . . . because at the end of the day, our greatest battle is to stay here and continue to help our wonderful patrons. Without them, we do not exist. And it's a bit of a calling to be a librarian - who else would choose this? You have to want to give people information - see their glee when you find the book they wanted or know the name of the movie they are looking for or find that random phone number they are dying to have. It's all really quite wonderful.
I'm going to miss my co-workers. I have some really terrific co-workers - now friends - and I'll miss our lunches and desk time together. And my favorite "old men" patrons - Malcolm, Bill, Dave, William . . . you get to meet people, who change you for the better, and you would never have had contact with them otherwise. And the familiarity that comes from working with someone for four years and just looking at them and knowing exactly what they are thinking: "oh, this patron's a doozy!" "do you smell that?" "is that a cigar? please tell me that's a cigar!"
I'm happy to be moving forward with my career. In this new position I'll have the ability to do much of what I don't necessarily have the ability to do where I am. We are very bureaucratically layered in this current organization. The new one is smaller and everyone gets to do some of everything. That's actually my favorite way to work. When I was at the bookstores, my favorite was the super small one where you donned every hat every day - it was fun, never boring, and the time just flew by.
Basically, I'm just having a happy moment here - leaving something I did well and gave my all to -- moving on to something I can learn from, strive to, work hard, and give my all to as well. It's exciting!
