Reference

Oh, you should see the library. It is gone. Torn up rubble out of which may come a really cool place called Phoenix and the space of the old will be new and wonderful until it is not. For me there is an old sign that sits on a desk and it says "Reference". It is the only item that survived from the large circulation desk. I cleaned and cleared off the desk and finished by bathing it as you would a beloved car going on sale, or a house just purchased or a phoenix about to burn into ashes. But one item, the Reference sign, stays on my desk! That dream of so many years ago. That secret dream that was nourished out of the pain of a previous job that appeared to destroy my career. But, instead it lead me to a grand library almost 12 years ago. And now the library itself is a mass of old carpeting, dismantled cubicle walls, empty book shelves, trash bins, paper clips and staplers with no place to go. It is the "Electronic Library" and I sit here, the part-time librarian. My thoughts go back to the time when my children were young and I worked 9 hours a week shelving books. We lived in Ann Arbor, MI, the home of one of the best library programs in the country -- Hum . . . For a moment I feel like Gollum holding my "precious" . . .  the last Reference sign.