Fall Quarter – The Good, the Bad, the Ugly…

[Dawn Hawley]

Fall is my favorite season. I love the promise of fresh starts and abundance.

Every September I get back-to-school butterflies and an almost-irresistible urge to buy myself new shoes. I do the supply shopping for the library, and while I appreciate the efficiency of ordering online, I sometimes wish I could wheel a cart down a library supply aisle, perusing shelves of laminate, cd cases, barcodes, self-inking date chunkers, and labels of every size, color, and purpose. Thank goodness I have school-age kids! I can justify my Saturday trips to big box stores, where I find myself happily rummaging through the shelves of supplies, picking up flat bottles of glue, weighing plastic-wrapped reams of lined notebook paper in my hands, and stacking crinkly packets of number two pencils in my cart. I continue to buy new boxes of crayons every year, too, although none of my kids' teachers are asking for them anymore. Everybody needs a new set of crayons in the Fall. Fresh starts.

In the Fall I also haunt produce bins. I search for the perfect apple. On my way home from the STTACC conference in Wenatchee this year, I stopped at a fruit stand for newly picked apples, peaches, and pears. At work, as I stamped and labeled the newest issues of the library's journals, I discovered ways to arrange my fruit from the cover of Cooks Illustrated, and Sunset magazine inspired me to try layered yogurt berry parfaits with the summer-picked berries I had stashed in my freezer. In October, my family usually visits at least one county farm where we thump pumpkins and choose one or two to bring home for Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns. My co-workers bring in fresh tomatoes, avocados, carrots, green peppers and and other crunchy, fresh foods for lunch. Abundance.

Fall quarter is an interesting and exciting time in the library. The new students find us, and our regulars return to sit at their favorite tables, book the study rooms, and log in to the library computers. The questions we get at the begining of Fall quarter tend to be directional (Where is the Bookstore?), and informational (How do I log in to the computer? Do you have my text book here?). As the quarter goes along, the questions get meatier (What is APA formatting and how do I do it? Do you have any information on radiology of paranasal sinuses? I need a scholarly journal article on three types of eating disorders. Do you have any books on the varieties of petroleum bi-products? Is there a book on Amuse-Bouche? I have a paper/presentation/outline due today, my topic is Ebola/Diesel Emissions/Soccer in India... Can you look at what I have so far?). We try to be accessable and welcoming, and we do all we can to get the best information we can find into the hands of the people who need it.

For me, Fall quarter was good, and I don't have anything bad or ugly to report.

[Traci Harpine]

I agree with Barb... have you ever considered becoming a writer?

[Barb]

You have a very nice way with words.

[Lesley Ann Wallace]

I am sure that thunking really does tell something...I watched my dad thunk a monkey between it's eyes when it had a hold of my finger in South America. Last finger he probably ever chomped on!

What I think is fascinating is the way you can document the changes in questions throughout the quarter. I think if you kept a record of those for the teachers that inspire them...it could only help applaud and inform their instruction.