At the ready! on Library

Librarian DiAnna Diaz

February 10, 2012 11:31 AM

Calling my library minions. by Librarian DiAnna Diaz

Generally her duties as a librarian were fairly regular. Admittedly, this did have the potential from time to time to become repetetive and mundane, but every time DiAnna found herself settling too far into a routine, something would come along and shake her out of it - like she would be needed to cover teaching Divinations classes again for a short while - so the young librarian had never found this to be a problem. Today she had a new task to begin, but with the need to do a little lesson planning for the older years, she decided to call on her monitors and assistants to aide her in this particular effort. Many hands made light work, or so her step-mom liked to say.

"Hey everyone, thanks for coming," DiAnna greeted those who had responded to her request for their help. Quite a few of her assistants and all the monitors seemed to be around the library a lot to help out, anyway, but it was still nice when they came at her invitation. She tucked a thick strand of dark hair back behind her ear as she explained the situation to them. "While we have a lot of books here, there has been some concern among the Board of Governors - A.K.A the people you never meet who decide what happens to your education as such like - that plenty of our reference books are out of date, and so providing incorrect information." She tried to keep her tone neutral so that the students didn't pick up on the fact that she thought this exercise was a waste of time. Admittedly, up to date information was important, but when you came from a Muggle background and the internet was a familiar concept, old school books seemed to be such a small concern in comparison.

"Our task is to locate all the books that were published more than a hundred years ago, and decide whether or not they are still relevant." Considering the thousands of books in Sonora's stacks, this really was no mean feat. "So, ignore the history books and assume they're safe. Restricted books are monitored regularly, so they'll all be fine, too. Fiction books can likewise be left well alone. However, the rest of the library is fair game. Find any book that was published more than a hundred years ago, and bring it to this table here," she gestured to the large, empty surface to her right. "Once we've pulled out all the potentials for replacement we can then look objectively at whether or not they are still useful." Which wasn't really a task she would be entrusting to the assistants, but there was no need to mention that at this early stage in the search and destroy mission.

"As usual, any questions, come and see me. If you don't like the look of a book, don't open it. Thanks for your help, I appreciate it."

Subthreads:

At the ready! by Waverly Canterbury with Thad Pierce, Waverly

Receiving the call. by Alicia Bauer

0 Librarian DiAnna Diaz Calling my library minions. 0 Librarian DiAnna Diaz 1 5

Waverly Canterbury

February 12, 2012 4:22 PM

At the ready! by Waverly Canterbury

Waverly was glad that she finally had something to do as a library monitor. She had signed up to have a reason to spend more time in the library, but it turned out that she didn't really need an excuse. She was in the library quite a lot just perusing through the shelves and shelves and shelves of books, magical and non-magical. She really liked the fiction books and the historical ones on magic too. One day she thought it would be cool to teach a class on one of these. Smiling and humming to herself, she entered the library a little early to sit and read some of her book.

When Ms. Diaz started to talk, she listened carefully, and then she felt a little overwhelmed. Locating books that were published more than a hundred years ago? They had to find all of them? This library was huge! Waverly took in a sharp breath and let it just as quickly. She wouldn't let it get to her. Besides, she could look around in the sections she normally wouldn't have gone into.

So Waverly nodded and put her book into her backpack. Then she left it on the table to go search the shelves. She started in the Magical Creatures section, looking for the tons of books that may have been published more than a hundred years ago. She wondered just how they published books that long ago, especially in the wizarding world. She always felt like she was going back in time when she was here, but it was a cool feeling.

It pretty quiet except for the occasional rustle here and there, so she began to hum to herself quietly under her breath. She wasn't exactly sure how to do this correctly, so she looked at the bindings of books to see if they looked old. Some were terribly ratty, and she plucked it off the shelf and checked when it was published. It took a little bit of looking, but she found it. Halfway through the shelf and she already had four books in hand. She saw another library helper come into her row and she smiled. "Hi. There are so many books to look through. I'm really glad there are so many of us!" She couldn't imagine Ms. Diaz looking through all these by herself!

19 Waverly Canterbury At the ready! 218 Waverly Canterbury 0 5

Thad Pierce

February 25, 2012 8:31 PM

Ready for the rescue? by Thad Pierce

Thaddeus spent a fair amount of time in the library even when he wasn't assisting the monitors or the librarian. He'd been studying crafts lately in response to the Fair project he was working on with Evan. Origami was particularly fascinating and he'd been trying to get parchment to fold into useful shapes that Evan could incorporate into the . . . whatever it was that Evan was making.

Thad would have been happier with a clear plan and detailed designs that would provide a blueprint toward a finished product of obvious purpose, but Evan was the creative one between them and he seemed to think the way to craft was to just . . . see what happened. He seemed to have a point because none of Thad's origami attempts ever resulted in what he planned to make when he started either, but they came out well enough.

Today, though, he wasn't here for his project. He was here to help the librarian do whatever she called them all in for. As she explained, though, Thad's expression grew increasingly horrified. The Board of Governors wanted to remove books from Thad's grasp. How could they? Sure, the information in century old books may not be the most up-to-date, but that didn't mean they didn't have value!

She at least accepted that history was fine and that some may still be relevant, but Thad feared for the old books that discussed the going theories of yesteryear that never panned out.

It was with a terrified resolve to protect such misfits that Thad wandered out among the shelves to do as he was instructed. As he checked the years, he gave his own assessment over the book. If he thought it stood a good chance of passing Ms. Diaz's Relevance Test, he stacked it beside him.

If he thought it was questionable, he would point his wand at it, whisper the shrinking charm, and stash it in his robe pockets. The girl working in the same row he was humming quietly to herself and providing a good cover for his secretive casting. She seemed absorbed in her own work and didn't appear to notice his sedition against the Board of Governors' decree to purge these maligned and repressed books of yore.

He wasn't yet sure if he planned to steal them outright, maybe move them out to a collector who would protect and appreciate them, or return them to the library secretly after this inquisition was over. He could also perhaps he stash them safely in the bookshelves in Aladren's commonroom or find someplace to host an Underground Library for books that did not meet the accuracy standards of modern administrators.

Thad was in the process of stashing a one hundred and eighty year old book on potion ingredients into his pocket (he knew from personal experience that using this particular volume as a reference for Fawcett's essay on wormroot was a risky proposition fraught with potential deductions for out-of-date material; he'd fortunately used multiple sources to clear up some questions he'd had and so had avoided loosing points but someone less meticulous may not have been so lucky) when the girl stopped humming and addressed him.

Thad jumped about three inches into the air and looked at her with an expression of total guilt, culpability, and malfeasance caught in the act. He tried to cover it up as he realized she hadn't actually denounced his act of criminal misconduct but was in fact merely remarking on how many hands made for less work. It was, of course, too late for that, and he was horrible at denial anyway, but he forced a weak and sickly smile, and agreed, "Yeah. Divide and conquer."

1 Thad Pierce Ready for the rescue? 213 Thad Pierce 0 5

Waverly

February 27, 2012 7:57 PM

Ooh, I love a good rescue by Waverly

Waverly noticed that the boy was kind of jumpy when she talked to him, and, remembering what she had pretty much caught him doing, narrowed her green eyes at him and thrust her face towards his. "Are you stealing books?" she whispered accusingly. She couldn't even imagine stealing any books from a library, but as she thought about it more in the couple seconds she used to stare menacingly at him, she realized that what he was doing was good. These books were probably going to be thrown away or something, and they were just getting rid of them now! Waverly couldn't see that happening.

Instead of threatening to tell the librarian, she moved back and smiled, somewhat suspiciously. "I won't tell if you'll let me join you," she said, surprising even herself with this proposition. But come on! These books were going to be thrown away. And they were so full of information and stuff. She moved closer to the boy so she wouldn't have to speak as loudly. "Are you going to keep them?" she whispered, staring at the pile of books he had next to him.

She looked over at her own pile of books and thought of how some of them would just be tossed for newer and more updated books. The thought made her sad and, now seeing someone wanting to take the books to safety, reckless. She knew the shrinking charm. It would be so easy to do the same. The retributions weighed in Waverly's mind, but her desire to save the old, old books was too great. Throwing books away was just preposterous, especially because they were so old and magical. Maybe it was her sentimental side speaking, but when did Waverly not have a sentimental side?

0 Waverly Ooh, I love a good rescue 0 Waverly 0 5

Alicia Bauer

March 03, 2012 11:13 PM

Receiving the call. by Alicia Bauer

Joining the team of students working in the library had been mainly an act of strategy, a look toward the bigger picture, a step on her own version of the road to being first a prefect and then the Head Girl that her mother had once completed and her eldest sister was nearing the end of, but it hadn’t taken Alicia very long to notice other perks. Some of the tasks were dull, that was true, but it was also true that she couldn’t help but feel a little thrill whenever she was called by the librarian, whenever anything, really, happened with the job to make her feel important. Being a first year was in most ways the antithesis of being important, of feeling respected and worthwhile, so it was a pleasant change from the norm.

Today, called, then, she arrived at the gathering of the assistants and monitors feeling genuinely cheerful, smiling at even the monitors who outranked her, even at her sister. Being a library helper was, it seemed, something of a family occupation here at Sonora; not only was Rachel in it, but she had confirmed, after first deciding he would do for one if inquiries led to that conclusion and then a long and very interesting conversation which had actually at two points spilled out of the library, that Russell Layne was indeed a distant relative. One of her favorite friends was here, too, so she wasn’t even the lowest-standing of the junior members of the group. It was one of a very few cases where being part of something felt kind of like a good thing on its own account, and she didn’t object to that.

The assignment they were given didn’t sound like the greatest thing in the world, but she didn’t object too much to it, either. Having spent much of her conscious life learning Latin did give her a certain squeamishness about dismissing the value of old stuff, but only having any money because she’d grown up in a blended family and didn’t mind that her stepfather’s money was as recent as it got, almost, had given her a good appreciation for the modern and new, too. There were a lot of distasteful things about the modern and the new, but in what other environment could a girl whose Squib aunt had given birth to her first bastard child at age fifteen, whose own parents had both dropped out of school halfway through their seventh year and lived out thoroughly horrific lives before her mother wised up and had an incredible, providential moment of luck, hope to make something of herself? And knowledge was power, and recent knowledge was usually easier to apply to recent situations. Plus, it was the assignment, and Alicia seldom really questioned the morality of things. Nothing she had ever seen or been told by people she didn’t consider stupid made her think it was the least bit practical.

She thought of grabbing Thaddeus as a companion into the stacks, but he seemed content to go off on his own for now, so she did, too. It was more important to network, but it was nice, sometimes, to just be alone and have some quiet for ten seconds, and working in the stacks could let her do that for a while. Picking a section that wasn’t in one of the excluded categories at random, she began looking over books, judging age by eye and then pulling them down to check to see if her instincts were correct.

At length, she came to one she had actually read and paused for a moment, her hand on the spine. She was a little sentimental about books she’d actually read, and so a little reluctant to take it from its place. The shelves were very big, after all; it would be easy for anyone to think her eyes had just slipped over one, especially since she was not tall even for a first year. The shelves looked absolutely overwhelming, really, from her height, and never mind that she had spent a respectable portion of a year in them.

Slowly, she lowered her hand. No one would ever notice; inside an hour, she was sure that the librarian would forget which subjects Alicia brought to the table, anyway, if she even bothered to notice in the first place. Most people really were hugely unobservant, in her experience; she guessed she would have been, too, if Jeremy and Gramma Alma hadn’t gotten hold of her at an impressionable age. Balancing the load of books she already had on the edge of a shelf, she took out her wand and levitated them and then started back on the way to the table, thinking this looked like enough of a load for a first year to be able to float along.

Halfway back, she saw someone else coming out with their own books and stopped to make way. “Go ahead,” she said, with a bright smile. She could keep hers up, and being courteous won friends even when it made her want to tear her hair out.

16 Alicia Bauer Receiving the call. 210 Alicia Bauer 0 5

Thad Pierce

March 19, 2012 9:19 PM

Me, too. by Thad Pierce

Thad's eyes widened in horrified alarm as the girl - Waverly, he thought was her name - recognized what he was doing and called him on it. He was sure he wouldn't have used the word 'stealing' (that sounded really bad and illegal) but her allegation wasn't wrong. He was taking without permission and he felt a sudden and deep guilt about it.

He was therefore more than a little surprised when, rather than calling in the aurors, she instead smiled and then even asked to join in. Thad flushed, not quite sure how to respond to the mixed signals of suspicion and conspiracy he was getting from her. Worse, her offer to help was phrased like blackmail.

Under ordinary circumstances, conventional wisdom would demand that he not bow to blackmail. That would just invite further attempts to take advantage of a demonstrated weak spot. These circumstances were, however, not ordinary. It wasn't even that he'd been caught stealing. Rather, the futures of these old books were at stake, and that was not something he was willing to risk.

"Uh," he stammered. His eyes were wide and his voice was hushed to hide that it would otherwise be pitched higher than normal, but that didn't disguise that he was talking much more rapidly as well. "I was going to hide the ones I didn't think would pass Ms. Diaz's inspection so they didn't get thrown away. I hadn't figured out what to do with them yet. Do you know the shrinking charm?"

1 Thad Pierce Me, too. 213 Thad Pierce 0 5

Waverly

March 20, 2012 12:27 PM

So are we the good guys? by Waverly

It was like a comic book story. Sometimes the good guys had to do bad things for the common good. In this case, it was for the good of the books, and Waverly appreciated that. It looked like she had flustered the boy a little, whom she remembered as Thad from classes and other library things they'd had to do, but she ignored it. She'd be nervous too if she'd been caught.

"Yeah, I know the shrinking charm. Maybe we could donate them," Waverly whispered, looking at the extremely old books. "Is there some grand historical library in Arizona somewhere? Or I guess, just anywhere in America?" There had to be some place that liked to preserve old books. These books were far too valuable to just be thrown away.

It was time to get started. "I could finish the side I was doing and you can finish that side. And then do you want to split the library and then meet up afterwards? Then maybe we could think about what to do with all the books. Maybe we could research some place to put them all while we're in the library." She smiled. Research in the library was always the best. It was just ironic that they were researching to place books that they'd taken from a library into another library. Another thought suddenly struck Waverly. "You don't think Miss Diaz would notice, do you?"

0 Waverly So are we the good guys? 0 Waverly 0 5