By the grace of God, I got my library job back for the summer. I'm glad to be back - it was almost like I never left. Except of course there are now new people I must meet, and there's an odd sort of tension with coming back, because students who have worked there all year don't know me, but I probably know more about the library than they do. I left the library, but things continued on. The Google Project, to which I still feel like a godmother, was given to the care of another student. It's been a mini, subculture-shock. Life goes on without me. A necessary thing for one to learn in one's 20s.
One of my favorite parts of working at circulation is when a patron hands you a book to return, walks off, and only moments later the computer tells you that the book has been marked as 'Lost'. I feel a maternal sense of joy. Lost books are like children coming back home. I want to hold the book tight in my arms and welcome it back to the UW-Madison Library family. Books have to be gone for a long time to acquire the label 'Lost' in the system. Usually, a patron will claim that he/she returned it, then they find it months or even years later, and bring it back with a sheepish glint in their eye - a "you were right, I was wrong" look. I know it would be absolutely impossible (and completely against the purpose of a library), but I wish I could somehow retrieve every single book in our collection. It would be such a satisfying, full feeling. I like having all my proverbial ducks in a row - or rather, in a cardboard box for just a moment before I let them all go free again. I just want to have all the pieces there, to experience a moment of unity in a world that is fragmented.
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