I recently graduated from the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University. While I continue to search for my first job as a librarian, I work part time at Carmel Clay Public Library as a Tech Room Assistant. I was recently complaining to a friend about the lack of challenge in this job, it seemed my primary purpose was to assign computers to patrons and enforce policies in the Tech Room.

Even though, I spend most of my time sitting behind a desk assigning computers and doling out headphones, my job requires a significant amount of knowledge of computer operations.One of my other responsibilities is to assist the computer users with problems they encounter using the computers.  I am extremely skilled at using computers, so under normal circumstances, assisting patrons with email problems or questions about Word or Excel does not present very many challenges. However, like most libraries our computers have blocks and filters to prevent users from downloading or saving files to our computers. One of the problems encountered by computer users, is that many of the right click functions on the mouse have been disabled. So, if someone is writing a resume they want to attach to an email, they cannot save it to the computer unless they have a flash drive or floppy disk. We are so accustomed to using the right click, we don’t consider how we would perform the same functions without that particular option.  In the nine months I have worked in the tech room, I have had to become very adept at circumventing this feature. In fact, when I help a patron resolve one of these types of issues, some of these patrons treat me as if I am a genius-I’m not. I usually tell them,  it comes from years of experience and I am glad I could help.

There have been a couple of incidents in the tech room which, made realize that my job is not as unchallenging as I had lamented. A few weeks ago, a man, who had just moved here from another country was trying to print out a portion of his home country’s driver’s manual in English. He needed to prove he had the credentials to obtain a commercial drivers license in Indiana.  The man spoke very little English and knew very little about computers. He was able to view the information, but for some reason our computers kept blocking Google Translator. I explained the problem to him as the best I could, he called his sister who lived in Washington DC, who asked to speak to me. She and I tried several times to find a way to work around the problem. I finally had her send me the links via email, hoping I could open them and print them out on  the staff computer which has more functionality than the public computers. When that too, did not work, I finally decided that I would try to open both links at home.  From home I was able to open both links and print them out easily.  The next day the patron returned to pick up the print outs and was very grateful I was able to help him. I must admit that I do not always go to such lengths to resolve a patron’s problem, but I felt sympathy for this man because he had made several trips to the Indiana BMV.  Each time he was given different information how to meet the qualifications for obtaining his CDL. The BMV was making him provide an English translation of his native country’s drivers manual, instead of finding someone at the BMV who could translate the printout from Spanish to English.

Another problem, which has recently plagued many of our users, is due to the changes which Yahoo has made to its email platform. During the last few weeks, several users have complained that they cannot find things like the delete button or the send button. For some reason the buttons are being scrunched together in what Yahoo now calls classic email. At first, the only solution I could come up with was to migrate to the new email version. The older patrons weren’t happy about this, they were happy with Yahoo email as it was. Finally, I discovered  by going to the new version and then going back to the old version the problems magically vanish.

These examples and many others like them reminded me, why I became a librarian. It was because I want to help people with their research and information needs. Assisting library patrons doesn’t come with a disclaimer, help is available only if it is deemed it worthy enough. It means that as librarians or tech room assistants, we may have to unjam the printer or show patrons how to add money to an account for printing several times a day. We may have to perform a multitude of other tasks, which on the surface, we may consider meanial, but nonetheless, valuable to those we help.

One of the nicest things a tech room patron said to me was, you always look happy to be here. It was then, I realized, I am. I may not have my dream librarian job yet, but I now know, my job is as challenging and satisfying as I choose to let it be. It is a lesson I believe worth remembering- being a librarian does not come with a disclaimer.