Library monitors, please; other volunteers welcome on Library

Librarian DiAnna Diaz

April 20, 2013 4:30 PM

Library monitors, please; other volunteers welcome by Librarian DiAnna Diaz

"Hey everyone, thanks for coming," DiAnna greeted the small group of students that had assembled around her librarian's desk at the time she had advertised. Due to reduced interest in the positions this term, she had named everyone who had signed up as a library monitor, but on this particular occasion she had welcomed other members of the student body to attend the meeting, too.

In her mid-twenties and naturally shorter than the majority of the upper years students, the librarian lived in platform heeled boots, partly to conceal her diminuative figure, and partly to prevent her flowing skirts from dropping several inches past her feet and trailing along the floor behind her. "We're going to start on the new display today, but I just want to say thanks for all your help over the years," as a few of the monitors had, in fact, volunteered their assitance for several years. "I'm sorry to say that I won't be your librarian next year, because I'll be leaving at the end of term." She didn't expect anyone would really mind her going, but they might notice her absence, or, more likely, Midnight's absence from the library when they returned to school in September. "It's been great working here, but I'm going to Europe to take part in a Divinations research program." It was an excellent opportunity for study, travel, employment, and it would give her that oush she had been needing to leave the 'just for now' job she'd taken as Sonora's librarian.

"So," she continued with the main focus of the meeting, "I thought it would be great if we could finish a new wall display by the end of term so that the new librarian arrives to see a fresh masterpiece." The space on the wall that had previously been taken up by a dusty old tapestry had been rejuvinated by DiAnna and her helpers into an informative but attractive introduction to how to use the library, which she hoped students would have found useful. Now, they needed a new theme, and DiAnna was open to suggestions. "Does anyone have ideas about what the next display should feature? We can discuss your ideas while we start to take the old one down, and we can start putting up the new display next week," she suggested.

0 Librarian DiAnna Diaz Library monitors, please; other volunteers welcome 0 Librarian DiAnna Diaz 1 5

Henny B-F-R

April 25, 2013 4:32 PM

Contributing to the ideas by Henny B-F-R

Henny arrived promptly in the library, interested to find out why they had all been gathered together. She felt a little scrunching in her stomach as the librarian announced that she was leaving. Part of that was that she preferred things not to change, so long as they were positive as they were. Miss Diaz was a very different person to Henny. She was... kooky, and Henny had never really understood how the qualities of liking Divination went with the practical temperament she felt was inherent to library work. But Miss Diaz was kind and she was creative – an asset Henny was generally lacking and admired greatly in those that did have it. Henny liked her.

She did not immediately offer an idea for the renewal of the board. She wasn't good at coming up with ideas like that on the spur of the moment. She tried to think about what she liked about the library as they began to remove the display. Her own favourite area was the fiction section but this board wasn't supposed to be about one person's preference, it was for everyone... So, if the other library monitors could talk about what they liked to... Or anyone else...

“How about our favourite books?” she asked Miss Diaz as they worked. “We could all – the library monitors – nominate one. And we could have a space for like... book of the month, or something, so anyone could be involved.

“I'm sorry you're leaving,” she added, now that she had the chance to speak to the librarian. “But happy for you – it sounds like a wonderful opportunity. I'd quite like to study in Europe one day,” she added. It was only very much a sort of plan, and the idea of being so far from home was in roughly equal measures exciting and upsetting. But Father was always going on about Europe being where all the culture was. Where all the greatest literature had come from. As that was what she wanted to study, it seemed to make sense to aim for its homeland. “Whereabouts are you going?” she asked.

Once she had finished her chat with the librarian, she drifted closer to some of the other monitors, giving a little glance to check they were out of earshot before whispering to them.

“We should get her something. Nothing fancy... just like, a card and some flowers or something, from all of us. I'll try to bring an envelope around when people are on duty.”

13 Henny B-F-R Contributing to the ideas 211 Henny B-F-R 0 5

Alicia Bauer

May 01, 2013 1:25 PM

Expanding on ideas (WotW). by Alicia Bauer

Overall, Alicia had to admit that the library hadn’t formed the best part of her year this time around, but she still felt a comfortable sense of competency as she went to participate in another display-design project. She, personally, had preferred the tapestry which had been there originally to what they had come up with to replace it, but understood the politics of a student-produced tribute to the library’s charms, and besides, this had been an open call, which meant she, as a Monitor, might finally have someone to rule over in here. Even if she didn’t, she could still be very useful as the person who made the lists, figured out what supplies they would need and how they would get them, and made it seem like all of this was much more essential than it probably really was. Artistic talent, at least of this kind, wasn’t one of the things she possessed an abundance of, but organizational and procurement talents were.

She smiled politely when everyone present was thanked for coming, but the expression, for a moment, dropped like a stone when Miss Diaz announced she was leaving. She put the smile back on as soon as she noticed it had faltered, but still had to blink back a feeling of betrayal as the nearly ex-librarian explained where she was going. Divinations research, really? Who did that? Seeing the future was…well, all right, she could think of several really interesting lines of inquiry which could come from the supposition that some people had a genuine talent to see the future, inquiries both philosophical and practical, but still. What if the next one didn’t want monitors, or was a complete ogre, or….

Get a grip, she told herself firmly, straightening her spine slightly. It didn’t matter. Miss Diaz was just an adult, and the new librarian, presumably, would be one as well; Alicia would assess the situation when it arose and decide how to play it then. For now, she had other things to focus on.

“I like that,” she offered her support when Henny suggested a favorite books display. For one thing, if it was the group of them putting their books in the display, the new librarian would see right away who the monitors were and that they were important, well-read, tasteful young people he could use as his predecessor had. She trusted her friends, anyway, not to pick stupid titles, and guessed she could take a try at persuading Waverly, or else just let her embarrass herself if she turned out not to have particularly good interests. That might be better; if she could just do a little more next year and keep her base of support among her friends solid, she thought she would have Head Girl, but it couldn’t hurt her cause at all if Waverly Canterbury was somehow discredited, even by the tiniest amount in the minds of even a small number of people. If Cepheus ever made a move, she would win Theresa Carey over to both prevent any conflicts of loyalty in him and to split the Pecari girls to make herself more secure, but…. “The only trouble might be narrowing down what our favorites are!” she laughed.

When Henny, after speaking with Diaz herself, proposed cards and flowers, Alicia smiled at her. “Great minds think alike,” she whispered back. “I was thinking of writing my sister Rachel and seeing if she could get in touch with more of the old ones who’ve graduated and see if we could get a bunch of nice notes, you know, together for her - or maybe a plaque or something, if enough were in on it.” She held up her hands, making a box she looked at as though it were that plaque. "'From the Library Monitors and Assistants of Sonora Academy, to Miss Diaz, with thanks for all you've done'?" she made up.

She found herself thinking very fast. Maybe this could be the project she needed. It was hard to do much with money directly in school, but if she could set up some kind of association of past library monitors, past prefects, something, then maybe that could work. Closer alumni ties to the school, more books for the library...that could work, maybe. She would have to write Anne about the idea when she got back to her room, once she sorted out the mess of academic paraphernalia she had left all over her bed when she came to this meeting, and see what her tutor thought; Momma and Jeremy would be helpful, too, and maybe Gramma Alma and Granddad and Gramma Nadia. Should she tell her father just for the sake of completeness?

For the second time, she shut down a line of thought about the future in favor of focusing on the present. "Or not. But we should definitely do something, I agree with you."

16 Alicia Bauer Expanding on ideas (WotW). 210 Alicia Bauer 0 5