Thursday, August 05, 2004

Let's try that again...the importance of dress-ups

I so hate it when I lose all my hard blogging work just because Blogger’s having a fit, and I can’t save my stuff quickly as soon as I see the error message because of some dorky flaw in the software which doesn’t let me select and copy my words….

Anyway, where was I?
I have realised why my efforts to inspire enthusiasm for Library Week have come to nothing. It’s because there has been no suggestion of dressing up.

The women at my library (there are only two men and neither of them suffer from this affliction) really love to dress up. Events which are organised by the library are most popular and positively acted upon, are those which act as an excuse to wear glamourous, frivolous or weird clothing. It might be Halloween Storytime, a Harry Potter-themed float for the Christmas Parade, a pretend Night at the Oscars or a quiz night with prizes for best-dressed. I did suggest donning tweeds, spectacles and hair up in buns for Library Week, but no-one went for it. It may have been due to the lack of tart-potential.

Tonight, while I was studiously sitting in my MLIS audio-conference, straining to hear the lecturer’s advice about our first assignment, I caught glimpses of the quiz participants. They were be-jeweled, be-sequined, fish-netted, pan caked, and stiletto-ed as they shrieked, yelled and guffawed in and out of the workroom where I was stationed. Although I was might irritated by the noise pollution, I couldn’t really begrudge them their dress-up opportunity.
But I will know better next time I want to get them interested in something…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The branch I used to work at was big on dressing up, too. Well, mainly it was our children's assistant - she kept coming up with theme days to match her storytimes (red, spring, etc) and of course, every holiday. She even brought stuff to make silly headgear (that was her specialty) so no staff had an excuse to not wear anything. It was fun the first 2 times, then it just got tiring.

We don't go in much for dressing up here, but our newest staff member is pretty into it, so it's starting to creep in.

- Tiny Little Librarian
http://tinylittlelibrarian.blog-city.com

Violet said...

Yeah it's definitely a childrens-librarian sorta thing