The Front Side of the Back Room

A more extended library conversation to break up all of the "lifestyle" chat. Today I've had a couple of occasions to break into "PR work" for the library, something that I think I'll be doing more of as I move up the career ladder. Acquisitions generally is a nice place to be to be out of PR fray: it's about processing materials, details of records, etc. It's called the "back room" for a reason. Two circumstances are bringing me out and requiring some more in-depth PR work than I've ever done. One has to do with faculty very concerned about collecting patterns in a specific subject area. I usually don't meet with faculty, but it looks as if I'm about to. The other has to do with our book sales of non-added gift material and how they are handled. I'm learning how political all of this is. I know that books are near and dear to folks' hearts. We say up here that there are no bibliographic emergencies (coined by one of the catalogers), and I feel that's true. We say that mostly to cut down on whatever sense of urgency is placed upon us by those who feel that there are bibliographic emergencies. But, books touch such a sensitive spot in people that they will get very emotional about book-matters. I must not forget that as my role takes on more of a public face.