And the work continues...

 It's been a lot of work just getting to this point but at last we have all of the fiction and non-fiction books sorted into genres.  We set up two sorting tables and also used some of the shelves we had emptied out to provide space for sorting.  It was a time consuming job but I now have a brand new list of books I just have to read in the near future!  Some of these books I didn't even realize we had.  We truly do have a great selection for everyone interested in Irish culture and heritage.

When I arrived for my shift last weekend there was a surprise waiting for me.  Somehow Damien, our resident evil red-eyed bunny, found himself a friend.  Although the way he is checking him out I did wonder if they are friends or frenemies.  Apparently his name is Leo.  Now who would ever imagine naming a lion, Leo?  How original - or perhaps NOT.  

I must say, once sorting continued Leo began to looking a little shell-shocked as he sat amid the chaos that currently exists within our shelves.  However, he quickly adapted to his situation and began giving orders for further sorting.  Yup, he fits right in with Damien, that's for sure.

Actually, Leo's bossiness was okay because we could use all the suggestions we can get as we deal with this mess:

Leo quickly assessed the situation and told us to focus!!  He told us to concentrate on accomplishing one thing at a time and step number 1, under his direction, would be to finish clearing out all of the books on one side of the library only and place them into categories.  

Job One done!!  Well, for one side of the room at least Okay, okay, he caught me - we haven't decided to do with all of the large 'coffee table' books filled with beautiful pictures of Ireland.  Sadly, we just cannot keep them as they take up so much room and our library users are not particularly interested in them.  Since other libraries are not interested in them either, we're thinking of offering them to schools and day care centres so that the children can use them to cut out pictures for projects or art work.  It's sad but decisions like this have to be made by libraries all the time.

After finishing the clearing out of all the shelves except the large picture books, Leo then suggested we should clear out all the old magazines and posters in the cabinet and shelves in the far corner.  Job Two is currently underway and we've cleared out most of the old Shamrock Leaf magazines, keeping only a few copies of each of the older ones and storing 50 copies of each from the last five years for use at school and community heritage fairs.  

The top shelf of the cabinet now displays the current year's issues of History Ireland - an amazing Irish magazine which contains so many incredibly interesting articles on Irish history, politics, people, etc.  Through the generous donation of one of our members (Thank you so much, Gerry!) we have all of the issues from 1992 to the present (6 issues per year).  If you're looking for short reads on a variety of Irish subjects, you really need to check out one of these magazines and give them a try.  I know you'll love them!

The 2nd shelf will contain a few copies each of the two most recent years of Shamrock Leafs with 3 more years on the shelf behind them.  Things are looking much neater here but we still need to clear out the rest of this cabinet and finish emptying the shelves of the corner cabinet to make room for the research and genealogy materials.

Onwards and upwards!!!  

This week coming we will begin to re-shelve the non-fiction books and start clearing out the shelves on the other side of the room  so we can have space to re-shelve the fiction books.  Come in and pay us a visit on Thursday or Saturday between 10 and 2.  We have so many wonderful books and magazines to choose from for your next read.  We promise not to put you to work - unless you would really like to help, which is, of course, always appreciated!  

Cheers  from Marilyn, Susan and Bruce in the Irish Room!