Hello, I’m Hamid, a work study student at the library. There are a few misconceptions about library workers, and I’d like to tell you about what I do.

Most of the time when I say that I work at a library, there is an assumption that I shush students and get to read all day.  This is not the case. There is always something that needs to be done in a library; the top priority is to keep the books on the shelves. There are lots of books checked out, left lying out, or even mailed by patrons every day, and those books eventually make it back to us.

If you look around the library, there’s much more than books; there are displays which were conceptualized by the librarians, but to become a reality they required the library backbone of student workers! We can be found dangling off ladders hanging mobiles, or power cleaning, or moving archived sets of National Geographic to the top shelves. Also, to make the public computers less public, we sanitize the mice and keyboards every day, and clean the fingerprints off screens as necessary.

Luckily, as patrons, you give us the break we need from our regular work, and we are glad to help you whenever we can. So ask us whenever you need anything, and even if you don’t be sure to say hello.