The Saga of the Unwanted Library Shelves

I haven’t had much to write about lately, so I thought I would share the saga of the shelves. As most of you know, I am in a wonderful new library facility. I have EVERYTHING I need, and almost everything I could WANT! Now has is that for an inner-city school? My book collection is probably my only weak link- and I have just spent a hunk of federal money to update that, so in a few months those thousands of dollars of new books will grace the shelves (although not the shelves referred to in this blog). Who would have thought that the most talked about, debated over, discussed, and touched item would be an empty book shelve. Let me try to give you guys some background- I have 6 sets of floor shelves- too many for the size of the library, and too many for the collection size. When I first began to unpack, it was obvious that I not only had too many shelves, but that they had been placed on the floor willy-nilly (no set amount of space between them). Let me preface this by saying, that even empty, my piano-moving self could not move these shelves. Then I also realized that the shelves were not placed up to handicap code- too close does not give access for wheelchairs. Okay- I thought I would contact the director of Media Services, my dear friend, Sadie. Sadie, who is quite a mover and shaker, came, looked, and also realized that the shelves needed to go. That is where the fun began. I cannot begin to relate all the fun it has been trying to get these shelves out of here. The Paris Peace Talks were certainly less complicated. There have been at least 15 groups of people come and look at the shelves, scratch their heads, and say something like- “We will see what we can do”. Since it has been over 3 months, I had pretty much decided to live with the shelves, until the handicap issue becomes a problem (we do not, at the present time, have any students or faculty in wheelchairs- but we have in the past, and I am certain that we will in the future). While the shelves are bare- they do serve as a prop for book displays- but I really would like for someone to adopt them. This week, 2 men, who gave the appearance of being the founding fathers of 2 men and a truck (they were pretty old guys) showed up to move the shelves. I was so happy. As they began to make preparation to move the shelves, I asked where they were moving them? They looked at one another, and then looked at me, and the younger of the two (about 65) said- “We were going to put them out in the hall.” Now keep in mind- these shelves weigh a ton and are about 10 feet long! I said, “No way. They have to go somewhere besides here,” to which I received a blank stare. So, the 2 men scratched their heads once again, and disappeared. I wonder how many more people will come to check on my shelves this year? I think I will start keeping count.