Vocational day - Oneonta

So after the last essay I wrote, I'll try to keep this brief. Today I visited;

• a literacy co-ordinator (former teacher) who helped to draft and work through the literacy programmes for all of the local elementary schools. Very interesting process!
• in the same place - an ESL/adult learning facility, which helps adult learners without high school diplomas to increase reading and maths skills, to achieve an equivalent qualification. I met one of the ESL groups and talked with them, which was great as we have very similar groups at work;

• one of the librarians at the state University library here in Oneonta, which was really different to my day-to-day job but really cool. They had electronic stacks!

and finally

• Huntington public library!! This was the closest to my daily job, so I could really talk details with the librarians who showed me around. The library used to be a house and the building had such a warm, cosy feel, full of nooks and crannies. The main librarian was passionate about YA (teenage) novels, so we talked about those a good deal and then she gave me the main tour. Then she passed me over to the children's librarian, which was really cool as we appear to (broadly) have the same job. The main differences that really interested me were the funding, and the "Friends of the Library" scheme over here, plus the fact that they do all of their own cataloguing and processing - our stock arrives more or less ready to go on the shelves.

I was very envious of their beautiful children's library in particular, of course!

I had a wonderful day all round and am very grateful to everyone who took the time to show me around their workplaces, and especially to Rosalie who was my wonderful host/guide for the day.