Welcome to our Library Joy Series in honor of National Library Week! Here we are highlighting some of our amazing staff to share how and why they love what they do. Next up is Rachel, Youth Services Supervisor at South Branch Library.
Why did you decide to get into Library work?
Initially, I just fell into it! The library I had attended as a child needed someone to shelve books on Saturdays. I applied, and they hired me on the spot! I was 16 years old and had no idea that I was starting down a lifelong career path. But I continue to choose to work in libraries because I love the people and because every day is different.
What is your favorite part about working for a library?
My favorite part of my job is problem-solving, and there is so much of it to do! Each day can include: helping a patron find a book when they've forgotten the title, troubleshooting technology, figuring out how to rearrange collections to maximize space, and identifying community programming needs and finding partners to help us address them. It's really fun for me to puzzle out all of those pieces. I love thinking creatively to tackle problems and find solutions. I am also passionate about storytimes and early literacy. I've done over 1,000 storytimes in my time with KCKPL!
Do you have a book or collections recommendation?
My book recommendation is the Dungeon Crawler Carl series I tore through the first book the day after Christmas this year and finished up book 7 in the series by February!
What's a fun fact about you?
I'm pretty handy and love a good DIY project. So far this year, my husband and I have built a fire pit area, put in some raised garden beds, and refinished our hardwood floors.
Keep checking back all week to meet more of our staff or stop by one of locations today!
Dungeon Crawler Carl
The apocalypse will be televised! A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style. You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big. You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game - with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy. They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.