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Has anyone ever been a library page? Did your employer know you had AS?
If you have been one, was it an easy job, or a hard job? It's usually only about 10-20 hrs per week, isn't it? Any info would be helpful.

Yes. No, as I don't know that I have AS and probably would be classed as having a lot of autism-spectrum traits at sub-clinical levels. It was easy. I put books on shelves in the right order. Sometimes I just walked through the shelves and checked that they were in the right order and moved any that were out of place. Sometimes I prepared books for circulation by putting the plastic covers, rubber stamps and labels on them. It was a work-study school job. I liked it. Most US public libraries have pages and library technicians work 15-20 hour weeks.

yesRose!! ! and amazingly i lost my temper as a page too after they had a complaint even here.. they said i 'shelved books too loudly'. ha! everyone i talked to found that ridiculous.. it is a wonderful job i loved it.. a dream for people that like order as you straighten and straighten and do all alphabeticaly.. i excelled at it and went on to work as a supervisor for the cleveland public library's main huge branch.. which is the longest position i have ever held.

rose also worked for the county library who got mad i believe and told me i should have TOLD them of 'disability'.. you dont have to tell them. That is what I was told.

Thanks so much for your input! I had one other question, for those who work or have worked as a library page; was it hard to organize a system for putting books away? I know this sounds like a weird question, but with a larger library, I don't want to run around from one corner of the library to the other, with no system for shelving the books, if you know what I mean. I don't want to be slow. And, you know, organization normally speeds things up.

Pinkrose, I'm glad you had such a great experience working in a library. If you check this, and if you don't mind me asking, I was a bit confused- were you saying that by others getting mad about not knowing about AS, did you mean they fired you for it? Or were they just upset, but you guys worked it out and you continued working there?

Hope this isn't too many annoying questions. I'm just nervous about working

Of course, if anybody has experience working in a library in a job other than a page, let me know about that, too!

It's pretty much built-in. You have a cart for rolling the books around. When you load it, load the books on it in the order of their call numbers. They may even have somebody who just sits there loading up carts. The shelves are arranged in the same order, so you just walk lazily up and down the aisles of shelves, popping a book into its place every couple of feet. You will not have to go darting across the library unless you find something that somebody has left very much out of place, or you accidentally shelve something from the 'New Books' or some other special temporary collection in the main collection.

This is just the job I'm looking for. Has everything i want in a job:

- some physical activity - I hardly get any exercise at the moment, and have put on about half a stone (7 lb) since I became unemployed in December

- hardly any face-to-face contact with customers - this is a biggie. I have always worked in administration/clerical, with mostly telephone contact with customers. I was put on a front-office reception window once, and totally bombed. Hated every minute, couldn't make eye contact with the customers, found myself hating them, ignoring the bell, so they stuck me down in the archives thinking it was a punishment, but I loved it.

- books, books, books! - yes, I know your job is to put them back on the shelves, but just to come into contact with all the books and what they contain.

- peace and quiet - there's something about a library, especially an academic library, mid-morning or -afternoon, no gossiping, and you just get on with your work.

I did some voluntary work in a library about 10 years ago, did all sorts, data entry, sorting library cards, and also assisting the librarian catalogue a huge consignment of books donated to the library (it was a university library). At lunchtimes I would go in 'the cage' (reserve collection) and pick out a book, my favourite was a book from 1830 describing a journey to the South Seas, fascinating.

Why is every job that i want combined with reception? Why aren't libraries hiring? It's so damn frustrating!

I wish you well on your search, unless you live in Northern California, then I'll be the competition!

Thanks, I'm not in Northern California, so hopefully we can both get a library job in our areas. Good luck with your search

Electric Kite, thanks for your description of the page job- it helped a lot!

If a page is the person who shuffles books, I have been that. I also worked repairing old and damaged books. That and being an ESL tutor are the only real jobs I've had.

Do you mean paige?

I don't think you asking if we've been a website or a site of paper.

Haven't been one but it shouldn't be too hard. They pulled kids out of elementary class to help the librarian refile books

It is traditional for the library page to have a book that he is reading mixed in with the ones on his cart. Every so often, he just crouches by the shelves in some empty area, with one hand on the stack, making a very half-hearted show of shelving, and reads. The Librarian proper knows this and probably won't care so long as everything circulates back to the shelves at reasonable speed and nobody notices you slacking off. The Librarian proper probably spends several hours a day trying to get amusing lies inserted into wikipedia, and doesn't want anybody to notice him slacking off.



I am likewise maddened by the way otherwise good-sounding jobs want you to be a frickin' receptionist also. I think they do it 'cause they think that anybody can work reception. I sure can't.

Uni libraries hire work-study students. Large public libraries have big turn-over for pages, but the competition for every opening is huge. HS kids, college-students, moms of young children, everybody who wants to work part time wants that darn job, and so does everybody who's hoping to work up to a library technician or circulation-clerk position and get the better pay and benefits. The thing to do is to watch the library's job postings, go armed with your resume, and submit a fresh application every time they post a new opening.



You're welcome. I know just how that is. Job postings never say exactly what you're really going to have to do. I get all unnerved about that, I can't picture the work and I know I'm gonna seem flustered and stupid the first day if I can't rehearse it in my head. And I wonder if there will be something about the job that I can't stand, and if it's really worth all the misery of applying and going to interviews and stuff.

Thanks to everyone who's commented!
I had another question I just thought of; people who have worked in libraries, did you ever encounter problems with 'strange' library patrons, by that I mean homeless-type or crazy type people who would hang out at the library? If so, was it a big problem for you or not?