Monday, May 12, 2008

Collections, Special

A good librarian should collect something. Anything. House your collection of unicorn figurines, Pez dispensers, or dog skulls in your library workspace to show your coworkers what a well-rounded individual you are.

Ask the readers: Got a coworker who collects weird stuff? Let us know in the comments section below.

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pigs.

Lindsey said...

Novelty pencils.

Sarah Mae said...

I also collect novelty pencils and I even designed a faceted classification scheme for them in my subject cataloging class. I haven't cataloged them, yet. :-)

Anonymous said...

I collect hats... and when I ran a school library they sat on the top of all the shelves. Now I've moved to the dark side, I'm a vendor, and having that kind of stuff in the office is frowned upon!

Anonymous said...

Floaty pens.

Unknown said...

I collect Sunshine Buddies.

Abigail said...

Hedgehog figurines

Anonymous said...

someone in cataloging collects beanie babies...she uses a book truck to display them all.

Anonymous said...

penguins

Erica said...

i collect music boxes and faeries, and sometimes...faerie music boxes. also bookmarks, nifty rocks and shells, jewelry, pretty ribbons, shoes, it goes on and on. i'm like some sort of bespectacled, pierced, über-nerdy magpie.

Anonymous said...

someone at cataloguing collect those troll dolls with the bright green & purpule hair ...

Janet said...

Moose. What? They're cool!

Anonymous said...

Star Wars Mr. Potato Heads

Kate said...

my first library boss collected plates with those creepy "realistic" china doll heads on them. she also had an entire wall in her office decoupaged with magazine pictures of baby dolls. yeah- welcome to the profession...

T Scott said...

Museums.
http://tscott.typepad.com/tsp/2008/04/collecting.html

Heidi said...

We're in a merged library/IT situation here. One of the IT guys is a roller coaster nut, and has a mini coaster set up all around his cube. You even have to walk under it to enter.

I myself have a collection of 1960s and 1970s ceramic planters full of cacti on the large windowsill near my desk.

Anonymous said...

I collect fines.

Liam Hegarty said...

I collect odd miscellaneous scraps of paper and display them on my desk. My collection is almost a foot high!

Sonya said...

Ohhh snap! (to the anonymous post)

Anyone else have the phenomenon in a public library where donations come in that are too good to get rid of, but don't fit the collection? At my last library, the cataloger started keeping the outdated dating and sex books, like Seventeen's Guide to Widening your World, which includes things like carrying a camera (or other complicated thing) to school, because then you have an excuse to have a boy show you how to use it.

That's our special collection.

Anonymous said...

Guess I'm a bad librarian: I despise collecting. I hate seeing people's collections of cluttery junk.

bibliojo said...

looking at my desk, the unsuspecting might believe that I collect three things: empty plastic water bottles, cardboard flags, and dust
:-)
Jo

Anonymous said...

Husband collects beer label art. I collect sheep. We're both librarians.

Walt Lessun said...

inkwells

Anonymous said...

I like to collect the souls of unsuspecting patrons.

Anonymous said...

I love when patrons bring their odd collections to us. Recently someone donated three large boxes of cut up paper. Yep- they gave us scratch paper because libraries don't generate enough of our own.

Stratford Public Library said...

I collect erasers - the fancy kind...

Anonymous said...

Co-worker has her rubber duck collection (in various costumes) lining file cabinets.

They're right in front of her collection of African violets.

Anonymous said...

ooh, ooh ... I used to have a serious beer can collection displayed on the upper shelf of the book cases in my office. Highlight was that there were viewable through big windows from the main entrance of our building. On a seminary campus.

Anonymous said...

Resentment and floating time.

Anonymous said...

My boss collects Gumby figures. He dresses them up for the holidays. It's pretty fantastic.

Kevin Musgrove said...

Around me I see frogs, bears, licorice wrappers, Elvisabilia, false passports, football rattles, knitted animals...

Makes my desk full of reports, notes and flipcharts-to-be-translated look very business-like

Anonymous said...

my boss collects wigs

Anonymous said...

One collects shoes, and the other collects anything having to do with Holstein cattle.

Anonymous said...

My co-worker displays her collection of Marshmellow peeps--yum.

Anonymous said...

Surprised I am the first person to post that my coworker collects what seems like millions of small CAT figurines.

My other co-workers collect pets that they really can't afford to take care of. And then they collect bills :)

Anonymous said...

GAAAA!! GAAAA!! No cat stuff please noooooooooooooooooooooooooo....they're coming to take me away hahahohoheehee....

Anonymous said...

Stubby Pencils -- the smaller the better

Anonymous said...

I collect Hello Kitty stuff - pens, little figures, coin purse, etc.

Anonymous said...

Dust bunnies. At home, too.

Anonymous said...

Voodoo Dolls of fellow librarians.

Anonymous said...

just an observation on my cubicle mates--those who insist on cluttering up their limited workspace with their "collectibles" usually aren't in need of space in which to work...

Heather said...

I collect salt & pepper shakers. Preferably vintage, but I'm not strict about that. The weirder the better. I don't have a huge collection. It's nice to have a collection because it allows my mother-in-law and step-mother-in-law to buy Christmas/birthday gifts without having to think too hard about what I'd like. I suppose that I'm kind of hard to shop for.

Aviva said...

False passports? Is there something more to Mr. Musgrove's profession? ;D

f is for Fer; he failed to floss said...

Ennui. All flavors.

Lizzy said...

Not quite a librarian (I'm working on it... Literally.) However, I collect Sock Monkeys. :D

Anonymous said...

Yarn!

Karen said...

Skull imagery:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/klg19/2262418751/

Beth Gallaway said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Beth Gallaway said...

I collect owl figurines.
___
{o,o}
|)__)
-"-"-

Anonymous said...

One of my ex-co workers collected two things I found unusual for a man in his early thirties: 1) Teapots and 2) fortune cookie fortune slips [he has a special album to display them in!]

velocibadgergirl said...

I collect animal skulls (real ones), but don't display them at work. And it's not as creepy as it sounds, I promise!

Anonymous said...

I collect Alaska related posters and dogs. All quite tastefully displayed in my cube.

Zobe said...

Are you there Blog, It's me, Margaret collects Pyrex.

Zobe said...

Are you there Blog, It's me, Margaret collects Pyrex.

Anonymous said...

You people get desks?! Maybe I'd collect something if they gave us even a scrap of personal space. All we get are teeny-tiny lockers in a back room.

Harumph!

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I collect "logo" espresso coffee cups. So far I have over a hundred.
The kids say I should get out more, for some reason they don't want to come with me!

Thoughts on Life and Millinery. said...

My Director collected gargoyles.
Nothing like a performace review surrounded by gargoyles.

Anonymous said...

How about vintage ties, like from the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, etc.