On a cool afternoon in October, Jessica sat out on her front porch,
waiting for her dad to return from the grocery store. She wanted to
ask him about going to the library. When she saw her dad coming down
the street, she ran down the block to greet him, crunching over piles
of dry leaves. “Dad, let’s go! I want to go to the library!
I have a book list!”
“Sure thing, Jessica,” Mr. Carlyle answered as he
shifted a bag of groceries onto his other arm. “That’s
a great idea. Do you know which book you’re looking for?”
“Yeah,” Jessica said. “I just got a book list
from my teacher today with a bunch of books I can read in my free
time. I found one that looks really cool.”
Mr. Carlyle smiled. “That sounds great, Jessica. Give me
an hour or so to finish a few chores first. Before we leave home,
we should find the public library branch closest to our house. There
are branches all over the county. Look on the back of the Nevada Parent
Report. I think there's a website listed that we can use to find the
closest library branch.”
“No problem, Dad,” Jessica said. She reached up and
took one of the brown paper bags from her father, and they started
back toward the house. Jessica bounced with anticipation of her trip
to the library.
A little while later, Jessica and her father logged onto the Nevada
State Libraries site (http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/nsla/directory/) and found a public library right in Carson City. She wrote down
the branch’s address, hours, and directions. In almost no time
at all, Jessica and her father were ready to go. They grabbed the
copy of the list Jessica had received from school, and drove over
to the library.
Jessica and her father arrived at the Carson City Library on North
Roop Street within a few minutes. Once inside the main room of the
library, Jessica and her father noticed a couple of younger kids looking
over children’s books with their parents. “I need to
ask a librarian where I can find Slake's Limbo by Felice Holman,” Jessica told her father.
Following the signs, the two made their way to the children’s
fiction section. The librarian, Mrs. Benson, sat nearby, looking over
some paperwork at her desk.
“Excuse me,” Mr. Carlyle said. “Can you help
my daughter find the book she is looking for?”
“I certainly can,” she replied. Looking at Jessica,
she smiled. “Do you have the name and author of the book?”
Jessica handed her the book list. “I found this book on
a list from my school,” she said, pointing to the title circled
on the crinkled page. “It's about a boy who lives in a subway.
Do you have it?”
“Let’s look for it in the electronic catalog,”
Mrs. Benson said. “I can show you what to do, and then the
next time you come you’ll be able to use the catalog on your
own.”
Jessica noticed that there were two types of computers in the library.
Some were located at stations or cubicles and were used for doing
research on the Internet. Other computers were just used for searching
the library catalog, which is what Mrs. Benson wanted to do.
When they reached a catalog computer, Mrs. Benson pulled out a
seat for Jessica. “Sit down here and we can enter the information
about your book,” she said, as Mr. Carlyle looked on from behind
Jessica’s chair.
“Looks like you can just enter the title of the book when
you use the catalog,” Mr. Carlyle said.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Benson said, “and
you can also search by the author, subject, or even a keyword.”
“I’ll just stick with the title for now,”
Jessica said. Then she typed in Slake's Limbo. The computer responded by showing a list of titles that matched
her search and the year each book was published. When Jessica saw
the title Slake's Limbo in blue print, she clicked
on it. She was led to a page that showed her the book’s status,
which told her which branches had the book and whether it was checked
out. The page indicated that the book was available at the Carson
City Library.
“Here’s the call number,” Jessica said, pointing
at the screen, “but where are the numbers?”
Mrs. Benson explained, “This book falls under the general
category of fiction, so instead of a number, you will see FIC for
fiction. When you go to the shelves marked fiction, you’ll
see that the books are in alphabetical order by authors’ last
names. Also be sure to look on the racks and book displays around
the children’s section. Sometimes you’ll find the book
you’re looking for in these places.”
Mrs. Benson then explained that the J in front of FIC indicated
that this book could be found in the children’s room (J = juvenile).
“The books are organized alphabetically by the author’s
last name,” she added, “so you will look in the H’s
for Holman.”
“Okay, I see how the system works,” Jessica said.
“Thanks! I want to go find Slake's Limbo and check it out before someone else does!”
“If you need anything else, you know where to find me,”
Mrs. Benson called as Jessica and her father headed to the fiction
section.
When they got there, Jessica quickly found Slake's Limbo. She looked over her book list one more time and saw another title
that caught her eye. “Dad, do you mind if I look for another
book? This one is nonfiction,” she said.
“Of course you can Jessica. Let's go ask the librarian about
how to search for a nonfiction book.”
Jessica and her father found Mrs. Benson at her desk. “Back
so soon?” she asked with a smile.
Jessica explained that she needed to find a nonfiction book. Mrs.
Benson brought him back to the computer and, after she searched for
the new title, she explained the results.
“Different nonfiction categories have their own sets of
numbers,” she pointed out. “For example, the 700’s
are for books about the arts. There you could find nonfiction books
about everything from William Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre to
the Mona Lisa.” She pointed across the
room towards the nonfiction collection. “Finally,” she
added, “the letter at the end stands for the first letter of
the author's last name.”
“Thanks so much. I can't wait to find more books!”
exclaimed Jessica, bringing her father towards the nonfiction section.
Jessica browsed through the nonfiction books, but soon decided
that one book would be enough to keep her occupied for now. Her father
brought her back over to the circulation desk, where she checked out
her first book from the library.
As she and her father went back outside to head home, Jessica clutched
her new book beneath her jacket, running her fingers across the cover
again and again.
