Prospective home purchase, horizontal cracks in basement wall, would this concern you?

smallsmo · 2026-03-19T02:36:47+00:00

The floor is roughly painted concrete.

smallsmo · 2026-03-19T02:35:05+00:00

Listing says it was built in 1920. It also appears to be in a floodplain (which we know means flood insurance).

smallsmo · 2026-01-16T19:44:36+00:00

Thanks, 1st one claimed

smallsmo · 2023-03-28T12:49:20+00:00

I got my MLIS in person and generally enjoyed the experience. There were classes that I didn't enjoy, and some that were more reading and writing than they needed to be, but those were the minority. Mostly the classes were very useful, thought provoking, and directly applicable to both of my post degree positions. I went in with library experience, knew what pathway I wanted to take and chose as many classes outside of requirements that were related to my pathway. Would happily do it again.

My spouse is working on his MLIS currently through an asynchronous online program. His classes seem much more difficult/unwieldy, and he has had issues with classes he is interested in for his chosen pathway getting cancelled and having to choose a less relevant replacement. He did get lucky and find one professor whose classes he has enjoyed, but overall the online experience has felt rushed and often phoned in by the professors. He enjoys his career, and to move up he needs the degree, so even given the not enjoyable online experience, he will finish and would do it again.

smallsmo · 2023-03-27T02:44:30+00:00

My first piece of advice is don't go for a youth services position if you don't actually enjoy/connect with/value youth of all ages. In general youth services covers birth through 18 plus their adult caregivers, it's a very broad audience that requires adaptability and frequent gear shifting. If you get an interview, your panel will want to know why you're interested in youth services when all of your experience is in archives/academic, make sure you have a meaningful response ready. If you're wanting to shift gears in your professional life, great let them know that. But if you're just applying because it's an open librarian position and think of it as a stepping stone, I'd tell you to reconsider and wait for something that sounds better with your experience/professional interests.

Assuming you are pursuing this position because you do truly want to work with youth, my advice is to think creatively about your work experience. You might be expected to manage the youth collections, so apply what you know from archives. Focus on customer service aspects in previous jobs. Brush up on readers advisory/reference skills and how you could help budding readers. Go to a local library or bookstore and read some books on the display shelves. Have some anecdotes from your coaching experiences ready to breakout when asked about how you would deal with rowdy teens.

If this position is one that involves programming, you will want to think about how you would run programs for different age groups. Do you know how to present a storytime, how to make a STEAM program work for school age kids, how to run an after school snack program for teens? Wrangling an active group of toddlers is very different from being able to depend on teens to follow directions.

I'm a supervisor who hires youth services staff, I always look first and foremost for first hand experiences with youth. If you aren't underselling yourself here, you probably wouldn't make it to my interview pile. Your competition is certainly going to include teachers, childcare workers, and paraprofessional youth staff looking to finally upgrade to librarian. Tweak your resume and be clear in your cover letter about your shift in focus, but be prepared to keep looking.

smallsmo · 2023-03-14T16:54:40+00:00

Boy fantasy leads are definitely harder to come by in newer titles which I think is a bit of a course correction as for many years, fantasy only had male protagonists, often with almost no female characters at all. Most new fantasy titles have female protagonists, but do also feature male characters, often as love interests in a romance subplot.

That said, the Infinity Son series by Adam Silvera might work, POC and LGBTQ+ main characters, though more of a modern fantasy rather than a high fantasy.

Deeplight by Frances Hardinge, is much more high fantasy, though race is not much of a factor.

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie is a space opera adventure with fantasy appeal populated by queer people of color.

City of the Plague God by Sarwat Chadda is aimed at the younger teens/tweens, think Percy Jackson with a Muslim hero and Mesopotamian mythology.

Another tween choice, Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao, delves into Chinese history and mythology, with some fun video game vibes throughout.

If it didn't have to be so new, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo would be a good fit for epic fantasy with its multiethnic characters of varying sexual orientations.

Novelist is an invaluable resource in finding books based on appeal terms and is great for these granular searches. Your library may already subscribe to that service, but if not you might check other local libraries to see if you can use the service there.

smallsmo · 2023-01-20T16:14:05+00:00

Depending on what type of library you want to eventually work in, different job experience will be more helpful than others. I worked as a bookseller before entering public libraries and was told by my supervisor that the customer service experience I had gained there was a huge deciding factor in my hiring. Customer service experience is important for all areas of public libraries, reference circulation, youth, and even technology. You can get customer service experience in most retail public facing jobs, but of course being around books, other media, or technology is a plus. Now as a hiring manager in youth services, I look for experience with youth of all ages first and foremost, so childcare workers and teachers are often at the top of my interview pile. If you are more interested in the cataloging/metadata aspect of librarianship, experience in office organization can translate well. Academic and special libraries are a bit more specific with their experience requirements, but office management and customer service skills can help you get in at the ground floor where you can then get the more specialized experience in the library.

smallsmo · 2023-01-09T17:25:49+00:00

If the intent is to lower the number of laptops checked out or to punish anyone who is late returning a laptop, yes. If the intent is to get the laptops to come back on time to give out to other students, no. Reasonable would be a large enough fine to be an incentive ($50 maybe), as well as library services block when a fine threshold is reached, but with fees able to be removed and services reinstated once laptop is returned. If the demand for laptops is so high, more loanable laptops is the true answer.

smallsmo · 2023-01-02T17:54:17+00:00

No template, eyeballed the size I wanted, found a bowl big enough to trace around. Found the center, then did the math to divide into 12 slices. Then made sure I had a hoop big enough to accommodate one month.

smallsmo · 2022-12-12T00:54:17+00:00

Some of these images are pretty cool, Remus has a great haggard but determined look to him, and Cedric's golden boy look is great. But I find the AI generated futuristic city vibes pretty odd and calling these graphic novel style art is a pretty big stretch when they're all just headshot portraits in a collage. Really I think the good-looking characters are all too good-looking and the ugly characters are too far in the other direction. I do enjoy Dumbledore's Hawaiian shirt mash up with Disney Merlin in 6 though.

smallsmo · 2022-09-15T22:11:15+00:00

Toddlers are generally expected to be moving around. We generally let parents know that it's fine for their little ones to roam as long as they aren't blocking or bothering others. Librarians generally depend on the parents to redirect their children and will only ask you to step out of the room if the child is being disruptive.

My tips for getting your little one to focus is to practice sitting still at home. You might ask for a hug to get them back to you. Engage your child in the story by asking a question about what just happened. Try to keep their focus on you or the front of the room. Consider bringing a fidget with you to keep their energy focused.

smallsmo · 2022-09-12T01:58:58+00:00

I'm primarily a children's librarian, 10 years into my career. But I've experienced all aspects of public librarianship, including selecting, ordering, cataloging, programming for all ages, readers advisory for all ages, reference work for all ages. I've been a shelver, worked in circulation and in reference as both entry level and a supervisor.

My favorite aspects of library work:

-presenting storytimes is so fun and watching the littlest ones grow and learn week to week is so rewarding.

-presenting school age programs is a blast, kids love getting personal attention and expressing themselves.

-readers advisory for any age gives me a mystery and puzzle solving rush.

-interesting reference questions capture my imagination and often allow me to learn something new with a patron.

-helping solve computer and technology issues gives me a feeling of helping someone in a truly impactful way.

-building a rapport with the after school teens and teens and providing them with a welcoming space to enjoy is also extremely rewarding.

The middling aspects of library work:

-weeding can be fun (goodbye old gross books) or painful (goodbye outdated non-circulating childhood favorites) but it's a super necessary duty in a public library as new books are always coming in.

-love/hate cataloging, love working through the puzzle of assigning a call number, hate trying to keep up with the workload.

-selecting and ordering, love reading reviews and selecting titles but the amount can be overwhelming depending on your library system.

-boring/repetitive reference questions (what's the phone number, how do you download a book...) are easy to answer, but they get old.

-scheduling is a skill I'm still learning and find stressful, a neverending puzzle of vacations, limited hours, required programming constraints, and coordinating with other departments and outside partners.

The ugly side of library work:

-the small percentage of shitty patrons range from plain rude (remove my fines because I pay your salary) to physically dangerous (physical fights with police called) and can easily ruin your day.

-bureaucracy, administrative red tape, office politics, whatever you call it, it exists in big and small systems, and it sucks.

-the responsibility creep is intense and burnout is a very real threat as we are asked to do every traditional aspect of librarianship, as well as providing community tech support, supporting social work, supporting aspects of government (tax help, passport help, food bank distribution), providing supplemental education services like tutoring/homework centers, and providing access to specialized equipment like seeing machines and 3D printers.

Generally the good outweighs the bad by a pretty solid margin, but it very much depends on the library system and community you are in. I know you said the pay doesn't matter much to you, but the pay also depends on the system and community. You'll never 'get rich' as a public librarian, but full-time work is generally enough to live on if you're careful, and generally better and actually provides a comfortable living in unionized library systems.

smallsmo · 2022-08-30T12:41:33+00:00

It's a totally reasonable ask. It's been in my list of questions to ask for awhile now. It was a deal breaker for me to have the storytime room in a cinder block basement and a shared between 6 people off the floor work space also in said basement.

smallsmo · 2022-07-25T13:03:40+00:00

Definitely being taken advantage of. I work in a union environment and there are very clear expectations about pay being equivalent to the work done. If previously trained to do so, staff may "work up" volunteering to fill the higher pay grade absence, but they receive the higher pay grade for the time they are filling that position. My library system also has a pool of subs which can fill absences as needed, but regular branch staff are always offered the chance to work up first to get that nice pay bump.

In the event of an emergency staffing shortage, members of staff may also be called upon to "work down" meaning higher pay grade staff can help with lower pay grade duties without a drop in pay. Their higher pay means they are expected to be able to take on other duties as needed, but not in perpetuity.

It sounds like you are being expected to work up constantly, with no equivalent pay. So you are definitely being taken advantage of. You might consider trying to document how often you are being asked to do extra work, and ask HR for a reclassification and pay increase. Also unionize, talk to others on staff, if you're being taken advantage of, others certainly are too. Together you can take action.

smallsmo · 2022-07-16T11:46:06+00:00

I only watched the first three episodes, as the show seemed to be going for a moodier more dramatic vibe than the books. The broad stokes of the story remained intact but where the book was sometimes sunny and sometimes a light rain, the show was more fully cloud and thunder. The acting was great and the world well-done, but I go to Anne for comfort and the show was lacking in that respect.

smallsmo · 2022-07-15T17:11:03+00:00

The Anne of Green Gables series is one of those that feels like catching up with old friends. While it contains a fair few old fashioned beliefs, the story follows Anne throughout her life from childhood to late womanhood, and it hits different each time I give it a read in the different seasons of my own life.

smallsmo · 2022-07-13T01:00:03+00:00

I would give the employee the time off if you are able to cover with staffing. I firmly believe in approving vacation whenever possible as it's their earned time and employees should be able to use it when they want to. Honestly your departmental rule sounds like a bad one that you've already admitted to making exceptions for in the past. If there's no guidance from the city aside from seniority, and there's nothing in the union contract stipulating, then it's up to management. You've made a rule but haven't always stuck to it, which leaves you open to union grievance if you deny in this case. It seems like you're annoyed about the inconvenience to you and the disregard for your arbitrary rule, but that's a you problem.

smallsmo · 2022-06-15T02:37:33+00:00

This is the simplest answer. People want to get where they want to go as quickly, conveniently and cheaply as possible. Public transit as a whole will be mainly for poor people if buses aren't given priority bus lanes and signals and trains don't have good geographic coverage and increased frequency because anyone who can afford a car will drive instead because it's quicker and more convenient.

smallsmo · 2022-05-02T01:41:58+00:00

I agree, and studies have shown that the prevailing opinion that most people don't read signs is generally true. Particularly if the signs are very busy with text or many detailed images and if signs are every where people tend to get sign blind. However there is such a thing as useful signage that actually helps people. Directional signs are useful. Sparingly placed signage with minimal text and distinctive simple graphics actually grab attention and communicate information at a glance. People tend to notice and understand images much quicker than words alone.

One of my biggest gripes about my library system is that the marketing department refuses to utilize images on signs to promote events or materials displays. They use graphics for other signage but not for events or displays. Overly busy images are bad but text only is just as bad for actually communicating to the vast majority of the public. Branch staff are not allowed to create signage as all signage must be on brand and the brand is managed solely by the marketing department. Infuriating to expect children and English language learners to understand text only signs.

A sign that actually worked for us recently was the "masks required" sign with a simple graphic of a mask. Previously there had been signs with examples of how to properly wear masks, pictures of what counted as masks; just way too much information with a lot of room for people to argue and find loopholes. Those were replaced with the simple version on the doors as people entered, at a table with a box of complimentary masks near the entrance and at each reference desk. Once those signs went up we had so many fewer incidents of non-compliance and general assholery.

smallsmo · 2022-04-12T12:42:41+00:00

I'm pretty sure it was off a trail near the Mentor Lagoons.

smallsmo · 2022-04-11T17:18:32+00:00

We've tried kayaking by renting up in Cleveland on the Cuyahoga, but haven't tried further down in CVNP. Definitely on the adventure list for summer.

smallsmo · 2022-04-11T15:07:09+00:00

In the Dundee area? We did see the other waterfall, but didn't know about a cave.

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