Library Worklife

Volume 1 • No. 9

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Featured Commentary—Sally in Libraryland

A Surreal Library Experience

By Sally Decker Smith

Originally published in the ILA Reporter, June 2000.

I lost my voice last week, and it turned into one of the more surreal experiences of my life.

If we’ve met, you know that I enjoy talking. Kind of a lot. And fairly fast most of the time. On some levels, I may be compensating for a childhood where I was very, very, very quiet. Not necessarily shy, I think, but not very vocal. Then I had a job in college that involved leading literally hundreds of people a day through a WWII German submarine, while telling them all about it, cautioning them to watch their heads, and answering questions that completely derailed my train of thought, among other guide-lecturer related responsibilities, and I got over it. Once you’ve explained Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle to a group of visitors from Guatemala, you can pretty much talk to anybody about anything. So I do.

I have known and worked with people in Libraryland who, if they didn’t utter a word for a week, no one would notice. I can think of one person, who, upon accepting an award for five years of service, thanked everybody-and it felt a lot like it must have to people when the first silent movie stars were heard to speak. This is so not me I can’t begin to count the ways.

I learned from this experience that I would rather be temporarily without hearing or even sightless (please note my emphasis on temporarily before you berate me for not valuing all my senses, or for tempting fate) than unable to speak. I couldn’t write notes fast enough to say what I wanted to say. It was hands down the most frustrating experience of my life. It was also not helped by my husband’s repeatedly telling people "For the first time since 1967, I can get the last word." I had to point out that he might get MORE words, but he shouldn’t count on last.

My voice abandoned me stealthily. No dramatic cold or flu, no galloping sore throat, no fanatical yelling at a sports team. Just a small tickle in the back of my throat and diminishing volume. Wednesday I sounded like I might be coming down with something. Thursday people began to flinch when I spoke. And on Friday, I had nothing. Not a peep, not a croak. If it had been my job to yell "Fire," we’d have all been toast. I never felt sick, and we’re very short-staffed, so it never occurred to me to stay home, or to not take my desk hours.

When I was at the desk on Wednesday, as a precaution in case it was a germ that would make its full malice felt too late to avoid infecting anyone else, I encouraged my colleagues to avoid the phone I was using. And I clearly was not contagious, because it’s been over a week, and (knock wood) no one else is showing any signs of catching whatever it was.

Most of us in public service know that patrons, unless they’ve come to know us very well, never notice a lot about us. Three of our staff look enough alike to the casual observer (albeit one with a touch of myopia) that we haven’t been totally surprised when patrons think we’re one of the others. Several years ago, when one reference librarian was working with a cast on her broken right wrist, one patron did comment "Oh now I see why it’s taking you so long to find that in the computer." Most truly didn’t seem to notice, although I suppose we could give them points for politely pretending they didn’t. So on Thursday, when my croak was causing pain to a lot of people, although fortunately not me, not a patron batted an eye.

But Friday. That was a different story, and actually a pretty entertaining one, too. As I said-almost nothing came out of my mouth, hard as I tried. Maybe dogs might have heard me, but there were none here to test on, so I’ll never know. I was useless for phone work, because I came across as a prank call in reverse-the people who were hearing silence and some breathing had called HERE. But I gamely spent time at the desk anyway, being grateful that I wasn’t alone, and I fielded all the in-person queries while my colleague answered the phone, or returned calls that had gone to voice mail.

About lunchtime, an older gentleman who comes in quite regularly approached me to ask if we were offering classes on our new computer system. He wears a hearing aid, and we all are conscious of the need to be careful to speak in such a way that he can hear and understand what we’re saying. I answered his question. He looked puzzled and asked it again. I answered again, summoning up what little volume I had in reserve. "I’m sorry, dear, you’ll have to speak up." "I’m sorry, sir, I can’t," I mouthed and whispered as loudly as I could. He broke into a grin, and I led him to the poster that had all the information about the computer classes, and we parted friends. And when everybody was back from lunch, they sent me home.

Sally Decker Smith is at Indian Trails Public Library District in Wheeling, Ill.

Have you had a surreal library experience lately? E-mail Sally Decker Smith or write to her at 355 S. Schoenbeck Rd., Wheeling, IL 60090, and maybe you can commiserate.