It can be hard to find a good balance between your work life and your professional life. It's unrealistic, if not downright silly, to think that we can divide our lives into neat categories that don't overlap, or that we're always just focused on one thing.
For us library folks, though, I think there's an added dimension to the work/other life split. Are we every really not at work? We love libraries, reading, inquiry, and intellectual freedom, and we're always willing to talk about them. That's great. We're ambassadors to the wider world.
My job has an unusual focus. I primarily work with Oregon government documents. Many people think that means dry, technical reports full and statistics, and that's certainly part of it. But government documents are all over the place. I've picked up many at events like the state fair, and even even got a Tourism Commission document from the hotel during our EOLA road trip in October.
I imagine that others have stories about how their library specialties and personal life overlap. So please share!
Sure, this comes up all the time -- from someone who finds something unusual at the beach and then thinks I can identify it from a verbal description, because I work at a marine science library, to the time my brothers asked me to find out when the height of the fish runs had been in past years, so they could plan their fall fishing trip.
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