Checked Out: Bedford Part 7
The invention of Canva was revolutionary to those who worked in public service. Libraries have barely enough money to remain open. There’s nothing leftover for professional graphic designers or for user-friendly software to create professional looking signs. Librarians have to make things in-house and for years, the best signs we could create was done on some Microsoft Office program or another.
Enter Canva. This lovely website is a librarian’s best friend.
The Leagos system had a style guide for making posters and if staff followed the guide… well, let’s just say the results were less than stellar. Following it to the letter resulted in a plain white piece of paper with black text of varying sizes. No color. Nothing eye-catching. Nothing to make a person actually stop and want to look at it.
Publisher had been my go-to flyer making software up to that point, but when I discovered Canva, it was all history from there. The site makes it easy to appear like you have a background in graphic design when one can barely draw a circle with a pencil.
It’s amazing!
And the Leagos system was so big that I stopped worrying about making signs that fit the style guide. Who would ever know?
These signs went farther toward helping us communicate enough to the patrons so that if they didn’t want to talk to staff about a program (which, let’s face it, most of them didn’t), they could look at the signs and get what they needed.
This should have gone hand in hand with signs displayed as fixtures in the library. Bathrooms had signs on them. The elevator had a sign on it. The cafe had a sign (though this one was more confusing as the cafe literally meant the vending machines). Even the exits were labeled.
Much like these, staff areas were also clearly labeled with signs at head height saying, in the briefest of terms, “Staff Only.”
The children’s workroom held one such sign affixed to a glass wall that any patrons could see through. Staff who worked in that room, myself included, often felt like animals in a zoo. When children came to the window and got a good look at the inner-workings of a library, they were always fascinated, pointing to their adults and muttering words we couldn’t hear.
When adults did it, it was unsettling. Instead of going to the clearly labeled desk just 10 feet behind them, they would come to the staff room and watch us through the window, their goal being to stare us down until we would feel eyes on us and look up to see what was making the hair on the back of our necks stand up.
Oh look, it’s another patron. Staring at us. Again.
If you looked up and made eye-contact, it was all over. They’d hold something up, indicating they needed help, and then you’d have to get up and assist them.
We learned to keep our eyes down.
One day, however, we were a bit too good at this.
A gentleman saw someone (me) in an official looking room (the staff workroom) and decided, “Hey! There’s a person who can help me.”
He waltzed right in, completely ignoring the fact that there was a service desk much closer. Apparently it was too much effort to turn around. And there was a line, which was clearly offensive and a dealbreaker.
I looked up and saw a man I didn’t recognize in our staff only room. Being female, I immediately felt a little threatened. No one else was in the room with us, and while a glass wall made our occupied space incredibly visible to the rest of the library, it was still an unsettling sensation. Feeling unsafe, but latching on to the knee-jerk reaction of enforcing the rules, I hopped up and said, “Whoa, sir. This is a staff only room. You’re not allowed to be in here.”
I ushered him out quickly.
He lazily said, “What? No, it’s not.”
I said, “Sir, I can assure you this room is for staff only.”
By this point we were standing in front of the door he’d just helped himself through.
“Well, if it’s for staff only, there should be some type of sign.”
Very slowly I raised my left pointer finger until it hovered just below a sign next to my head, pointing at the very clear words, “Staff Only.”
“You mean like this one?” I asked.
I could tell the man was working his way up to a hissy fit, but when he realized that I was indeed right and he was, in fact, wrong, all the fight went out of him.
“Oh, well I just needed to know if you have any other books in this series.”
I implore everyone who might be reading this to please also read all the signs around you. Please. It will save you wasted time and embarrassment. People make them specifically for you to read. To answer your questions before you even ask them. Give signs a chance.
Next time, we’ll get to see the Red Fairy Doppelgänger.
Until then, I remain…
-C Quill
