Dear Colleagues, if you ever had the occasion to visit the State Library of Queensland, Public and Indigenous Library Services unit at Cannon Hill, you will have met me already!! Yes, I'm the one who meets and greets you at the front door and asks you to sign the Visitors' Book, just in case there is a fire whilst you are here with us, so our Fire Wardens know to look for you! Yes, of course, I also show you where the nearest Exit door is in the area where you will be working in. And when you are finished with us for the day, I ask you to sign out of the Visitors' Book so that our Fire Wardens are not looking for you if there is a fire!
Well now, that over and done with, it is a good start to our working relationship, don't you think?!! But I fear I have digressed a bit with all this talk about fire safety precautions...
Back to the start of your visit with us ...
As I always worry that you all may have had a harrowing time navigating the challenging/hostile? traffic conditions on your way to Cannon Hill, I lead you to our staff room first, where I have prepared for you coffee, tea, sugar, milk, our best Visitors' mugs, mismatched teaspoons and the obligatory Arnotts biscuits, to help you recover from your road trip and prepare you for the further trials...oops, sorry, interesting times, ahead. This is the time where I get to know you and of course, you get to know me. That bit of socialising is very important as we will be spending at least a few hours together, if not the whole day. It is my task to assist you in every way during the time it takes you to select your required book numbers in the various LOTE languages you need to borrow from PandILS.
We will make good use of this tea-time by discussing your "wish list". Casting my expert eye over your wish list I will tell you yes, you will have no trouble in finding good book stock in all those languages, but sorry, we have been unable to source more new books in the Bosnian language but we live in hope!! Or something along those lines ...
