Hi, my name is Meg Booker. I’m happy to talk to a student about what it’s like to work at the library in 1985. I’m still a student myself, finishing my masters in ancient history. Yes, I’m twenty-five. I took a break from college. The library is a great part-time job for me while I’m back in school.
You say my boss Lillian told you I have a promising future here at the library? Well, she thinks this could be my career, but my plan is to follow in my parents’ footsteps and become a professor.
But I enjoy working here. I’ve only been at the Fir Grove Library for a few months. The same goes for living in the Fir Grove Neighborhood. I grew up in another neighborhood in Portland, Laurelhurst, but I love Fir Grove. The forested, rolling hills, winding streets, and the feel of the place. The library was built in 1918, with the money raised locally. This back when Fir Grove was a little village surrounded by cow pastures, on the old trolley line from Portland.
I’m a para-librarian. Lillian’s putting me in charge for a few months while she takes a long vacation, so I’ll be wearing two hats. I’ll still be helping people find books, but I’ll also be supervising. People lose books, rack up library fines, and don’t always agree that they did. Books go missing. If there’s a noisy patron, I’ll have to ask them to keep it down. If someone is annoying the other patrons, or staff, I talk to them. I love helping people, and I enjoy making sure things run smoothly. The library is here for everyone, young and old.
We have events, like the upcoming kids’ program, Lord Wiggles Presents Wiggly Things, with snakes, worms, bugs, and other creatures. I’ll need to make sure everything’s ready.
What’s my typical day like? If I’m scheduled to start at the branch before it opens, I’ll get a ride from my friend Gwen Sumbling, who is a clerk at the library. She’s two years younger than me and attending nursing school part-time. Before opening, we set up the library. We turn on the computer terminals we use, deal with all the books returned overnight, process the delivery, put out the newspapers, and so on. If someone’s sick, I see if a sub is available.
If I start work later, I take the bus, unless our page Sassy Neale, another friend from work, can pick me up. Now there’s someone you should talk to. She’s worked here for a couple of years. She’s the one with the short, spiked blonde hair wearing the Thompson Twins t-shirt.
When I come in after the branch has opened, I hit the ground running. I’ll be answering questions at the reference desk, helping with a class visit, helping people look up topics in the card catalog, backing up the clerks at the front desk, and answering the phone. There’s never a dull moment. If you want to work at the library, you’ve got to be ready for anything.
A Shush Before Dying, A Meg Booker Librarian Mystery Book #1
Genre: Cozy
Release: April 2023
Format: Digital
Purchase Link
Brand-new librarian Meg Booker is just supposed to be checking out books.
Instead, it’s the patrons who are being checked out–permanently.
April 1985. Fir Grove Library, Portland, Oregon: Big hair. Leggings. Card catalogs. Kicking kids with giant boom boxes out of the library. Meg’s got it all handled—until her boss takes off on a way-too-long vacation and leaves her in charge.
Right away, things start going wrong. Historical records disappear out of the archives. The hot new library page skateboards into work—or doesn’t—whenever he feels like it. A simmering feud boils over between two prominent and universally loathed patrons—nicknamed “The Witch” and “Leisure Suit Lothario”—leaving Meg scrambling to keep the peace.
Then the Witch turns up dead in the library conference room. The police say it’s natural causes, but Meg suspects murder—and no librarian worth her reference desk credentials leaves a question unanswered. Aided by the library’s mystery book club, and armed with mad research skills, she sets out to prove what really happened.
But when there’s another death—and one of her friends is arrested –Meg must unmask the real murderer before it’s too late.
A Shush Before Dying is the first book of the Meg Booker Librarian Mysteries—a cozy library mystery series set in the 1980s.
Meet the author
Dale Ivan got into trouble in Fifth Grade for sneaking off to the school library during class, so naturally he wound up becoming a librarian. He started out at a small branch library in Portland, Oregon after graduating college, and worked at several different branches in the Multnomah County Library system.
Dale loved helping readers find their next great read, showing students how to use the library, teaching computer classes, working with library patrons from every walk of life and every part of the world, and giving story times for families. He retired in 2019 to follow his passion for writing. A long-time mystery reader, when he’s not writing, reading or watching mysteries, he can be found doing jigsaw puzzles with his wife, playing board games or outdoors at night stargazing. He can be reached at dale@daleivansmith.com.
All comments are welcomed.