Hi everyone! Here is my interview with Laura from the Kuopio City Library in Kuopio, Finland.
FYI right now in Finland it is 49 degrees (Fahrenheit kind of degrees) and it is 9:51 pm at night. Right now in Thorntown, Boone County, Indiana, USA it is 76 degrees (still Fahrenheit!) and it is 2:51 pm (well, 2:53 pm; AB Blog Helper is pokey about looking these things up).
I hope you enjoy the interview!
Q: Tell us something
about yourself.
A: I hope you have
enough space on your website for all of this!
Firstly, I am a very fit and handsome orange tabby Mancat. I am approximately seven (7) years old. When I was smaller (before I moved into the Library),
my first set of people had my front toenails removed. I still have a set on my back feets,
though.
My favorite treats in the world are whatever happens to be
in Assistant Assistant Boss (AAB) Kathy’s desk drawer. (She is our Children’s Librarian and has
great taste in treats.) I also love to
eat gum wrappers (the paper kind), Post-It Notes, and Ethernet cables.
I also love tummy rubs and paw massages. I’ll stop for now, because I’m sure you’re
getting ready to ask me even more excellent questions.
Q: You are a library
cat, could you tell us more about how you became a library cat?
A: I was Found by my
AAB Karen on October 19, 2007. She saw
me sitting all by myself on the side of the road and decided I needed rescuing.
At first she tried to make me a House Cat. She brought me to her house where she had a
few other cats and two obnoxious weiner-dogs (some people call them Dachshunds,
I think). I hid under the bed since I
didn’t feel like dealing with all of that commotion! After a few days she decided that I wasn’t
very happy, and she thought I might make an excellent Library Cat. (She was the Library Boss, so she could make
those decisions.)
When I first became a Library Cat, I had to stay in one room
all of the time. It was terrible! AAB Karen finally decided to let me have the
whole Library to myself, and now I go wherever I want whenever I want. Except the storage rooms and Archives, but
those places are just full of junk anyways.
Q: What kinds of
qualities are required of a library cat?
A: Well, a good
Library Cat must be an excellent bug-hunter.
Sometimes bugs and wasps get in the Library, and it is my duty to kill
and eat them. A Library Cat must also be
tolerant and put up with getting mauled by small children who haven’t learned
how to properly pet a Cat yet. This is
the toughest part of the job, especially when the small children are noisy and
squealy. I also have to deal with my
photo getting taken all of the time.
There’s nothing like being woken up from an afternoon nap by a
camera-flash, or being photographed while taking a bath!
Q: What does your
typical working day consist of?
A: At 5:59am I go to
the door to meet AAB Ritchie, our custodian.
(If I get there a minute before he does, he thinks I’ve missed him all morning.) When Ritchie comes in I flop over for my
first tummy rub of the day, and then he gives me a few treats.
At 8:00am AAB Becki comes in and brings me breakfast. Breakfast is a big spoonful of soft food, and
I like it best when there’s lots of gravy in the food! I hang out downstairs in the library while
the staff are arriving. This maximizes
the tummy rubs, treats, and pettings that I receive. For my morning shift I pick a good soft chair
on which to nap/supervise my Library. If
AAB Karen is around, I follow her for a while until she sits down and then I
ignore her—AFTER I get more treats, of course!
Where I spend the middle of the day depends on who is
working and where. If AAB Kathy is in
her office, I visit her and knock stuff off of her desk. If AB Christine is working on something
important on the computer, I make sure to go stomp on her keyboard. If AAB Britta walks from one end of the
library to the other, I flop down in front of her for a tummy rub.
I sit at on the Youth Circulation desk around 3:00pm. That’s when the children come in after
school. The good part about sitting on
that desk is that I can be admired by all of my visitors, but it’s also easy to
get jjjuuuuusssttt out of reach of the really small noisy children!
Around 3:30pm I make my rounds of the library to make sure
no one has forgotten supper. If AAB
Becki is off work that day I have to work extra hard to remind staff to get
supper for me. AAB Becki gets my supper
(another spoonful of soft food!) at 4:00pm and also scoops my litter box around
that time, too.
I try to spend the evening napping in sunpuddles. When it’s dark out I move to the Youth
Department circulation desk and nap in a nice pre-warmed chair.
I spend my nights patrolling the library.
Q: In your opinion,
what are the best things in the library?
A: The very best
things about my library are the people—both the employees and the library
patrons who come in to visit! My staff
tries very hard to be helpful to everyone, and that’s easy to do when our visitors
are so nice.
My second favorite thing is the abundance of Post-It Notes
that staff leave unattended when they leave for the night. YUM!
I also like books.
Even though I don’t have toenails anymore, I like to stretch my paws on
the books.
Q: What is your most
memorable experience as a library cat?
A: Oh, wow—there are
so many things I’ve gotten to do since becoming a Library Cat! Let’s see.
I had my picture taken with Santa Clause my very first Christmas in the
library. I also got petted by an entire
Kindergarten class—about 30 children petted me IN A ROW! It was crazy!
A little boy once visited and read a book to me. My staff arranged a treat taste-test for me—I
got to sample 8 or 9 kinds of treats at one time!
The worst memorable experience is when a man put me
Outside. He did not know that I was an
Indoors-only Library Cat. He saw me in
the library and put me out. I came back
in. He put me out again.
No one noticed anything amiss until AAB Britta and Christine
came in to work at 11:00am and didn’t see me (they say HI to me first
thing). Everybody went looking for me,
and they found me right next to the East door in the bushes. I DID NOT like being Outside!
Q: Have you ever
heard of a country called Finland?
A: Yes! We have books about Finland at my
Library! I decided to do a little
reading. I learned that Finland is a
Scandinavian country and that your winter lasts a lot longer than the one here
in Indiana. You have short, short days
and long, long days, depending on the season.
I also read that Finns appreciate and use public libraries a lot, so you
must be awfully smart. Go,
Finland!!!
I learned that Kuopio is 4,469 miles (7,193 km) from
Thorntown. I don’t think I will be able
to visit you since I’m kind of small and that’s a long way away.
Q: In Finland, there
are reading education assistance dogs in some libraries, but supposedly no
library cats. What do you think of that?
I think that Kuopio City Library should lead the Library Cat
Revolution! We have lots of Reading
Helper Dogs here in Indiana, though none that come to my Library (whew!). But Library Cats are even more awesome
because (a) we can live in the Library full-time, (b) we are better at managing
staff, (c) we don’t bark and drool like dogs do, and (d) we have purr-fect
personalities for library work!
TA-DA!!!
Have good weekends, everybody! I received my first Finding Day Card today, it was awesome!
Oh, and here's a picture:
Purrs,
Tober