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By AMY SMITH LINTON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 15, 2008

"Quiet, Please: Dispatches From a Public Librarian," by Scott Douglas (De Capo Press, $25)

Scott Douglas thought his love of reading was a good reason to pursue a career in the library. With the quiet, the books, the reverence for knowledge, the library surely would be an ideal workplace for a bookish 20-something man.

Not so much, as it turns out. Librarians rarely have time to read. They have books to shelve and questions to answer. They have bizarre co-workers and patrons who need careful handling, and they must weather the odd storms of bureaucratic fate and technological change.

In this memoir, Douglas recounts the first uncertain years of his working life, starting as a clerk and then, after he graduates from library school, as a librarian in Anaheim, Calif.

Told lightly, with plenty of tongue-in-cheek footnotes (one: "The loudest elderly women always had the quietest elderly husbands") and interesting tangential sidebars (including brief histories of popcorn and children's literature as well as "Corny Library Pickup Lines and How Librarians Effectively Shoot Them Down"), this memoir is hilarious and soulful.

Douglas writes about the many things not in his job description such as dealing with irritating "MySpace teens"; cell phone shouters; the mentally disturbed; the lonely; "stinky, cranky old people"; and the soccer mom addicted to video games.

But as with all good memoirs, more is at stake than mere anecdote. Douglas is not certain he should be a librarian, and he struggles to find his professional footing: "The longer I stayed the more I saw that I wasn't staying for the books, I was staying for the people ... because there was always someone out there who needed help knowing something."

It's that kind of frank insight and wisdom that make "Quiet, Please" such a pleasant surprise. A good choice for new grads or anyone who ever uses the public library.

Amy Smith Linton is a freelance writer who lives in Tampa.

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