Reading on the Job?

When I tell a new acquaintance that I am a librarian, I invariably hear "Oh so you get to read all day?" Well no I am not sitting at my desk reading the latest spy thriller, but yes there is some reading that is an integral part of a librarians' job. We recently received a complaint that a member of the library staff was seen reading a newspaper, and that this projected a negative image of the library (and its staff). Let me set the record straight. We do have a member of the staff whose job involves indexing the Foster's Daily Democrat. We have a Dover content index of the Foster's that dates back to the mid-1970s, and an online obituary index that dates back to the 1940s. These are both very useful tools that are heavily relied upon by genealogists and researchers, and the Dover Public Library is the only source for this information! Also, the library subscribes to several magazines-- Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, School Library Journal to name a few--that we rely upon to help us choose, through reviews, what books to purchase for our collection. So, while the majority of the staff could be categorized as voracious readers, we save our entertainment reading for our leisure time!