My inspiration to be a teacher librarian

I have been busy reflecting on why I want to so desperately become a teacher librarian.
As I was lying in bed thinking about it the other night I recalled playing libraries with my toys when I was about 4 and then for many years later. I vividly remember making cards and putting them in the backs of my books and then borrowing them out to my toys and any friends I happened to have over.
Wow! I should have gone on this path many years ago.
At primary school I was made a librarian and led the famous South Grafton Primary librarian's strike for better working conditions. Mrs Finn (the librarian) decided that perhaps it would be best if I led my followers outside and resigned from our position. After we got bored with our sit in we figured that was probably a good option.
When I first started teaching at Bennett Road Public school we had the most amazing librarian who made the most magnificent displays in the library for book week and made library lots of fun. Back then it was before the introduction of RFF so teachers participated in library lessons. It was great and sometimes I thought what a great profession this would be.
I really should have started training back then....I wish I had.
Several years ago I started working at Inaburra and met Julie who was the teacher librarian. I thought she had it made, heaps of release time to do who knows what, a library assistant and she didn't have to do sport. I thought this is a job I want, and I often used to joke in the staff room that I was going to come back as a teacher librarian because they had such a cushy life. Unfortunately this didn't go down well with Julie who always insisted that she worked really hard...yea right.
Julie started to give me casual days in the library and I thought this is the life, you get to team teach with the classroom teacher, you don't have to deal with parents or write reports. Yep this is the life for me!
Then by chance I picked up a 3 day a week job as relieving teacher librarian at Jannali East. I loved it, I had finally found my calling in life. It was everything I had dreamed it was.
Unfortunately I missed out on the permanent job as I didn't have any experience, but thankfully I moved onto Yowie Bay into a maternity leave position. In this job it all hit the fan so to speak.
I have teachers at me all the time wanting resources for their classrooms, The class readers are stored in the library so there is a constant turnover of books as the reading groups require new books on a weekly basis, team teaching is not an option so I have to teach classes alone which was really challenging in the beginning as students tested me. I had to organise a book fair for book week- what a nightmare that was! I had to talk to the new kindy parents at an information morning, I actually have to program information literacy skills into my teaching and I have to accession, make new borrowing cards, ensure that all infants students complete the Premier's reading challenge, encourage primary students to do likewise, put up with pushy parents who insist on borrowing 'suitable' books for their children to read for the challenge because after all they really don't know what to choose! and do a million other things around the school.
Sometimes you are not looked on as a 'REAL' teacher and sometimes you don't feel part of things because you don't have a close working relationship with other teachers on the same grade.
In all, I don't think I have ever worked so hard in my life, but I wouldn't change it for anything. I love getting to work each day, I love the smell of books as I walk into the library every morning, I love discovering new ways to teach research skills to students so that they will become life long learners and Julie I take back everything I have ever said about library teaching being a bludge.