Discussion Post: Even If It’s Just In Your Wildest Dreams or What Are Your Bookish Dreams?

Posted November 14, 2022 by Lisa Mandina in discussion post / 20 Comments

I’ve had several question/discussion post ideas the past few months, but no time to really get to them. With a few sick days this month, too sick to go to work, but not too sick to sit and blog, I decided to get a few of them typed up and ready to go when I had open days in my blog schedule.

As I get closer to the end of my teaching/school librarian career, I’ve started thinking about the things I wish I had done or could do or what I would like to do when I’m done. You see according to the Missouri teacher retirement program, I’ll be eligible to retire at my full benefits in 2028. And with the way things have been, I’m ready. I won’t be done working, I’ll probably go get an entry level job somewhere easy or nothing that I’ll stress about. Like at a public library, or a bookstore, or maybe just some easy filing/office type of job. Just will probably want health benefits if I can help it. But anyways, there are several dreams I have or things I thought I’d get to do as a librarian that I probably will not, and I was thinking about those.

  1. I decided I wanted to be a librarian when I was teaching middle school. And so my ultimate goal was to be a middle school librarian. Well, I’ve only had the chance to be a high school librarian, with a short stint at a technical college library. One thing that I know is often a nightmare for middle school librarians, but that I’d always wanted to do at least once, was host a book fair. High schools don’t really do that. I might have been able to get away with it at the last school where I was a librarian, but my current high school doesn’t have a lot of readers really. I’m guessing this will be the school I finish my career at since as far along as I am most schools are going to hire brand new out of school librarians to both save money and get someone to be there for a while.
  2. A dream job would be if I was hired to work at a new school building that was being built and having input on both what the library looked like – furniture, etc, but also being able to build the collection from scratch. Being able to choose all the books. That would be heaven! One of my favorite parts of my job is the shopping for books and determining what my students would like, what they need for their classes, etc.
  3. Running my own bookstore. At one time I thought it would be neat to have a bookstore in an airport that could be like a used book/trade/new book store. For all the people who travel and need a new book they could trade the one they’d finished for credit towards a new book. And other people could buy the used books for a discounted price as well. That was my idea until I kind of learned that there might be a bit of a monopoly on what bookstore is in pretty much every airport. Then this past year as I was driving down a street on my way home from work, taking a different side street to my house than usual, I drove by a building that used to host a jewelry store owned by a family that I’d gone to school with their kids. And I thought it would be a great building to put a bookstore in if only I had the money and good business sense. Of course what I want to do now is probably not a cost-effective type of store for the person running it, but I would want to carry the books by all the indie authors that I read and love. It would probably be a romance mostly bookstore, but I’d carry other things as well.

So, those are my bookish dreams. I mean one of my first bookish dreams, to be a librarian, came true about 10 years ago finally. I don’t think I’ll ever actually write and publish anything, I’m not a great writer and I’d rather keep reading other people’s books as opposed to spending that time making myself a better writer.

Do you have any bookish dreams? Share them with me! And of course I have to share the song that I used in the title. Originally I’d been thinking of a different song for my title, but since I’d used a song by that group in my last discussion post, I picked another dream song.

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20 responses to “Discussion Post: Even If It’s Just In Your Wildest Dreams or What Are Your Bookish Dreams?

  1. That’s great your dream of being a librarian came true, if not being able to work in a middle school library. I have an MS in Library Science but it’s just impossible to get a full time library job, so that’s kind of gone by the wayside. Who knows what the future will hold. I would still like to publish a book someday.

    ShootingStarsMag recently posted: Book Giveaways You Don’t Want to Miss
    • Lisa Mandina

      Yeah, getting a full time job is hard for sure! Library jobs are hard to come by. I know I’ll just have to stick with where I am probably till I retire. I’ve self published a novella, but am considering taking it down and if I do any more romances, I might change the pen name I use because I’m not loving it. Hope you get some writing done and get to publish a book too!

  2. I don’t have any bookish dreams, I just like what I’m doing now, reading and reviewing. Used to want to own a bookstore, but now that I’m retired, that’s just too much work! :). I’m glad you met your dream of becoming a librarian.

    Wendy recently posted: Sunday Post #65
    • Lisa Mandina

      Yeah, I would love to open a bookstore, but with no money or business background I don’t think I could do it without just losing all my money.

  3. Great topic idea! As soon as I saw the title of your post, that TSwift song popped into my head! πŸ˜€ My bookish dreams were always centered around being a full-time novelist. This was back when I was a prolific writer with a great imagination (those days are sadly long behind me). My aunt and uncle owned a book store and their struggles were heartbreaking, BUT if I could own a bookstore and it didn’t matter if I made any money off it, so I could just spend my day reading and making recommendations to people and encouraging literacy and discussion? That would be my dream now.

    • Lisa Mandina

      Originally I was going to use the Sweet Dreams are Made of These, but then I switched it up to the TSwift song, lol. Yeah, if I had won the huge lottery just recently I might have opened a bookshop. Because I just want to do an indie author/romance store. Thanks for joining in.

        • Lisa Mandina

          Yes, that would be so awesome!!! I haven’t been there, so I don’t know exactly what they carry, but I would love it! And I’d want to carry so many independently published romance authors too.

    • Lisa Mandina

      Oh yeah, there’d definitely be a coffee/bakery in the shop too. Eh, I only do digital for the free e-galleys mostly. I prefer a physical book. But yeah, so many people are just into the ebooks. But not my students! They’ve told me and the other librarians I’ve worked with that they prefer to read actual books. Because when they’re on their phone, they know they will get distracted with other things like social media, etc.

  4. It’s cool that you got to be a librarian! I’ve applied for part-time library jobs and never got hired. I don’t really have bookish dreams anymore. I tried to be a writer, but that went horribly wrong. I would like to judge book prizes. I’ve done it before and had lots of fun with it.

    • Lisa Mandina

      Well it took me several years to actually get a school library job. If I’d wanted to take an elementary level position, I probably could have gotten one sooner. I’m not a great writer, but I keep trying. Book prize judging would be fun! Thanks for joining into my discussion!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I still have authors I haven’t met I’d like to meet too! Those are my more realistic dreams I think. Thanks for joining in!

  5. What a great post! It really made me smile. I think those are some great dreams to have.

    I used to dream of being a public librarian, but where I live in Yorkshire in the UK, even the current librarians have to re-apply for their jobs every year. There’s no job security there and the hours aren’t a lot at all. It’s more of a hobby job.

    I tried archiving for a while, but it was so monotonous I ended up changing jobs.

    Your bookstore dream sounds soooo dreamy! <3 I'd love to visit and browse the shops.

    Amy @ A Novel Start recently posted: Sunday Post 3
    • Lisa Mandina

      Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind being an archivist, or a cataloger and be away from all the people though! lol Thanks for visiting!

  6. Jessica

    My grandmother loved to read and she was a nurse. She had said if she wasn’t a nurse, she would have been a librarian. I would to be a librarian also. My boyfriend had a dream of owning a bookstore. If he had I would work there too.

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