She rarely says "ssshhhh" and she doesn't wear a bun, or wire-rimmed glasses over which to shoot looks of severe annoyance. "Ssssshh" is not a word that is used a lot in a public library. Well, hardly ever.
And Eimear McGinn says there is no such kill-joy individual. "I've never met a librarian like that."
Librarians are helpful, friendly, involved in the community and well, yes, tidy.
"I'm obsessed with shelves," she admits, laughing. "I just can't help it. But you have to be able to stand back and smile when a class of 30 or 40 children are tearing the whole junior section apart. Every evening the place is in chaos.
"You have to be very organised. It's about organisational skills and being able to put your hands on something straight away," says McGinn, who, in her mid- 20s, is assistant librarian at Maynooth community library.
Each day, the doors open to an endless stream of book-borrowers and those members of the public who come with their own peculiar queries and questions. The variety of questions is huge, she says. One unusual but ongoing query, she says, is the search to uncover the burial place of Mary Molesworth who was locked her up for 30 years on suspicions of adultery by her husband, a nobleman. Her ghost has yet to be laid to rest.
"You want to be able to help people quickly and move on to the next person. It's a real people meeting service. And there's a community spirit. That's what's good about it."
The public library in the village of Maynooth in Co Kildare is on the main street. It is humming quietly with activity before lunch. A couple of individuals are waiting to take some books out. In a well-lit corner an elderly man sits reading the daily paper. A mother is browsing through the fiction section, with her toddler in tow. The counter, the shelves, the noticeboards and display areas are crammed with leaflets, post-its and posters about exhibitions, community initiatives, county council matters and upcoming events.
There are paintings on the wall by members of the local Greenfields art group. There are old black-and-white photographs in a box on the floor, which will form part of an upcoming show on Maynooth in days gone by.
"There's a real variation of jobs," says McGinn.
"It's about getting involved with the schools; trying to get people in. You do make contacts. You get a good overview of the community you are working in as well. Then you have normal daily duties as well - the stuff that has to be done - shelving, keeping up your membership.
"It's an information service. Hundreds of people use the library as a reference. We get a lot of queries about county council forms, tax forms, people looking for the new driving (theory) test.
"The library is for everybody, it's not exclusive. We have a lot of reference books and the internet is possibly the best reference tool ever. You have to work on your own initiative. You have to set your own deadlines. Work to your own schedules. You have to be self-reliant. And you have to have tenacity. Your tenacity keeps you going until you find what you're looking for. You don't get feedback straight away. You must have patience."
McGinn was an arts student of English and history at NUI Maynooth when she applied to Co Kildare's library service for a holiday job as a library assistant. She began in the summer of 1995 and the bug bit. She returned to her studies, but she continued to work for with the library service throughout her student career. She was offered a permanent job after two years. She became so interested that she deferred her finals and accepted the job, returning to complete her BA in 1998. The service was computerised that year and McGinn was involved in the transfer of the county's libraries to the computer system. "It was quite rewarding to do it, blitz a branch and move on to the next one," she says.
She is currently doing a one-year higher diploma in library and information studies at UCD at night.
The next development McGinn plans to organise in Maynooth's library is an exhibition around the Junior and Leaving Cert students' courses - "something to compliment their work, to give them something extra coming up to their exams. It's better to bring your own interests to the job."
