Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Bad signs

Today I had to change the sign on the public computer that won't connect to the printer to say: "Printing is not possible from this computer. If you need to print please choose a different computer" because the old one said "printing is unavailable from this computer. Please see the information desk for assistance" so people would type up long documents and then come over to us and say "okay, how do I print this?"
Inline image 1

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Headache refgrunt

Yesterday due to the joy of being a worker without benefits, I came in to work even though I had a pounding headache. As you can imagine, it was fun!
 
-Place 3 interlibrary loans...Bernard of Clairvaux, other theology...I love ILLs (signs I should be an academic librarian instead?)
 
-Briefly, both printers (color and black and white) are simultaneously not working
 
-Head hurts so much that I can NOT tell a guy how much it will cost him to print 25 copies of his 5-page document at ten cents a page--I pride myself on being one of the few numerate people in my field so this makes me so mad, but my head hurts so much...
 
-A wife keeps holding up books from a display that her husband is obviously not interested in: "Do you want this one?" "No" 'How about this one?" "No!"
 
-Older man with wife, printing IRA-related forms from Vanguard.com. The whole printing process was new to him and he was very excited. When his forms printed out successfully he gave me a thumbs up and said "Thank you! Very good job!"
 
-Abandoned on the tray of reject prints: A half-page print of a chicken staring right into the camera.
 
-A lady is so excited about the scanner that she asks me to look up how much it costs--she wants to get one for herself!
 
-Find some alcohol prep pads abandoned on the desk--a hint to me and my coworker and our allergy-filled heads?
 
-Coworker/friend: Do you know anything about about the bag of puppets that appeared on my desk? I thought maybe it was a late Valentine's day present but she says no she doesn't think so some are missing eyes. Maybe it's a threat.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Question of the day

"Do you have the book The Owls of Purdue?" Fortunately, as a recent college student, I could tell she was thinking of the website of the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Yes, ma'am!

An older man asked if he could borrow a 'writing implement' and then when I said "Yes, just bring it back when you are finished" he saluted smartly.

People who aren't familiar with the internet really don't appreciate the importance of entering a URL exactly as written. So frustrating.

Our nuttiest regular (paranoid schizophrenic?) helpfully handed me a puppet that had escaped from the children's area.

A lady can't find 1040 Schedule D because its label is obscured by a messy pile of...schedule Ds. She laughs nervously and says "Oh goodness! Sorry, it has been a long day."

Dysgraphia Guy needs help copying and pasting--did computer designers anticipate what a difficult task this would be?

Coworker to five-year-old: Walk please!...Walk..Walk!...WALK!

Guy comes to reclaim a lost wallet and his $200 is still in it--sooooo excited!

The Retired Police Officer comes to tell me: "I know there isn't really much you can do, but for what it's worth, I just heard that lady ask for the social security number of the person she was talking to [on the phone] and then read it back to her. The whole thing. I checked to see if anyone was writing it down."

Help us type in this captcha? (Captcha identification is an important librarian skill)

It's hard to convince people that each sheet of 1099-MISC tax forms has two forms on it. It's especially hard to convince the guy with 90% gold teeth.

East Side Library, AK

There are snow flurries this afternoon.

Me: Are you waiting for help, sir?
Old man: Nope, I'm beyond help...I liked the old East Side Library in Texas. I'm not sure I like the East Side Library in Alaska.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Found among old 332s (personal finance books)

-An ad for "Darlyn Bangles" and "Scentsy"
-A time sheet from Family Dollar, completely filled out
-A letter from an imam (or maybe just a really devout layperson) thanking a couple for some figs
-A past-due notice for home repairs

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Today I am prepared for

The library opened at 1 p.m. today and at 12:59 I had the following information up on my computer screen and ready to go:
-The predicted ice storm for our city is just going to be rain
-But it will still be cold out and is not warming up
-The Superbowl starts at 5:30 p.m. Central Time
-The Superbowl will be broadcast on Fox
-The groundhog saw his shadow
-The semi-official groundhog's name is Punxsutawney Phil