Friday, December 29, 2017

"Management"

I came back from being gone for a few days to find that someone had put printed signs on every single chair in the library saying something like this:




"Do not move chairs. Do not turn chairs around. Put books where they belong. Library cameras are watching. If you do not follow these rules you will be banned from the library for one week. Thank you, Management."




As you may have guessed, "Management" turned out to be a disgruntled patron, unauthorized and acting alone (as far as we know...).

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Christmas gift

A patron gave me a Christmas card today that was former President Obama as a nutcracker. I'm not sure if it was meant to be pro- or anti-Barak.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Job titles

I helped a frustrated man today who was trying to apply for a job at a Amazon warehouse and needed help figuring out what high falutin' job title "guy who works in the warehouse" corresponded to. Amazon has some truly impressive titles, and it was making me feel like "librarian," "library assistant," "branch manger" and the other titles we tend to use in our industry were bland and descriptive. Do you have any suggestions for better names? Here's my first draft list:


Literature Delivery Associate
Senior Shelf-Straightener
Display Adjustor 3rd Class
Materials Sortation and Delivery Operator
Professional DVD Locator II
Knowledge Site Manager
Database Curator
Advisor for Introductory Information Technology





Monday, December 11, 2017

More questions to ponder on a quiet desk shift

If a kid knocks a bunch of board books off the shelf when no one is around to see, does an adult still trip over them later?


Do the patrons have mental nicknames for the staff the way I have mental nicknames for the people I see regularly but don't know the real names of? What is mine? Bad Spanish Lady?




How many total pounds of masking tape are holding all the signs, posters, etc. up? Could estimating this become a STEM program somehow?


Why is it that Patron A will come back the next day for his handwritten song lyrics he left on the copier, while Patron B left her driver's license here months ago and never returned?


How much of the square footage of the library has literally never been cleaned?


Why in the name of Elon Musk and Bill Gates do agencies still require people to FAX them things?

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Submissions?

Hello again, readers. Sorry for all the meta stuff on here lately. I know it's not as entertaining as funny library stories (which, never fear, will eternally remain the central core of this blog).


Anyway, I was wondering if I should open up the blog to submissions. I hadn't really thought about this before, mainly because Gina Sheridan had such a great thing going at iworkatapubliclibrary, but then two things happened: She stopped publishing in January of this year, and the reader poll indicated that I had more readers than I realized (sorry, I thought you guys were bots!) and that a substantial fraction of readers work in libraries of other types, which as far as I know doesn't have anything too similar to Sheridan's blog. There's always Librarians who say MOFO, of course, but its format isn't as great.


It would be pretty easy to add guest posts/submissions to this blog, but I don't know if it's something people would like to see or not. If you have an opinion one way or another, or just a thought of things I should take into consideration, please let me know!

Maybe not

Long-time readers will know that I'm pretty ambitious and would like to be a branch manager, or something similar, someday. However, I have times when things happen that make me discouraged, like this week. Here are some dilemmas I encountered recently that were both boring and difficult to figure out how to handle--a bad combination:

Someone left a cart belonging to the grocery store down the street in our parking lot. Do we take the store's property indoors even though it isn't ours, or do we leave it in the lot and risk someone's car hitting it and getting damaged?
(Our resolution: We brought it inside, but the next day the manager rolled her eyes and took it down the street to the store. We didn't know we were allowed to go off-premises for things like that!)




We are one of the places where kids who are truant from school can come and to make-up work. The school district gives us a big packet. We hand out a copy to each kid and keep track of how much time they spend at the library working on it. Today a girl came in who really didn't read English at all, and the packets are only in English. Do we give her the English packet and tell her to do her best? Translate the packet into her native language on demand? Tell her sorry, we can't help her? Of course this is in the evening so the truancy person at the school district cannot be reached, and she insists she needs to work on it NOW.
(Our resolution: We told her sorry, we couldn't help her. No one is happy with this, but neither can we come up with a better solution.)




A kid peed on a chair. Our custodian doesn't work weekends, and neither does the central system's call-in system for bigger clean-ups. Do we clean it up ourselves? Block off the area until Monday? Call the on-call facilities manager and ask him to handle it?
(Our resolution: I put on latex gloves and cleaned it up after a coworker discovered it. I firmly believe that if it has to be cleaned up before someone whose job it is can get there, the highest-paid person in the building at the time should be the one to suck it up and do it.)



Wednesday, December 6, 2017

A fashion statement

Today one of our regulars came in wearing a sweater that was half Christmas sweater, half streetwear jacket, that said "Only Santa can judge me."

The lean library

We don't have a color printer. We were recently told to stop giving paper clips to patrons. There is a sign on the bathroom door requesting patrons to conserve resources by not taking rolls of toilet paper with them. The staff members bring in our own hand soap. We don't have any tissues, for patrons or for ourselves. My budget for adult programs is zero dollars per year. My request to buy magnetic label holders for the magazine titles was turned down because they were deemed too expensive.


There's lean and then there's starving.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Poll results

Hello, readers! This is a quick update to let you know the results of the reader poll: 12 readers work in public libraries, 5 work in other kinds of libraries, and 3 do not work in libraries at all. The most exciting takeaway from this for me was that I have 20 readers! I only knew of 3, all of whom I have personal connections to, so that was pretty cool to read.


Thanks for reading this blog, everyone. I really enjoy having an outlet to talk about my work, and I will keep trying to keep you entertained!

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Excuse me...

"Is there any way you can switch me to another computer. This one has chicken all over it."


No, I had not misheard that. Grrrross.

Monday, November 27, 2017

Reader poll

I just wanted to mention that if you look over to the right-hand side of the page, I've added a poll to find out if readers of this blog are mainly library workers or not. So far I have no plans to do anything with this information. It's just to satisfy my curiosity, and possibly your curiosity as well. I encourage you to consider responding!

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Where are the fish and chips?

Someone left behind a gallon jug of vinegar in the library. It's been sitting in our lost and found for a week with a sign saying "[Children's library assistant] wants this if no one claims!"

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Emma the mentor

At Mystery Library I have a young coworker who is a library assistant. She just started her masters' in library 'science' this semester and this is her first library job. She reminds me a lot of me five years ago (Five! I am getting old!). I think she's going to be a great librarian someday, but she is struggling right now with some of the same things I struggled with when I was new, namely patrons being rude to me and the total lack of training that's appropriate to your actual job.

For example, she acts as volunteer coordinator and she's been struggling with a teen who she thinks might have a learning disability or other developmental issue. She has trouble walking the line between giving her things she is capable of doing while not making her feel like she gets the boring jobs compared to the other volunteers, and this girl wants a lot more attention and supervision than my coworker is really able to give. I'm sure most public librarians have dealt with something similar.

My coworker comes from a teaching background and she's not used to the more informal environment of the library where no one is obligated to disclose stuff like learning disabilities, and where you can't make rules for kids the way you do in school. She's also stressed out because she's afraid she will be blamed for the volunteer having a bad experience, despite the fact that she has been told she must accept all 'applicants' who want to volunteer at the library, so it's not like she can decide that this girl isn't a good fit and let her know that we don't have something for her.

It's a little bit horrifying to watch someone go through all the same things I did when I started and not to have much to say other than "This is a pervasive problem in public libraries, so you either need to learn how to cope with it or decide that this career isn't for you." She did say that she would like the library to send her to a class on working with teens with disabilities, which I think is a great idea, but she has to take the step of asking for that from our hands-off manager, and being insistent if the manager brushes her off.


I was frustrated for a while, I gave her the best advice I could, and I have also made this list of things that a new librarian should be if he or she wants to stay sane and be successful:


  1. You must be willing to advocate for yourself
  2. You must be able to accept emotionally that lots of things are outside of your control
  3. You must be willing to do things that you don't feel well-prepared for


Pretty much a standard list for any job, probably. Are there other contenders for the top three that you would add?


By the way, one of the best pieces of job advice I have ever received was from a coworker who remarked to someone who was reluctant to take a sick day: "We're not running a hospital here. No one is going to die if things go wrong."

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Mid-week Mystery Library check-in

Can I have a..a....what are those little things called? (Flash drives)

Do you have a phone book? I need to find a refrigerator repair technician.

Eager teen volunteer who just got approved calls--Can I come in and start today!?

What do I need to sign up for a library card?

Can you see if I am in your system?

Can you help me with the fax machine? How much does it cost?

Can I use a computer? I'm just visiting.

When I do the print preview on the computer everything looks fine, but at the print release station it's just a blank page.

How do I print from Microsoft Word?

Someone has donated two tubs of 'books'--i.e. everything that was on someone's bookshelf when they died, including ancient magazines, workbooks that are completely filled out, etc.

Manger wants me to print something out for a patron because she's having problems.

Where are the big books for kids? You know, the longer ones like Harry Potter and stuff.

It says my computer is expiring but I need more time. What do I do?

What is it doing when you rub the books we check out on that metal thing? (It's desensitizing them so the alarm won't go off when you leave.)

How much does it cost to replace your library card?

Um, how do I print?

Where are the Ninja Turtles? (Just books, not actual turtles, sadly.)

Saturday, November 11, 2017

A tough question

"If you were going to sell something on social media, would you use the internet, or would you use Google?"

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Today's Mystery Library mystery

There is a drawing of a piece of Swiss cheese, executed with considerable skill, taped to the floor in Chapter Books.

Gone when police arrived

I went to training this week on being the person in charge of the building, since that's my job on days our branch manager is out. One of the things we covered was how to fill out an incident report properly, and what kinds of things merit a report. The trainer read out some examples, including these:


Patron was sleeping.


Patron's arm trapped in elevator door.


Beer cans found behind toilet in men's room.


A patron called a staff member an [expletive] and then left.


Patron repeatedly violated the internet use policy.


A patron complained that another, older patron, rather than using the restroom in the appropriate place, used the restroom prematurely.


I think when I was a kid my parents had some sort of police blotter compilation that included a chapter on reports of weird incidents that all ended with the phrase "gone when police arrived." This training brought back vivid memories of that book.

Monday, November 6, 2017

Reference question of the day

A patron told me that she heard that the soon-to-be-released movie about the Flint water crisis, just called "Flint" was based on a book. She wanted to know what book it was based on and if we had it. After some searching, I was able to tell her it was based on a TIME Magazine feature story called "The Toxic Tap" by Josh Sanburn back in January of 2016. I don't get a lot of good reference questions, plus I miss Michigan, so she's patron of the week.

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Kids

Every Saturday our children's person prepares the materials for a craft and puts them out for any kids that want to try it. Today it was an adorable octopus made by taping a piece of paper into a cylinder, cutting into one end to make separate tentacles, and adding googly eyes. I saw a small girl following her dad around the library, using the octopus as a hand puppet, and saying over and over "I'm a living creature! I'm a living creature!"

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

A young book

A family with a boy who was maybe 5 came in this evening. He was getting antsy because his parents were requesting several books at the desk and he was bored. He asked his dad if he could sit on the low counter where people set their returned items. His dad replied--cleverly, I thought at that moment--"Are you a book?" and the kid immediately answered "Yes!"


His dad recovered quickly and told him that then he should fall over, since no one was holding him upright, and also that he should be silent, since books don't talk, but at that moment mom intervened and said "Don't tell him to fall down!"


Frankly the patron Halloween costumes have not been impressive this evening, so I'm giving Book Boy first place in my mental contest so far.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Out of contorl

One of the things I always do at a new library, since I do so much computer help, is log on to one of our computers just like a patron would and try things out, just to get an idea of what the patron experience is like. I try to predict common issues that I will see by doing things like choosing the Windows "log off" button instead of the library's computer management "end session" button, trying to save files to weird places, and so forth.


Usually it's not immediately obvious that anything in particular will be an issue, but I logged on to the computer at Mystery Library and I noticed that the volume control icon on the desktop had somehow been relabeled "volume contorl."

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

A fortune

As I was tidying the library before closing recently I found a stray fortune from a fortune cookie. It said "The respect of influential people will soon be yours."


I hope that means "Your boss will say yes to the ambitious re-organization of the adult fiction and non-fiction that you are planning to propose."


Not holding my breath, though.

Monday, October 23, 2017

I had litter pickup duty today....

Whoever is throwing a single cigarillo packet on the ground outside the library each day, you should know: I am saving them up, and eventually I will use my research powers to find out who you are, come to your house, and fill every god damn room of it with the trash that you've been putting into our environment and this venerable public institution.

I mean, come on. Addiction is an illness, but littering is a sin.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Back home in adult services

A program presenter doesn’t show up, hasn’t called. I try to prep to fill in for her in case any kids come, but I can’t figure out WTF to do with the supplies I’ve been provided.
 
Adorable kid wants to help me shelve books.
 
Do you have any Ever After high books?
 
A kid wants me to watch him jump over the castle he built out of the blocks in the children’s area.
 
Teach a lady how to type. She says—I’m gonna get my husband to come down here so you can teach him too!
 
For some reason the fairly lame craft I put out today is a huge hit, and we run out of the pre-cut snake heads and tails I made for paper chain snakes. Huh.
 
Can you show us how to print?
 
I want to get on a computer, x10, even though you don’t have to tell me! You can just do it.
 
Oh crap, what are our Sunday hours? I haven’t memorized them yet!

Someone making a resume for the first time is able to work independently for roughly 90 seconds, i.e. the exact amount of time it takes me to return to the reference desk and reopen whatever thing I was working on before he last asked me for help.

ESL instructor stops by: I have a student who insists on attending a higher level class than she is capable of doing. Can you please tell her she needs to stop coming to my class and start going to Level 1!?

Y'all got a movie sent here for me. Where do I get it?

The kid leaping over blocks inevitably trips and lands on the blocks and cries. I'm not feeling super-sad about not being the children's librarian anymore.

The ESL teacher can’t figure out Google Docs, which she’s supposed to use to enter our attendance.
 


The same Halloween decoration has fallen down like 8 times. If it falls down again I'm going to throw it in the trash and claim I have no clue what happened to it.


Mystery Library

I'm going to name my new library Mystery Library, partly as an homage to Mystery Boat, the best of the STEM program boats, and partly because its central administration is even more bizarre and opaque than other library systems where I have worked (longtime readers will know that I am early in my library career, but that on a per-year basis I have sampled a lot of different libraries).


There is a variety of weirdness, but the thing that stands head and shoulders above the rest for me personally is this: Remember how I said I was going to be a children's librarian? I didn't go into all the weirdness on here, but when I interviewed for this job it was just listed as 'librarian' and the interviewers didn't really ask me about children's services, so when I found out it was children's--which was roughly when I got the job offer--I was surprised. Accordingly, you would think I would be less surprised when my boss called me into her office just under three weeks into my time at the branch and said "So...I've gotten clarification on your position from Administration, and you're not a children's librarian. You are supposed to be in adult services."


I asked when that change would take effect and was told "immediately." I asked why the change had been made and was told "I don't know; I just do what they tell me."


Welcome to Mystery Library, everyone.


Image result for confusion meme
Joshua Reynolds painting of Samuel Johnson looking confused. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson#/media/File:Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds_2.png





Friday, October 13, 2017

News sources

 How I get my news as a librarian:
1.  Patron gossip
2.  Reading newspaper headlines in the time between ordering my Saturday Librarian coffee at the coffee shop on my way to work and receiving said coffee
3.  Sharing the customer service desk with baby boomer coworkers who still have Yahoo! as their personal email provider
4.   Lastly, since I’m a public servant i.e. a parasite on god-fearing taxpayers, I am also obligated to get my news from the liberal media (i.e., NPR)

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Over the last week

Over the last week, I have spent multiple hours: sorting and putting away craft materials, putting up and taking down the American flag, wiping down linoleum tables, unpacking new chairs for the program room, shelving, and picking up trash outside the library building.


Somehow I went straight from "I don't get paid enough for this" to "I get paid too much to do this!"

Friday, October 6, 2017

Boaty McBoatface

Like many educational institutions, my library has jumped all the way onto the S.T.E.A.M. bandwagon. We have a regular program with a different project each time, and this week I gave the kids a bunch of materials to build a boat and then we tested the boats to see how much weight they could hold before they sank or capsized. I also told them about the tradition of christening ships, and interrogated each of them about the name of their boat before I would set it in the test bucket.


Here is what the kids named their boats: Riptide, God of Water, Zeus, Lil' Cutie, Unicorn, Death Ray, Mystery Boat, and Gama Pod.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Had my first desk shift...

...at New Library today, and either I missed this a lot more than I thought I did or I've got some hormones out of whack, because when I made my first good connection with a patron, I cried a tiny bit.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Life as a children's librarian

I've got to figure out how to make a kid and a bird out of flannel, ideally by a week from today. My new best work friend, the children's library assistant, offered to help me, but in exchange I had to promise not to reveal the location of her existing flannel sets. She says she'd prefer to keep them hidden in her desk drawer because sometimes other people borrow them and don't return all the pieces and making a flannel is hard work, man!


Why do people do such a bad job weeding children's nonfiction? I am trying to put together a display for 'Computer Learning Month' and I have to withdraw three pre-2010 books about the internet. Ugh.


We need a copy of our program calendar in Spanish. Or at least we need to label the days of the week in both languages.


I write a proposal for a program that is just kids playing board games. But I promise it will contribute to our library's mission of supporting kids' education because board games allow kids to practice important skills like:
  • Sportsmanship
  • Strategic thinking
  • Prediction/statistical reasoning
  • Rule-following
  • Pattern detection
I think I am starting to figure this stuff out.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Other duties

This morning a stray dog followed a patron into the library and into our ESL class. I had to scoop him up and carry him outside, where we put out a chipped bowl from the staff kitchen as a water dish for him while we waited for Animal Services to come pick him up.


When I went out later to pick up the dish, someone had stolen it.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

At New Library

My new coworkers, who seem pretty great so far, point out the patrons it's important to know: The pee-er, the family who is only allowed to eat in the lobby because they make a huge mess, etc.

Our page's name is Donald McDonald. Poor man.

A woman wants to know the status of her account, so my colleague asks her for her ID. She says "I don't have an ID, so this'll have to do" and hands over an offender card, which is just what it sounds like. 

We have a box for raffle entries to win four tickets to Paw Patrol Live. Two sharply-dressed, extremely cool-seeming men around my age come in and get so excited about it--"My nephew loves Paw Patrol! Can I enter more than once!?"

In my new capacity as Children's Librarian, I and the Children's Library Assistant attend a brown bag workshop about using puppets in storytime. This is starting to become real.

Two young teenagers ask for books about slavery. Since they're on the fence age-wise as far as sending them to Juvenile Nonfiction or Adult Nonfiction, I ask how much information they want. The answer: "A lot. We have to do a report!" 

The cleaner, who mainly speaks Spanish, notices that the water fountain isn't working. None of my Spanish-speaking coworkers happen to be out at the moment so she and I combine broken English and broken Spanish to pass this info onto our boss. I'd forgotten that "oasis" is the word for water fountain in Spanish! 

A tiny gecko falls onto someone's shoulder in one of the study rooms. We commend him for not freaking out, then one of my coworkers catches it in a pencil holder and names it "Overdue." She is practicing making her case for keeping it as a library pet when the Children's LA (my new role model) firmly takes the pencil case from her and releases the gecko back into the wild.

Monday, September 18, 2017

Misconceptions

I had my first day at New Library yesterday. One of the first things I did was do the branch's pull list to help familiarize myself with where things are in the collection. (For non-library readers, the pull list is the list of items that need to be collected from the shelves because a patron has asked for them.) One of the things on the list was a copy of 1984, which I couldn't find anywhere despite searching high and low. A little bit later I noticed that there was a copy in excellent condition sitting in our pile of donated books to be sorted, so I asked my manager if the library ever adds donated books to the collection. The answer was 'pretty much never,' just like it has been at most of the libraries where I have worked.

This bums me out a little bit, since I'm pretty sure that a big fraction of the patrons who donate books think that they are contributing to the library's collection, when instead they're contributing to its book sale (or, sometimes, its recycling dumpster). This made me think of other common misconceptions about the library that seem to cross the various public libraries where I have worked.

Librarian readers: Anything to add?
Non-librarian readers: If any of these are still a surprise to you, I apologize.

1. If you donate a book, it is added to the library's collection.
2. The librarians know where all the books are.
3. The library keeps track of what you have checked out.
4.  If you wanted, you could volunteer and staff the information desk.
5. Surely the ISBN is important somehow. (About a 50/50 split between people who give to me for item lookups and people who scan it thinking it's the library barcode)

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

New job

Good news, everyone! I had scheduled blog posts out through August mainly just because the number I had written spread neatly over that length of time rather than because I realistically thought I would have a job by September, but I am starting at a new library next week!

I haven't come up with a nom-de-blog for New Library yet (I think I'll need to get to know it a bit better first) but the striking thing about it is that I'll be working in its children's department. It's a small library so I'm sure there will be a lot of cross-over, but I'll be doing kid's programs and things and doing some extra chatting to small children and their parents. I expect that that will make for good blog material.

I didn't specifically seek out a children's librarian job--instead, I wanted to work at this particular branch of Sprawling Metropolitan System because it's in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, so the materials and services that the library is providing access to are really, really important to the people living there. I'm not sure if I'll make a good children's librarian or not, so if any of you have tips or resources to suggest, I would be grateful!

 

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Where my house moved

Friday afternoon on the 2nd floor of Downtown Library:


Years ago, I used a service where you could have them call a friend and sing them happy birthday. But I just tried to call them and it didn't work. Do you think you could find another phone number for them? Or another company that does the same thing? I think they are based in California, if that helps.


Can you renew this book for me? I keep trying to read it on the bus, but people always talk to me. We know each other well, this patron and I, so I say, "maybe you need to look meaner."


Excuse me, can you help us with the scanner? Common scenario where the parent thinks they need help but the kid disagrees.


Hello. Is this your local history research department? I have a really odd question for you [for once someone said this and their question was actually kind of odd!]. When the highway was built through town, they demolished most of the houses, but they put my grandmother's house up on blocks and moved it across town. Can you help me see if I can figure out where they moved it to?


I need some articles that are pro or con. I am writing a paper about smartphones. Can you help me?


Mormons come in. Sure, you are welcome to use our computers, 'Elder' John, just please don't leave literature that I will just have to throw in the recycling when you leave!


Do you have meeting rooms there? What do you need to do to reserve one?


Excuse me, can you tell me how to find a copy of the book When Panic Attacks?


Is the library showing a movie tomorrow afternoon?


I understand that it's empty, but I still need you to throw your box of Dots candy away.


I lost my phone--someone stole it, actually--so I want to make a new email address since it was all on auto-fill and everything. That sucks, sir, I'm sorry!


One old man is teaching another old man to use ebay. The teacher says, "If I'm too loud, please tell me!" Sorry, but you are a little bit too loud.


Oh no! Why is the text so giant? Is this a special computer for people who are visually impaired?









Saturday, August 26, 2017

Blast from the past refgrunt

The first patron through the door is one of our board members, who has the a meeting room booked and wants to book one for next week as well. Our circ person doesn't know how to book a meeting room, and our security guard is new and hasn't turned his radio on for us to call him and ask him to unlock the one he already has. We're not really showing off our best work, here.


A man whose son broke his printer and who needs my help to print some pictures of tattoos calls me "Hon" like 10 times even though he's only 4 years older than I am. Also he lifts up his shirt to show me a tattoo. But he's basically polite and well-intentioned so I don't push back on any of that--if you learn anything in the public library, it is the importance of picking your battles.


Someone shouts all his sentences during a normal checkout transaction for some reason. He's not mad, just really, really loud.


Phone message: Can you tell me what hours Little Branch is open today, Saturday July 15th?


Phone call: Can you give me the number for the hotel or motel in the town of Kingwood, West Virginia? I'm pretty sure there is only the one.


I check out movies to a couple of patrons while my circ counterpart is helping someone else.


Page #1 reports that Page #2 hasn't shown up for her shift. Uh oh! Hopefully she is just confused, not hurt.


I teach Page #1 to hand out summer reading prizes, since she will be covering my lunch break later. Roles at this library have gotten pretty crazy since we went to a one-desk model.


Patron to clerk: "Your hair is sharp!"


Where's the bathroom? I thought you had one on this floor. Oh, for kids? Never mind, we'll go downstairs to the main one.


The question "Where is the Dewey number R 303?" morphs into "let me show you our online business databases!"


I thought I had put my first name and middle initial in to get on the computer, but my printouts aren't showing up under that name. Sorry!


She is printing out $24.75 worth of documents! Why oh why aren't you open on the weekend, Insta-Prints!?


Call from my counterpart upstairs: Have you talked to the woman who needs someone's phone number in Neighboring City? She is hard of hearing and she keeps hanging up on me! If she calls back, could you please give her the number of Neighboring City Library, because the person she needs isn't in any of the online directories and we don't have any of their paper phonebooks.


Mr. Timmons stops by to return some movies and to request Striptease with Burt Reynolds and Demi Moore. He is always telling me outlandish stories about celebrities he met because he used to be a bouncer or something at a big entertainment venue in Florida, and today it's how he took his mother-in-law to meet Burt Reynolds and she was sooo happy.


Business database guy comes back down and stops at the desk just to thank me.: "I learned a lot." Nice!


Someone was jumped and beaten up in the park across the street. He comes to use our phone to call the police and his mom (the latter so he can get her to buy him a bus ticket out of town). I also recognize him as the "I'm not an addict anymore; I'm on methadone" guy who has been kicked out of the library several times and owes us a hundred and twenty dollars. I can see him outside, hiding behind a tree and talking to a police officer, so he's getting help with this situation at least.


I spot a woman with a shirt that says "Any dog can be a guide dog if you don't care where you are going."


Hi, can you tell me where your restroom is?


When are they going to put out the Legos!?


Do you have any of the Adventures of Gumball books?


A patron talks to me for three minutes about how great the TV show "Ancient Aliens" is and how "it's all true."


The computer catalog says there is a copy of The Grapes of Wrath in storage. What does that mean?


Old white lady: I need a library card. I'm a refugee from Neighboring City. They don't have Value Line anymore.


Answer some summer reading questions for a nice family with three kids. Mom is wearing a hijab. After that, check out a big pile of books to them, including a few related to Islamic culture and one on Islamophobia. Makes me sad, but we have a nice conversation about picture books and the dad says to me "It's nice to see so many people using the library!"







Friday, August 18, 2017

Superheroes

I was checking out the DVDs that a dad and his small son had chosen, and the son was looking at the covers of the different movies. He pointed at Benedict Cumberbatch (who, in fairness, was wearing a red cape) on the cover of Dr. Strange:
Son: That's Superman!
Dad: Well, he looks like Superman, but his name is Dr. Strange.
Son: But does he have to save the day?
Man behind them in line: No, he gets to save the day!

Monday, August 14, 2017

Why, humans, why?

Sometimes people come to the library and need to use a computer briefly even though for whatever reason they can't use their library account (they're not a resident, they owe us too much money, etc.). Usually they just need to quickly print something out. Here is how the process for printing a document from one of our "guest computers" works:


1. Enter your name to log on to the computer.
2. Locate your document and hit the "print" button.
3. Hit "ok" on a prompt that warns you that printing costs fifteen cents per page.
4. Go to the "print release station," which is a computer next to the printer.
5. Enter your name again to view and pay for your printouts.


Today two men got stuck on step 5 because they had entered random key strokes instead of their names during step 1.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Easy to get used to

A gentleman who was Deaf came into the library this evening and I spent about half an hour communicating with him in writing since I don't speak ASL. After he left, saying things out loud felt super weird.


Maybe I could have wrapped up that reference interaction faster but we were chatting about the weather.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

(Least) Favorite

Most favorite things about working at the central branch of a big public library system:
1. We have all the most obscure books
2. Not having to answer boring local history questions because we have a whole department for that
3. The two patrons waiting in line to print could be a person who is homeless, followed by the mayor of the city
4. Hearing patrons say variations of "Wow, this is a huge library!"
5. We have all the assistive technology, even if I struggle to advertise it well

Least favorite things about working at the central branch of a big public library system:
1. Having to decide whether something is pornography or not
2-5. Actually, all of these are about having to tolerate various weird smells.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Ref desk thoughts

More things I start wondering about when a desk shift is too quiet:

I'm always refilling the paper trays of the copier and printer before they are totally empty. I wonder how long the very bottom sheets have been in there. Months? Years? Does paper go bad?

Is there any personal information that patrons wouldn't freely give me if it meant I would fill out their online forms for them?

Have any of our patrons ever died from following the nutty medical advice in our alternative medicine and self-help sections instead of going to the doctor?

There are patrons who call the library and insist that "I was just talking to you" when I haven't even taken a phone call during my shift. Do they think I'm confused or that I'm actually deliberately lying to them about who I am?

How many rows must a librarian walk down before he finds an empty chip bag or an empty bottle of alcohol in the stacks? Statistically speaking, I mean. I'd like to know the average.

Friday, July 28, 2017

I misjudge

Today a patron called and said: "[mumble mumble mumble] get some help with a history question. Is there someone I can talk to?"

I was kind of intimidated because of what I thought the mumbling might have been, but I talk faster than I think sometimes and who was going to help her if not me, so I said "Actually, I majored in history in college. Maybe I can help."

The patron said she's a student of the history of slavery and somehow she'd heard about "this woman who was taken to the U.K. and made into a madam, or a prostitute or some kind of thing. Men would come to stare at her because they had never seen a black person before. She had a huge booty, I mean huge. Her name was Sarah-something. She had, like, the biggest booty. This was the 19th century."

I started looking around on Google, but to be honest I didn't expect to find anything, or at least anything credible. We get a lot of eccentric claims and alternate histories, and I thought that this was one of them. Not because Europeans didn't do absolutely insane things to black people in the 19th century (among other centuries), but because of the weird emphasis on this woman's butt.




However, I found this history blog, which led me to a book called African Queen: The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus by Rachel Holmes, and included this picture:


La Belle Hottentot.jpg
(A public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)
I was so excited that there was a real history with documentary evidence instead of a single mention on a fringe website. I put African Queen on hold for the patron and I think I might put myself on the list after she brings it back.

She brought me my only really interesting question during an exhausting Saturday desk shift, so she is definitely this week's patron of the week!



Monday, July 24, 2017

Patrons I will miss the most

For various reasons, I don't have as many personal relationships with patrons here in Michigan as I did at my original library in Texas, but there are still people who it will be kind of hard to say goodbye to when I move. Here are the top 5:

1. Mr. Timmons, who brings me candy every time I see him, and tells me 50% outlandish stories about his crazy former life in New Orleans, 50% about what his grandchildren are up to and how proud he is of them.

2. Jack, the elderly regular at Small Town Library who apparently shares my skepticism of religion, and also told a really moving story about his life in a storytelling program that I facilitated in the winter. He always has something friendly and/or funny to say to me whenever he comes in.

3. Janis. She can be trying to deal with sometimes, but she appreciates the library so much. If I'm having a day where I feel like my work is pointless, seeing her come in reminds me of how much the place I work enriches people's lives and makes me feel good about my job again.

4. The tiny man with the taped-together glasses who comes in every morning to read the newspaper and who I also see outside the nearby government building every Friday with anti-war, pro-tolerance protest signs. Not only do I share his political views and appreciate his unfailing politeness, it will just be weird not to greet him as the first act of my shift every week.

5. The lady in my book club who always listens to the books on audio, and who always says the opinions on the books we read that I want to say but am not supposed to since I'm just supposed to be the facilitator. She also said such a nice goodby and good luck to me when I told everyone I was moving away.

I thought I'd end this with a nice picture expressing the idea of the post, but I got really sad when I looked. If you are a fellow librarian, I recommend against Google Images searches for "library goodbye." Here's a hint of why:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMKiS2Hu73naGhExUmL4VsPnJ5N-ONlDTLAsNnfPgypWuvks7Fm9RRwHU1wetxh7LRhtMxyFTt9VcAs7nNKFgJKlc3mNzOzHXU52EmbRp8LTMUa4E88Y1EAhvSqgUSFVtG6oZd3KvVyaU/s1600/Goodbye+walls.jpg
Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMKiS2Hu73naGhExUmL4VsPnJ5N-ONlDTLAsNnfPgypWuvks7Fm9RRwHU1wetxh7LRhtMxyFTt9VcAs7nNKFgJKlc3mNzOzHXU52EmbRp8LTMUa4E88Y1EAhvSqgUSFVtG6oZd3KvVyaU/s1600/Goodbye+walls.jpg



Friday, July 21, 2017

I'll miss Michigan

T minus three hours to the end of my last shift at Downtown Library:


Patron: How long was it between when Richard Nixon had the Saturday Night Massacre where he fired the special council until he resigned?
Me: Let's see...it looks like the Saturday Night Massacre was October 20th, 1973...and...hm...he resigned on August 9th, 1974. So it roughly nine months.
Patron: Thank you!...And how long do you think it's going to take Trump?

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Emailing the dark side

I was helping a man email photos he had taken on his phone to a friend of his. We got to the point where the photos were attached to an email and he had to enter an address in the "to" field. He said, "It probably wouldn't be good to put 'Darth Vader,' would it?" 

I agreed that it would not.

Monday, July 17, 2017

So cute

The objectively most adorable little kid in the universe took a long time at the book return because she insisted on kissing every single book before putting it in the slot.

Friday, July 14, 2017

Language

Today a man who I was helping was struggling to get into his email account and in frustration he said "God--" and I was sure that was going to end in "damn it!" but instead he said "bless America!"


(Later he said "Cool beans" in response to something else, so obviously he has a variety of uncommon expressions. Also, I know you can be kicked out of the library for swearing, so I'm glad I didn't have to consider the status of "damn it" as a swear word.)

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Valedictory

Big news, readers! The title of this blog will soon make sense again! Later this month I am moving back to the not-so-great state of Texas. This means I'll be looking for a new job, so there may be a lull in posts. I've scheduled some ahead of time, so there won't be nothing, but the post frequency will decrease for a bit until I get established somewhere else.

This also means, obviously, that I will have to give up my positions at Small Town Library and Downtown Library. I'm getting a little preemptively nostalgic for them both. As a valedictory, I'd like to present some of the greatest things about these two libraries:

At Small Town Library:

There is a teen boy who wanted to volunteer at the library, but didn't want to do 'girly' stuff like make art or cut up things for craft projects, so he follows the building manager around and helps him out with 'manly' things like taking out the trash and fixing stuff.

I got to create a collection while I worked here. We pulled Adult Graphic Novels out of non-fiction (they are in with the art books) and put them into their own area. It made me absolutely dizzy with power, and also increased their circulation.

Our circulation staff is so great. They are friends with all the patrons and they dispense book recommendations cunningly hidden in between inquiries about how Your Son Bobby is doing at college and if anyone has bought Your Old Neighbor's House yet.

They let me order books! If I end up with a job in a system that has centralized ordering, I'm going to miss this so much. One of the things that makes me happiest at Small Town Library is seeing someone check out something that I ordered.

I 3D print stuff all the time and no one needlessly monitors it or feels the need to make rules. Kids just give me stuff and I print it. No forms to sign, no charge for materials, all excitement.

At Downtown Library:

The collection includes books about everything. I go through our new items because one of my jobs is posting about them on Twitter, and I am always amazed by what we get.  You can make some pretty excellent displays from our collection.

We have someone whose whole job it is to work out problems with Overdrive, hoopla, and our other digital content vendors. I don't know how much she gets paid, but I'm sure it isn't what she deserves.

We have a library card that kids can sign themselves up for! It only lets you check out one book at a time, but it's excellent for school trips and for kids whose parents or legal guardians aren't usually with them in the library, plus what kid doesn't want to be able to be in charge of their own card?

My coworkers are master reader's advisors. We have social-media-based RA, staff picks scrolling atop the library homepage, and tons of displays within the library, including one where patrons can pick out their own favorite books to recommend to their neighbors.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Just Google it!

This Wednesday morning desk shift gave me a small headache:


My Circulation counterpart is still shelving holds when we open; I check out a few patrons' items on her behalf.


Phone call: I left a flash drive there. Can you connect me to the people by the computers to check if they have it?


ESL teacher: Do you have a key to open the room in the basement? Seamus from Security usually opens it for us.


Another phone call re: lost and found.


A huge mob of kids in matching shirts comes in and lines up at the front desk. I am massively relieved to find out they are here for a program with our children's librarian, and they don't need me to award them all summer reading prizes.


Do you have a phone book?
For Our City?
Yeah.
No, sorry, you'll have to go up to the second floor. All we have hear is one for northern Michigan, for some reason.
Can I just look at that one, then?
(Wtf!)


Phone call: I have some movies that are due back today. Can you renew them? Also, can you put Ghostrider on hold for me? Oh, not that one. The second one.


I just returned Law & Order seasons 2 and 3 and I would like 4 and 5, please.


The self-check says there's a problem with my account.
Don't worry, it's just expired. We just need to check your contact info and you're good to go.


Do I bring my returns to you or put them in this slot here?


Can I sign her up for summer reading? Do you have the paper thing? We don't want to do anything on the computer.


Man from the daycare/mob of kids/whatever is here for the children's librarian's program: I just need to take these friends to the bathroom. Is it right here?


Can I sign up for some kind of temporary card to use the computer?
No, but you can sign up for a permanent one for free.


Another man, as I'm signing that man up for a card: I just need to know where the bathroom is.


Can you let me into the bathroom?


There used to be a citizenship class here where they helped you fill out forms. Do you still have that?


He needs to wash his hands. Could you let us into the bathroom again?


Another library card sign-up. If I'm making systematic mistakes, Circulation is going to be sorry about how hard I worked today.


Phone: My father needs to come in and use a computer and a scanner, but he doesn't have a library card. Is that okay?


My mom says can you please add more time to her computer?


Do you have an outlet back there behind your desk where I can plug in my phone?


This computer refuses to pull up a book that I know exists!


Is there someone I can talk to? I'd like to make the comment that there are some titles in the new nonfiction area that children shouldn't be running past.


Phone: I returned a book to you a couple of weeks ago, but it's still showing up on my account.


I'm here to see if I can get a Consumer Reports. Can you check those out?


Can I return this? I thought it was Descendants 2, but it's the first one.


Phone: I need the number for two hair salons on Martin Luther King Drive.
Me: Do you know their names?
Phone: Just Google it! We're a small city, we don't have that many.





Monday, July 3, 2017

YS fever

I'm a woman in my late 20s, so people have started to talk to me about baby fever. I don't have that, but last week I did have a flare up of totally misguided desire to become a youth services librarian, which I'm going to call YS Fever.
 
One of the pleasures of working at Small Town Library, as I think I've mentioned before, is that we got a 3D printer this winter. It's just a toy so far, but it's a pretty great toy. I've jointly taken the lead on doing stuff with it along with another librarian because again, I have techno-joy rather than techno-fear.

I really wanted to use the 3D printer as a way to draw patrons in to a maker space program, about 1/2 because I was genuinely interested in maker spaces and 1/2 because then I could have maker space experience on my resume. Maker spaces are one of the latest bandwagon trends in public libraries: they're meant to make libraries a two-way street by making patrons into producers as well as consumers, to be the birthplace of world-improving ideas or at least low-budget small business incubators, and to foster/teach collaboration, creativity, problem-solving, and probably also some kind of employable technical skills. Low expectations, right?

Anyway, we had our first 'pop up maker space' program last week. It mainly drew kids ages 8-15 or so, about ten of them. I'm an adult services librarian mainly because I have no clue how to interact with kids in a group setting or to how to make them do what I want, so this was intimidating to me. So imagine my relief and excitement as I watched all the participants help each other selflessly and in a non-bossy fashion, basically exactly how a makerspace program is supposed to make people behave. One kid would speak up to get my help with something and in the 20 seconds it would take me to get there, another kid would already be there looking over the problem and providing guidance.

They chatted with each other and with me quite a bit, and it was a success. I wowed them by telling them it was the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter book being published and telling them about the early days of fandom. We compared some of our favorite maker-relevant YouTube channels. I like that you can say things to kids that it's socially unacceptable to say to adults even when they are true--somehow we got to talking about dogs, and I told them that I wanted to get a greyhound because they're lazy and I'm lazy, so I thought it would be a good fit. Not something you say to strange adults, but the kids didn't bat an eye.

Then I was on the desk next day, checking out books to a family of a mom and two young kids, the older of whom was playing Pokemon Go on his mom's phone. They had a big pile of picture books, so to chat while they waited I asked him if he was playing Pokemon. Two minutes later, I was assuring this boy that I would keep an eye on the Arbok his family had put in the gym outside the library--Go Team Mystic!

I may have to sit in on a storytime this week to cure myself. The high-pitched, constant voices and total lack of regard for personal space at Preschool Storytime should do it.

Friday, June 30, 2017

You can't make this up

Today a grandmother called because her granddaughter had returned a pile of library books to the book drop and accidentally included one of her own books. We searched through our returns and found the granddaughter's book. The little girl had carefully written her name inside the front cover. Her name? "Paige Turner."

Monday, June 26, 2017

Grandma Librarian

Overheard at the checkout desk:

Head of circulation, to woman who is renewing the library cards of her two children: I bet you didn't realize this would be so much work!
Woman: No, I pretty much expected it. My mother used to be a librarian.
Child #1: What!?
Woman: You never knew that? Why do you think all the books at Grandma and Grandpa's  house have the Dewey Decimal system!?

Friday, June 23, 2017

Crow

The "Old Man Fan Club" tag continues to morph from 'old men who are fans of me' into 'old men of whom I am a fan.' Today an older man called the reference desk to ask, "I need the straight distance between Wittenberg, Germany and London, England. You know, as the crow flies. I'll take a round number. Thank you!"


I looked up the answer, in the process making an important discovery about Google Maps's "Measure Distance" tool (learn it yourself) and told him it was approximately 545 miles, to which he thanked me and added, "My crow can fly that easily!"

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Meow

A pack of kids making eerily accurate cat noises for no apparent reason passed me on their way out of the library this evening.

Kids are so weird, guys.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Haikus

Someone on another website I read started a guessing game where you describe your job in haiku and other people try to guess your job title. I thought a mini version for library-themed poems might be fun. I submit:


I cannot tell you
What your email password is
This place is for books


and


Yes I pick the books
This collection is for everyone
Please don't yell at me

Friday, June 9, 2017

Mooselookmeguntic

This week's patron of the week is the woman who called this afternoon to ask: "What is the longest name of any town in the United States?" I struggled for a while to find an authoritative source, but I was able to learn that there exists such a thing as the United States Board of Geographic Names (it's some arm of the federal government) and that this question is #22 on its page of Frequently Asked Questions!


For those of you too lazy to click on the link, I present:


The following list is for names of communities only, and does not represent the longest name in the database.
These are the longest community names with a hyphen or "-" in the name and total number of characters.
    • Winchester-on-the-Severn, MD (24)
    • Linstead-on-the-Severn, MD (22)
    • Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, FL (21)
    • Vermillion-on-the-Lake, OH (21)
    • Wymberly-on-the-March, GA (21)
    • Kentwood-in-the-Pines, CA (21)
These are the longest community names without a hyphen or "-" in the name and total number of characters.
    • Mooselookmeguntic, ME (17)
    • Kleinfeltersville, PA (17)
    • Chickasawhatchee, GA (16)
    • Chancellorsville, VA (16)
    • Eichelbergertown, PA (16)

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Programmed

We are hosting a programming class at our library in a couple of weeks and have various things around the library advertising it. Today I overheard an older man say about his wife, "So I can bring here in and you can re-program her?! There's hope after all!?"

It's funny. The Old Man Fan Club tag used to be for old men who were my fans; now it's generally for old men of which I am a fan.

Strip malls

What I wish West Side Library shared its strip mall with:
1. An office supply store (for regular envelopes, manila envelopes, resume paper, etc.)
2. A post office (for stamps, and for posting tax returns at 4:50 p.m. on April 14th)
3. A childcare center (of course, convincing patrons to use it instead of us would be another matter)

4. A cheap cafe (drink your coffee and brightly-colored energy drinks there, please, not at our computers!)

What West Side Library actually has in its strip mall:
1. A hair salon
2. A tax preparer
3. A taco place
4.A liquor store