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.