Characters

 Now that I mainly work at the administrative office, I fill in randomly at all four branches in our library system. The one I've been spending time at lately has more characters than the others. It reminds me a little bit of Downtown Library in Michigan.

A patron cried because a different patron (4 computers away from her) was banging too enthusiastically on her keyboard while she played her online poker game.

There's another mid-30s white woman with shoulder-length light brown hair and rectangular glasses who works at this branch. People are constantly getting annoyed at me because "you helped me yesterday, how do you not know what I want!?" when Stephanie helped them yesterday, not me. I finally benefit from this inability to tell us apart when a clear Problem Patron refuses to ask me for help and chooses my unfortunate coworker to be her victim instead--it becomes clear that Stephanie enforced a library rule with her previously and now the patron refuses to engage with her (or, apparently, with anyone who looks like her).

A patron asked me to look up how far it was to Houston. He was going to walk there and wanted an estimate of how long it would take (about 85 hours).

And today, a patron told me he was "as fine as the hair on a frog" and then laughed to himself for several minutes.

The most words

 Today a patron called and insisted I measure all the dictionaries in our reference section because she only wanted to consult the biggest one. You cannot make these things up.

Still confused

 We now have two large A-frame signs outside our front doors that patrons have to basically squeeze past to reach the doors themselves. The signs say "CLOSED. Curbside pickup only, call 1-800-WALNUT-BLUFF." Of course, people being people, they often squeeze past the signs and pull on the door handle, at which point our front door person (whose job is supposedly delivering curbside pickups as cars arrive) has to shout the information to them. Most people get it at that point. However, today I had a couple who were still confused. They asked me "What kind of appointments do you guys do?" and when I answered "You can come pick up books or movies or printouts!" they replied, "Wait, so you can't come inside and look at books?"

When I relayed this conversation to Children's Librarian, she said, "I think people have been spending too much time in their houses watching TV and they don't know how to interact with real people anymore. They're like 'This one is talking back to me when I talk to it! What am I supposed to do!?'"

Open for your phone calls

This is a delayed post. We've all been sent home, but there was about a week where the library was closed to the public but staff were coming to work. We mostly worked on collection projects, cleaning, training, etc., but we were answering phones during open hours. Here's what people wanted to know:

Are you open? When are you going to be open again?

Is tax help still happening this week? What about next week?

I'm not going to come pick up my holds. Can you guys hold on to them a little bit longer or will I lose my place in line? 

I've been self-isolating at home and I cleaned out my house. I have a lot of books to donate. Can I bring them in? What if I just put them in the book return slot?

If I come sit by the front door and use your wifi, will you call the police?

Can I email you something to print, and you print it, and then I come to the door and you just hand it to me really quick?

A tough question

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

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:

(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!

Supplies I have wished we had at the reference desk

1. A cell phone jammer
2. Emergency cake
3. Text-to-speech translation software
4. A megaphone
5. A baby gate
6. Air freshener
7. Nose plugs
8. Ear plugs
9. A taser
10. Just one god-damn pair of scissors that actually worked

Today's conspiracy theories

Patron 1, when I tell her that a copy of Vatican Assassins, a book with asserts that the Jesuits killed John F. Kennedy, costs $125 on Amazon and the publisher is no longer in business: "Well, I guess that's not really a surprise, that they're no longer around. You hear about people who reveal these things that they don't want to get out, there is poison in their food and so on."


Patron 2 (totally unrelated 'question'): "Is there anything about medical capitalism, making people sick for money?...You're not allowed to talk about the elements in food. We have a periodical table of elements, but it's illegal to talk about it. The nutritionists who make the supplement catalogs, they can't publish anything about the geological elements that you need."

This morning

Can you give me the application for a Belizean passport? How much would that cost?


How long should I cook a 3-pound beef roast, and at what temperature?


Can you access scholarly articles on these computers?


We want to know in how many states Republicans control the governor, the senate, and the house. We looked it up on our smart phone but we couldn't find it.


If you'd like to read more infrequently asked questions, Mo Willems (author of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and other excellent children's books) has an excellent list.

Frustrating reference

I think Jumpsuit Man (always wears the same brown coveralls/jumpsuit) aka Automobile Quarterly Guy aka the man who brought a portable urinal into the library on more than one occasion is making up requests just to make the staff do work. We already get old issues of Automobile Quarterly out of storage for him every day, but he is expanding his horizons. In the last couple of weeks, he has also asked for ancient books on the Civil Service exams, ancient books on industrial chemistry, some movie from the 80s, and the Automobile Quarterly issues that are in the glass display case. Then today we had this conversation.


JM: Do you have an illustrated world atlas?
Me: Let me check. Is that the title, or would you just like any?
JM: Just any.
Me: Well, this is the children's section (as you well know), so this is a children's one, but is this the kind of thing you are looking for?
JM (with a big sigh): That's not the one I was thinking of.
Me (going to put it away): I'm sorry. Can you tell me anything more about the one you are looking for?
JM: Never mind, I'll just take this one.




Some other noteworthy questions from today:


A couple of d...ecades ago, you had a paperback book about buying stocks. I wanted to know if you still had that.
Do you remember anything else about it?
No, that's all I remember.
Well, let me show you the investing section. If we still have it and it's checked it, that's almost certainly where it would be.
Thanks. Gotta do something with all this free time.


Can you help me with the microfilm machine? (He doesn't want the initial help I want to give him, which involves totally removing the microfilm and replacing it correctly on the machine.)


Can you give me the number for the retirement home that's owned by the Holiday Inn?

Inquiring minds want to know

From the Patron of the Week: What exactly is a hashtag, what is the point of one, and how do I use them?


Do you have any books about near-death experiences?


Which one of these documents is the original, and which one is the copy?


Can you help me find the county election results for precinct 32? I'm on the ballot.


And, most alarmingly: What is the 'B' in 'LGBT'? Does it stand for 'black'?

Librarian/Flight Attendant

An unusually busy morning at Downtown Library. First a grateful and polite but very needy lady who has no computer confidence and needs to fill out a form, then one of my favorite ESL patrons, who says "I am so happy because everyone he is so helpful to me!", then an alarming call from a patron who wants the numbers for both www.shortdwarf.com and a local mental health helpline, then a call from Ms. Opp, who wants information about how to emigrate to Canada.


After that I go shush a woman who is talking too loudly on her cell phone. Actually, I don't even have to say anything, as soon as she sees me approach, she says to me "Oh, I'm sorry, honey, I'm too loud, aren't I?" and then says to her caller "Sorry, I gotta use my inside voice."


Patron who came up to the desk to ask a question, after I answered the question: Oh...also..is there a button I can press if I have a question, or do I have to come up here?
She wanted to know if she could press a button at her computer station indicating that she needed help, and the button would alert us and call us over, like a flight attendant call button. Sorry, that's, (say it with me now) not a service we provide!

My passion

An eight-ish boy said to me, "Do you have any books about shooting? I love shooting. Shooting is my passion!"


Since his secondary passion is 'cussing,' I tried to get him to read a Western, but the cussing was too old-fashioned and apparently they aren't gory enough.

"Good movies" and other recent notable interactions

Yesterday a man and his two friends came in. He asked, "Where are the good movies?" I figured he wanted a particular movie, or to be pointed to the right section of DVDs (ours are separated into Mystery, Action, Comedy, etc.). Nope. Maybe he wants some recommendations. Well, what kind of movies does he like? What has he seen before and what did he think of it? Does he have any favorite actors? Nope. "Last time I came here I just asked and they picked out the movies for me." So I picked him out a semi-random selection of ten DVDs and he walked away happy.


Friends of the Library Board member with a 'service dog' comes in; dog immediately lunges for the children's section (I'm sure it smells fascinating). Coworker grumbles, "You can so tell that's not a real service dog."


Man buys a two-dollar pair of headphones, pays with a check.


Outreach librarian doing a tour: "This desk is where you come for help. You want to know the atomic weight of tungsten, your zip code, whatever, this is the place."


Can you tell me which cities are at least 40 miles away from [City the library is in]?
A. Most of them. B. Does this have anything to do with a restraining order?


Accidental eye contact with someone who is picking his nose. Eew.


Guy who needs help with a computer (the monitor is turned off) asks if me and coworker are sisters. Nope, we're not, but we get asked this on a regular basis because we have the same hair color and nerdy thick-rimmed glasses, and are both white.


Man needs to print some attachments from an email but doesn't know his password. Figuring out your password is not a service we provide, but fortunately his daughter had set up his account for him and had the sense to put in his phone number to get a text as a password recovery option.


Woman wants contact information to write to author Brad Meltzer about the Constitution.


Retired plumber: I was told I could bring my computer in here and maybe you could help me figure out what's wrong with it. (I could! Then he wants to know--do I have a business card?)


Is there somewhere in the library we can go if we need to be loud?


Guy who is coming off of something (?) and is really messed up: A guy back there pointed his fingers at me like a gun and said 'band bang, you dead.' I think he's going to rob me.
Me: Well, that is a threat and we can have security call the police.
Guy: No, I don't want them to get involved.


Teach two different patrons about Craigslist. A new world opens up.

An older couple makes copies of the tax instruction booklet (we weren't able to order copies from the IRS to give away this year; it's a nightmare) without complaining to us or needed assistance with the copier. I would like to thank them for how low-maintenance they are, but I'm so overwhelmed I might cry, which would be awkward.

(Fifty Shades of) Grey areas

I had one of my most uncomfortable moments at work to date today when a man asked me for help burning his files to a CD. Okay, pretty run of the mill. I go over to help and... all his files are pornographic videos. Eeeeeew. However:
-Presumably the files themselves aren't illegal (i.e. no one underage is in them).
-He's not opening the files, just transferring them (actually viewing pornography on one of our computers does violate our library's code of conduct).
-The names of the files display small enough that only someone looking closely at his screen (like, for instance, the staff member helping him) would be able to read them.


Any thoughts? I tentatively concluded that although helping this guy was pretty unpleasant, I didn't have legitimate grounds for refusing to assist him.

Just let me pay

Today we got a request by email for a book that we don't have, a memoir by golfer Charlie Sifford called Just Let Me Play. I started to write an email back, opening by telling the patron that she had two options: interlibrary loan and a purchase request. Noticing that the book she requested had an original publication date of 1992, I did a quick Google search to see if a newer edition had come out--we probably won't buy something that's out of print from more than 20 years ago, and I didn't want to get her hopes up if that was the case.


Boy, I am glad I checked first. Here is what I found: