Justified suspicion

One of the libraries in my new system has some high-tech locks on the study rooms. You hold your palm up to them to 'wake them up,' then enter a code to unlock the door. Holding up your palm to the lock again locks the door. I was showing this to a patron when I was on the desk this evening in case she wanted to go out to the bathroom without having to take her backpack with her. When I opened the door for her with a flourish, she looked at me hesitantly.so I said "Do you have a question?" She said "So...that lock recognizes hands?" "Oh!" I said, "No, it's not that high-tech. It doesn't know that it's your hand or my hand, it just knows that there's a hand in front of it." The patron sighed and said, "Okay, good. I wasn't sure I wanted to go into a room that was smarter than I am."

Ethics emergency

I'm currently at the desk watching a patron flagrantly copy a whole academic text using the library's document scanner. I went and spoke to him about it once and reminded him that he had pressed "accept" to a screen explaining copyright law and stating that he would follow it, but I was brought up short by the fact that the book he was copying wasn't something from our collection. I had been planning a spiel trying to get him to borrow the book instead, but obviously that isn't going to work.

I suppose I could kick him out of the library for the day because he is violating the library's code of conduct (which says you must obey all laws), but the enforcement culture at Mystery Library is definitely on the relaxed side and my boss isn't here to ask. The only way to stop him short of that is to power off or unplug the machine right in front of him, and that's awfully confrontational.

I know we have some academic librarian readers who probably deal with this kind of stuff all the time. How do you handle it, and, also, how do you wish it would be handled?

UPDATE: The scanner was overwhelmed because it's not designed to capture 200 images at a time, and it froze! Ultimate justice! He wanted "help" with the problem, and when I told him the situation he A) complained that he flagrantly violates copyright all the time at Other Branch and that never happens there and B) said in an aggrieved tone of voice that since I wasn't offering him any other options he guessed he'd let me restart the machine, but he wasn't going to start over all his "work."

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!

Feeling legit

Several weeks ago, I was promoted from assistant to librarian at Downtown Library. What with the renovation, which meant big changes on our service model as well as physical changes, training me hasn't been a big priority for the powers that be. That means that it's taken me a while to get any new responsibilities to go along with my new position. However, I've long been the self-appointed advocate for our non-English collections, and I seem to have been somewhat legitimized in that role by my promotion. Today one of my colleagues, who has been kind of a role model for me since I started at Downtown, stuck his head into my cubicle and held out a "Learn English" DVD. He said "Me and John were wondering if you had the authority to move this to ESL and if you thought it was a good idea. It isn't going out in its current location."


There is nothing like being asked for help by people you respect to make you feel useful and valuable. This was the highlight of my week!

Some good stuff

I feel like the blog has been full of bad craziness lately, so let me tell you about a few good patron interactions I've had in the last couple of weeks:


A coworker who volunteers for Libraries for Life asked me to request some books on organ donation for her. I found some really nice fiction books about the relationships between the families of donors and the recipient of the donor's organ(s).


Due to a phone reference question, I learned that a caterpillar can stay in a cocoon up to two years! The poor woman who was calling had to ask me to repeat the quote from the site I found a few times--I fear she was copying it down word for word to use in a homework assignment. Aren't you glad you're not dependent on calling your public library in that kind of situation?


One of the Downtown Regulars recommended a new TV series to me based on my having recommended a book by Peter F. Hamilton to him a few months ago. It looks promising!


I showed someone who had never used Google how to Google things. This will never, ever get old to me.


Some people from a local church came and gave all the staff on desk bags with treats in them to thank us for the work we do for the city!


This is the best job ever!



(Picture from the Everett, CO Public Library)

Why Downtown is my favorite

Today when I lent a patron a pen and told him that he could have up to three hours on the computer, he gave me a fist bump.

Staff picks

At Downtown Library we have a large display stand featuring nonfiction titles selected by staff as favorites. It's one of my pet displays and I am always over there adjusting things for optimum aesthetics. Today I noticed:

1. Someone who doesn't have a library card is clearly reading one of my staff picks (Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusade by Jonathan Phillips), because it keeps disappearing from the shelf and then reappearing, still with "Emma Recommends" bookmark in it (I wonder if the reader is using it as a literal bookmark).
2. Someone has added a note saying "Good recommendation" to the "Ann Recommends" bookmark in one of my colleague's picks.
3. A book I put out 10 minutes ago is already gone! Yesssss!

Yes!

Best moment at Small Town Library so far: Seeing someone check out a book that I chose and ordered for the library's collection!

Unsurprisingly, the patron was a small elderly man in hat. Old Man Fan Club forever!

We had a Minecraft program tonight...

..and two little girls in pink flower-patterned leggings kicked everyone's asses.

Supply and demands

Within the first half-hour:

A woman came up to the desk to ask for scratch paper. I started to point out that around the other side of the desk (about 20 feet away) there is a bin with scatch paper and pens, but she said it was empty, so I fished around in the drawer and ended up ripping out some pages of a donated notebook for her (there is no such things as a scratch paper budget). As soon as she left I went over to refill the 'empty' bin--and it had about 20 sheets in it!

This was balanced out later by one of my favorite tween patrons coming up and asking if we had any headphones to give out. We don't have a budget for headphones either, but if someone gets a free airline pair or something we stash them in a drawer and give them out to desperate kids like them. I was excited to report that, even though we only have them once in a blue moon, we had them today, and a waaaay nicer pair than usual. I commented on this as I handed them to him and he pumped his fists and whisper-shouted "Yesss!"

Success

This morning I showed a man with a long list of print jobs how to release more than one at a time. He thanked me with the normal amount of enthusiasm, but then later I saw him pump both of his fists in the air in triumph when the machine told him that all the print jobs had been released. Put your hands in the air!