'Technology' Librarian

I know that I am easier to reach than the IT department is, but please be advised that the things below are not my job just because I am the Technology Librarian:

• Resetting your work computer password
• Finding you a spare extension cord
• Helping you with your personal cell phone
• Figuring out why your webcam won't work three years into the era of virtual meetings
• Replacing a clock
• Explaining to a patron why the website they want to go to is blocked just because you don't feel like breaking the bad news yourself

Antisocial behavior

Our main library is two stories and has an open staircase between the floors. Overheard around closing time just out of line of sight:

Parent: Don't do that.

Kid: Whyyy?

Parent: Because that's antisocial behavior....[pause]...would you want someone to drop a taco on YOUR head?

Still gross

 When I started this blog more than 10 years ago, I was in my early 20s and got harassed by creepy patrons ALL THE TIME. It has its own tag in the blog.

Now that I spend less time on desk and I'm in my 30s, it's been literal years since it's happened to me. But today I was filling in at a branch and doing a 'roam' around the public floor and a very Anglo-looking patron said "Hola" to me. Being polite, I said it back, but when he followed up with "¿Como estás?" after I'd already passed him, I pretended I didn't hear and just kept walking. I was not at all surprised when he said "damn, that ass!" as I was not quite out of earshot.

The sexual harassment is much less nerve-wracking than it was when I was young, but it was still exactly as gross.

Dog #3 (I think)

Today I caught a pug that wandered into the library and released him back into the neighborhood. I THINK this is dog #3 that I have captured and removed from a library, but I'm not even 100% sure, which I feel says a lot.

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.

Kid(Librarian)s today

One of our library locations, which I'm going to call Airport Branch due it being in a flight path which drives me crazy every time I work a shift there, is getting a 'digitizing lab.' It has machines for converting VHS tapes to DVDs, for making MP3s from cassette tapes, etc. It's supposed to go along with our local history and genealogy collection. It's a cool idea.

Since I'm the technology librarian for our system, I'm helping the newly-hired Adult Services librarian at the branch get the lab set up. One of the challenges we've been having with getting the lab ready is finding materials that staff can practice with--since I'm 35, I don't have a collection of home movies or much in the way of film negatives for us to play with. So I've been looking around at used bookstores, antique shops, etc. and grabbing any good examples I come across.

Recently I went to an antique store and found some SLIDES. I was so excited! I sent them over to my colleague at Airport Branch. It's worth mentioning at this point that this librarian JUST got her MLS and this is her third library job and first professional position. She's appallingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I don't know how old she is but basically all I do is crush her dreams. She wrote back to me:

"Thank you for the tiny pieces of film!"

This is as bad as when I found the old overhead projector transparencies. 

Language barriers, part 2,000

I helped a very nice lady sign up for a library card today in Spanish. The more practice I get, the sillier the gaps in my vocabulary seem.

Me (in near-fluent Spanish): "Your card will work at all four library locations. If there is something you're interested in that we don't have here but that one of the other locations does, we can have it sent over here for you. Here's your card, there are two copies, one for your keychain and one for your, uh, um...your...[gestures helplessly]."

I only just realized I don't know the word for "wallet." Google tells me it's "billetera." Huh.