Mr. Copy-and-Paste

Mr. Copy-and-Paste, my favorite patron, wants to know how to spell "field" and "Natchitoches" (a city in Louisiana) and to tell me that "wolves are so intelligent!"

Refgrunt of the second weekend in a row

Librarian supervisor: Can you check and make sure the people I just let into the program room really have a reservation?

Old man in motorcycle gear wants a biography of Betty White.

Anxious phone call: I can’t get into the online catalog on my home computer! It starts working of its own accord as I am taking her information and she thinks I have somehow fixed it remotely: “Oh, this is so great! I’ve been trying to do this for an hour, thank you so much!” and hangs up.

You can’t check this Pete the Cat out on your card because it is on hold for someone else. Let’s find YOUR Pete the Cat.

Can’t find a hold—it is a science kit that has to be picked up at the branch from whence it came.

Confused, and fairly so, by the “string not found” problem.

Husband can’t find his wife’s hold on the shelf—it’s just been run through and is still in the back.

Phone call: Desperate mom from neighboring city has a daughter who is required to read Mara, Daughter of the Nile, first published in 1953 and last published in 1985. Unsurprisingly, if we ever had a copy it did not survive. I use Worldcat to find out who else supposedly has it and pass her on to them.

Loud kids: Has anyone seen my dadeeeee? Daddy is two ranges away and shushes his kids repeatedly but ineffectively.

Book of Elsewhere.

Questions about the bookmark contest. I’m really hoping someone from our branch will win this year.

Needs help because he is searching for ‘dinosour books’ in the catalog.

Roar of a Snore.

Please don’t climb on that extremely poorly-chosen piece of public art in the children’s area. You will fall and need stitches and your parents will sue us for a million dollars.

Where does this computer print to?

Looking for story collections: Just got a card and is trying to obey the 5-item limit for first use and still get enough for his kids to read for the whole week. Clever idea, I thought!

Unjam the printer, and then reassure it about paper size.

The printer refuses to believe that 8.5x11 paper is loaded into tray 3.

The new computers are causing more trouble than benefit—people are still confused about all the changes. This man is concerned because the logged-off screen doesn’t look the same as it used to.

Do you not have wifi anymore?

No, it’s just down, sorry.

A regular I fear working with (he just might be our laziest patron) needs help photocopying two pages out of a textbook and then wants information on “Mother Jones” by which he means “child labor” (this is of course revealed later. Then he wants to know if we have some nutty small-press book called The Gift of Community and when we don’t and it turns out only five Texas libraries have it according to Worldcat, he wants to know where he can buy it. A, the paper he gave me from which to look up the title was a printout of its Amazon page, and B) when I say that he can buy it on Amazon, he says how can I do that, can I give them a call or something? Then he wants to know how much it will cost—I read that it costs $8.75 new or from one cent up used, and he says, okay, so how much would it cost?

Mr. Copy and Paste hopes I can maybe enlarge some text on a website—I can for reading, but not for printing, which is what he wanted. Oh well. He accepts the answer with good grace as always.

Observe a patron actually put her hands up to defend herself against the belligerent and rude tone of our worst circ staffperson.

I just logged on and the computer just shut down!

There is no tactful way to say that by far the most likely explanation is that you just bumped the power button with your hand. Sorry.

The printer is still waaaay on the fritz. It’s going to be a long afternoon.

Can’t find The Queen of Versailles on the shelf.

Wifi is down, sorry.

“Where is the printing section?”

Can you please turn your headphones down?

Call for Follow the Dream: The Story of Christopher Columbus. Then a call to another branch to make sure they really had it before the lady drove over there.

I heard you had a fax machine?

The fax doesn’t work for her.

A computer shut down while a hiccupping kid was in the middle of using it : (

There is 20 minutes of Saturday left but it’s usually a time of total craziness so I’d better stop here.

Cradle of democracy and "The Public's University"?

At the library in the last two days:

-The city put up a whiteboard in the library lobby for citizens to write their comments and suggestions. Someone wrote "This place is geto!!!" 

-Two simultaneous calls to the reference desk. My colleague and I each take one. On mine, a woman calls to complain that an online database is not working. As soon as I get off the phone with her, I realize my colleague is talking to someone with the same problem, who said to her "my sister couldn't get on either!"

-The guy who spends his days writing mysterious grids of numbers is apparently scanning and emailing them to an unknown second party every time he 'finishes' one.

-A kid wants five books about "how candy is bad for you and how many calories it has."

-A man shouting about how someone is "a lying, manipulative b****" into his cell phone gets mad when I tell him to "please take your conversation to the lobby" and nastily repeats my request word-for-word to whoever is on the other end of the phone.

-Mr. Can't Copy and Paste (Because He Can't Generally Select Text) successfully copies, but somehow his computer has lost awareness of the Microsoft Office suite that I am 110% sure is installed on it.

-Shelfreading, I pull a book on the publishing industry from 1988 and a 1999 book on webcams to ask my boss to withdraw.

Mostly boring refgrunt

Copy and Paste Guy (one of my favorites) wants help getting just an article he is reading online, not all the comments, into a Word document to print. I reiterate how to copy and paste but end up doing it for him after a valiant effort on his part, as usual. He just can’t seem to master the text-selecting part.

Do you need help finding your hold, ma’am? What’s your last name? Rodriguez. Okay, so look under R-O-D. Now what is your first name? No, Rodriguez, R-O-D-R.

A rowdy regular (a nice kid, just a lot more energy than discipline) runs by. He slows to a guilty walk as soon as he sees me looking at him but all I was going to do was compliment his new mohawk.

Can I borrow your pin? (Of course this is Texas and he is saying pen but sometimes I still mishear it since I am a recent immigrant.)

Excuse me, I looked up this book in the catalog and it says it is in the ‘story collection.’ Where is that? I explain and ask her if I can walk her over to it, but she says “No, I’m an old librarian.”

Cute little boy: What is my PIN number? I explain that it is the ‘last four numbers in your telephone number’ and a moment later hear him carefully repeating that to his mom or dad over at the computers.

Caller wants an audiobook from the Babylon Rising series.

Show a new library user how to print. He balks for a moment at ten cents a page but decides to go for it—he needs his company to reimburse him for his phone bill. Spend a moment commiserating about the difficulty of getting large entities to reimburse you for anything.

Help the same guy send his first email ever (?). Pretty much my favorite thing!

Five seconds away from calling the Story Collection lady  to let her know we have her bag when I discover that she is still in the library, despite saying ‘I’m going to just set this here for a moment while I go grab that book’ half an hour ago.

Son of coworker conscientiously returns a wiimote.

It’s three weeks [for book checkout], right?

A guy with an unlit cigarette sticking out of the side of his mouth sees me looking at him and says “Hi, howarya?”

I want to return this book. Okay, do you see the window…aaaaand she walks away.

Captains and Kings (TV series).

The Pearl by John Steinbeck—put on hold at another branch but it never came. Fortunately, it’s here!

All I want for Christmas

For the boys who play their online shooter games with the volume turned up waaaay too high: A pair of giant, ear-covering headphones each. 

For Mr. Take My Card, who we always have to wake up at closing time: A tent and a battery-powered space heater, so he doesn't have to relocate further away than the front lawn at night.

For Fedex guy, who we think is running a business out of the library and is always asking for shipping supplies: A stack of flat rate USPS boxes.

For the families who wander to different parts of the library and then shout across the building at each other: walkie-talkies. No, even better, tin cans attached to each other with string! That would give them a maximum radius.

For the Teen Librarian's Number One Fan: A framed photo of her and said librarian, for her to cherish forever.

For each high school kid who wants an immensely well-known book right now, because she is supposed to have read it by tomorrow, and she can't believe she'll have to wait two days for it to come over from another branch: A ten dollar gift certificate to Half Price Books, printed with a detailed map on it.

For whoever is stealing all the best DVDs as soon as they come in: A Netflix subscription.

For Construction Vest Man: His own bottle of whiteout. (Still haven't figured out what exactly he is using it for, but he asks for it every day.)

For the guy who is always thrilled when we copy and paste for him: Anything he wants, because he is great!

And, for Do You Have... Boy, a free pass to somewhere where he can look at or borrow as many books as he wants, even if he is never even going to read them. Oh wait, that place is called the library.