Heartwarming

I just realized it's been weeks since I posted anything - where does the time go? This is a tough time of year to find time for anything other than working, shopping, cooking, and visiting, but I do have a sweet story to share.

Last week a Stephanie Meyer book (can't remember which one but it doesn't really matter - they're ALL heavily requested right now) came up on hold for a young girl. Her mom answered when we called to let her know it was available, and she asked us to participate in a little scheme she cooked up. Seems she had bought the book for her daughter but instead of giving it directly to her, she wanted us to hand to her daughter when she came to pick up her hold.

I was lucky enough to be at the reference desk when they came in the next morning. When she asked for the book on hold for her, I gave her the copy her mother bought for her, onto which her mom had clipped a sweet note explaining that it was hers. It took her a few minutes to read the note, during which time mom was waiting with her cell phone camera ready to capture that moment when she realized what was going on. She looked up, caught her mother's eye and flew into her arms, shouting "thank you, thank you, thank you!!" and "I love you so much!" It was really very sweet and heartwarming.

Of course, we lost a circulation but at least the next person got their copy faster!

Crazy alert!

In the last week or so we've had a crazy man in the library. He comes in nearly every day and spends literally all day on the computer working on some kind of complicated-looking spreadsheet, so obviously he has some skillz. Most of the time he's pretty quiet (although he clears his throat an awful lot), but every now and then he starts talking loudly to himself about cell phones and surveillance, so I guess he's got some kind of conspiracy theory that "they" are spying on him through cell phones.

When he starts getting agitated, of course the other customers complain. But he seems to be aware when he needs to calm himself down: he leaves his computer and goes all the way back in the corner of the stacks and lies down on the floor for a few minutes. He always manages to get back to his computer before it times out, though. Must have some kind of sixth sense, 'cause I don't think he owns a watch. I've seen him on the floor and even though we have a "no sleeping" policy, I don't really want to confront him 'cause, well for starters, he's crazy, AND I think he's actually doing something that helps him be LESS crazy, at least for the next little while. So, you know, he's dealing with it.

This evening a guy came up and said he thought he saw this guy on America's Most Wanted, so of course I looked him up right away but didn't see anyone who looked enough like him to be alarmed. At least not about THAT, anyway.

Another guy came up and said he thinks we ought to get this guy some help with his illness. So what, we're supposed to call in a psychiatrist? We actually did call the police the other night just for a consultation but since the guy isn't really doing anything illegal there wasn't much of anything he could do.

The other problem is that he's not at all clean and smells pretty bad. We actually have a policy about that, too (we have a policy for nearly everything), but that's another thing I don't really want to confront him about. "Excuse me, sir, I know you're crazy but I noticed that your body odor is disgusting. I'm sorry, but our policy requires you to maintain acceptable bodily hygiene. If you can't do that you will have to leave." Can you imagine THAT encounter? Not only that, but bathing is prohibited in the library as well, so he can't even GET clean in our library.

All the staff is aware of him and basically our approach is to leave him alone unless he starts getting loud, whereupon we will approach him and politely ask, "Is everything all right, sir? Is there anything I can help you with?" We've also taken to disabling the computers next to where he's sitting to reduce his olfactory impact on other customers.

I've noticed that people like him seem to move on after a while, so maybe we'll get lucky and he'll stop coming.

Reference question of the day

Today a man came in asking for information on "duke langers". Never having heard of it (them?), I asked if he knew anything else. He replied that his buddy at work kept talking about it, but all he would say was that it was a species in Cambodia. I searched "duke" and "cambodia" in Google but no luck. Then I tried "langers" instead and, lo and behold, found out that douc langurs are a highly endangered species of monkey in Cambodia that's been in the news because recently a huge, previously unknown population of douc langurs was discovered.

It was a short investigation (took about 3 minutes) but a fun one nevertheless. In the days before the Internet, I wonder how long it would have taken me to come across this?

Customers are everywhere

Today I attended a leadership seminar with a man who was until recently (he's been promoted) the manager of one of the other libraries in our system. He related a hilarious story to which I'm sure I won't do justice, but I just HAD to share it here.

A couple of months ago he had just finished his workout at the gym and went in to take a shower. As he was coming out of the shower (completely naked, as men tend to be in locker room situations, or so I assume), a man (also completely naked) recognized him as a library person and started haranguing him about a circulation issue. Apparently the man had instructed his wife to go to the library to pick up a book that was on hold for him but unfortunately did not empower her by giving her his library card first. So of course the staff person would not allow her to check out her husband's item (we take confidentiality of circulation information VERY seriously at my library - how do WE know if she's actually his wife? What if she's a vindictive EX-wife - imagine how much trouble THAT could cause!), and she had to go home without it. He was extremely upset and went on and on about it for quite some time.

Imagine yourself stepping out of the shower, naked and dripping wet, and having to respond to something like this. He laughs about it now but I'm sure at the time it was all quite unsettling.

I feel grateful that I live in a different area of town from where I work.

The clock strikes back

In an earlier post I talked about an accident that happened when I responded to a request for help with the A/V equipment in our conference room. The group using the room had hung their homemade clock over the door so when I went in the room, of course it fell off and shattered into a million pieces. I felt terrible about it but at the same time was annoyed that they were stupid enough to hang it in such a precarious spot.

Well, I finally heard back from them in sort of a roundabout way. The leader sent a whiney message to our meeting room librarian and complained that we have treated his group very rudely over the past several months, citing the clock incident as one of several examples. He said, and I quote, "Also, I used to have a Laurel & Hardy clock, specially crafted by one of my group's members, that I would hang on the back door of the conference room at each meeting. About three months ago, one of the librarians opened the door to address me, and the clock fell to the floor into a broken, unrepairable state without a single word of apology from the librarian."

Man, that really burns me up. I DID apologize - I remember saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry!" and then attempting to help pick up the pieces, but the group members were so horrified that they yelled at me not to bother. They could clearly see it was an accident but were so grumpy about it that I could think was, "why the hell did you have it hanging in THAT particular spot?" So I was angry that their stupidity had caused me to be the agent of destruction, and I guess I wasn't abject enough in my apology.

Of course I had to respond to him, and I'm pleased to say that I (mostly) took the high ground and sent back a genuine apology (because, truly, I am sorry it happened). From his reply it seemed he was mollified, so all's well that ends well, I guess.

Voting: it's the right thing to do!

Even though we have had early voting at my library for two weeks I have not been able to take a few minutes to go over to the meeting room and take care of it. So I went to a different branch (one closer to my home) on my day off yesterday to do my civic duty.

What an interesting experience! There were at least 150 people in line when I walked in and more kept pouring in as I waited. The wait was about 45 minutes, not too bad when you consider the importance of casting my vote in this historic election.

It being Halloween, there was a rather festive atmosphere in the queue. We had a 1920s flapper, a Sarah Palin look-alike (a pretty good one, too), a cheerleader, a vampire, and a man dressed in a conservative business suit topped off with a wacky Elvira wig. Not sure exactly what he was going for, but it was interesting.

I was pleasantly surprised at how quiet and respectful everyone was, especially considering that the line snaked through the library itself. I didn't hear a single person complain about how long it was taking, and once I got inside the voting room itself, everyone followed instructions and continued to wait patiently until their chance to cast their vote.

This may sound hokey, but I always find myself overcome with emotion when I step into the room to cast my vote. I'm not sure what it is, but the realization of the awesome privilege and responsibility of being able to have a say in who leads our country gets me every time.

Don't miss out on the chance to have your say - VOTE!

Vote early, vote often!

Early voting is in full swing at my library and while I'm ecstatic that people are so passionate about voting for the candidate of their choice, it has been somewhat annoying at times.

For instance, there's the lady who called to ask if there was a line to vote - she wanted the person who answered the phone to leave customers waiting at the circulation desk and go all the way out into our lobby to check. Which is kind of silly - I mean, even if there wasn't a line when she called, that's no guarantee that there won't be a line when she arrives.

Then there was the man who thought he left his cane in the voting room and wanted the staff member to go look for it. Now, we've been told that voting security is crucial, and in fact staff members have been chided for coming into the voting room, so I can't imagine the voting people would look too kindly on a staff person rooting around the room looking for a cane. Plus, if the man was able to walk out of the voting room, out of the library, and out to his vehicle without his cane (without even realizing he didn't have it), does he really need it?

And let's not forget the voting people themselves. They scolded our custodian last week for coming into the room to empty the trash, but this week they complained that the trash hadn't been emptied! There's no pleasing these folks. They feel free to come back into OUR work area to use our copier and microwave, and even have gone so far as to take food (not their own) out of our staff refrigerator.

Plus, I'm amazed at the number of people who walk into the library, right past the open meeting room door with all the people milling about, not to mention signs all over the place, and come all the way in the library to the reference desk to ask, "Where is the voting?" I want to say, "You walked right by it on your way in - how could you have missed it?"

I will be SO happy when this election is over!

Ah, the sweet smell of tobacco, and other random thoughts

One of the clerks came to my office today to say that a woman was complaining because some guys were smoking cigars outside. Instead of saying "So what?" (which was of course my initial response), I said "Okay, I'll go check it out." Walking out into our lobby I noticed a slightly sweet smell and thought, "That smells good." I walked outside and saw no-one, but then noticed the woman who had complained coming out. I thought I could avoid her (sorry, this is the real me here - I do things like that now and then) by coming in the other door as she walked out the main exit but no, she had to come around and intercept me. Drat. She said "Do you smell that?" and I thought it would be better to say no than to admit that I thought it smelled good. She pointed out two young men who had just walked into the library and said they had been standing outside the exit smoking cigars and that was offensive to her. "I mean, there are children walking in and out of here!"

Now I am pretty much an anti-smoking fanatic - I hate being around people smoking cigarettes and go out of my way to avoid it wherever possible. But this woman was complaining about these guys smoking OUTSIDE, an area over which I really have no control. If they just HAD to smoke, at least they weren't trying to do it indoors - now that would have gotten a reaction from me. But as it was, there was little I could do but tell her I was very sorry about what had happened.

Why do I always have to apologize for everything anyone does that offends someone else? I'm getting mighty sick of these holier-than-thou people who think the world revolves around their preferences.

Today was pretty sucky from the get-go, though. Our accident-prone children's librarian (well, she always seems to have something wrong) called in to say she couldn't come to work because she was on medication for a pulled muscle. I didn't say to her, "Now what were you doing that caused you to pull a muscle?" No, I was polite and thanked her for letting me know, then hung up and cursed her with all my might. We were already short-staffed due to someone on vacation, so I had to re-work the schedule to fill in at the children's desk. I ended up being on the desk nearly the whole day. Which is totally exhausting at my library (remember, we get at least 30,000 people coming in this building on a monthly basis - sometimes more).

Add to that, the issue that I talked about in an earlier post about our renewal limits has reached the attention of the director, who wants to FORM A TASK FORCE to look into it!! Rather than just making a decision, she wants to form a committee that will endlessly argue about this issue (oh, a recap - some staff have taken our 2-renewal policy a step further and will not allow customers to check items out again or transfer them to another card when the renewal limit is reached because "it's not fair - other people should have a chance at finding this material on the shelf." It's my position that as long as nobody has placed a hold request, who gives a crap - let 'em have it! I don't understand why some staff want to argue with customers about something this inconsequential - I just want the circs!), and then make a recommendation to the two circulation-related committees WE ALREADY HAVE!! And guess who she was hoping would be the chair of the committee - me!

Luckily I am not being forced to chair the committee and it's a good thing because I don't really believe it's necessary. Just make a freakin' decision already. She keeps talking about getting "buy-in" from the staff, but I don't believe she's serious about doing whatever the staff would actually recommend, so the buy-in is just a sham. I guess it would depend on who is selected to serve on the committee - I mean, if it's all people who already agree with what she wants to do, then I guess she can pretend she's getting buy-in, but what if the committee recommends something that she doesn't want? Will she go with what they say? I seriously doubt it. In this case, I don't think buy-in is necessary - the current practice at many libraries is causing a great deal of customer dissatisfaction, so the administration just needs to clarify the policy regarding renewals so staff won't keep making up their own procedures.

There's of course a larger issue that somehow this tiny controversy has gotten linked to, and that is the serious divide between the librarians and the clerks, to which I have alluded before. In this particular controversy, most of the librarians tend to be fairly flexible about allowing people to have a new checkout of materials they've already renewed twice, and most clerks are adamant about NOT allowing the new checkout. So it's becoming a divisive issue and this task force is supposed to be some kind of an attempt to start somewhere in addressing this issue.

Which makes me even less inclined to want to chair it. I'm no negotiator and have no wish to mediate between the two groups. I just want to do my job, get my work done, and go home when I'm done for the day. Now I wish I had never opened my big mouth and brought it up with the circulation manager in the first place. Crap.

Hate sucks

Every Tuesday a big stack of our local free newspaper is delivered to my library. It's a popular publication containing local entertainment news and commentary. This morning we discovered that someone had placed hate literature associating presidential candidate Barack Obama with extremist black militant groups into random copies of the newspaper. The flyer includes quotes such as, "Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy."

What kind of person would do such a thing? This is defamation of character at best, and in my opinion constitutes the worst kind of hate-mongering that frightened, small-minded people are capable of. We are sickened.

We went through the papers and pulled out (and SHREDDED!) all of the flyers we could find, hoping and praying we don't find any more. Between now and the election I am sure we will have to check these papers regularly for more of this political terrorism.

This sucks.

California dreamin' is over - now it's Kentucky woman!

Here's an update on a customer I blogged about in a recent post: he came up to the reference desk the other night and told me that he had indeed gone to California but decided not to stay. Seems his father (who must be pretty old, as this guy has to be at least in his late 50s or early 60s) and he didn't get along, and his father told him to "just go!"

So now he's back. He still hates it here, though, so his new plan is to move to Kentucky to stay with his girlfriend, who lives in Glasgow, a small town in south-central Kentucky not too far from Bowling Green (which is itself a fairly small town, most notably known as the hometown of Western Kentucky University).

It's interesting what customers will tell you about their personal lives. I'm not sure why he decided to talk to me in the first place - to my recollection, I have never helped him with a reference question or had any customer service type of interaction with him - but now it seems he feels obligated to update me on his plans whenever something changes.

I'm not sure when he's actually going to Kentucky, but I have a feeling he will tell me when he does.

Defending the regular

We have a regular customer (actually, he's here so much he practically lives at the library) named Jim (AKA Hairy Legs). I've blogged about him in an earlier post. He's annoying but harmless. He drives a battered old pickup truck stuffed full of his belongings, with everything but the kitchen sink strapped onto it. I'm not kidding - this man has a rubber raft, six coolers, a bike, a kayak, a surfboard, a trash can and god knows what else strapped to the roof and back of his truck. I don't honestly know how he keeps it all from falling off! The staff and I have often wondered whether his truck is his home - seems pretty likely.

The other day a snooty-looking woman came in and conspiratorially said to me, "What's the story on that truck out there?" I knew perfectly well what truck she was talking about but played dumb, not wanting to get into any kind of gossip with this totally unknown person. She said, "You know, the one with all that stuff strapped to it!" I admitted I recognized the truck she was talking about, but then she asked "Do you know who drives it?" Suspicious of her motives, I lied and said "No, I have no idea. Why do you need to know?" She said, "Well, I was just curious. I mean, it's RIDICULOUS!! Is that person homeless? Who would carry that kind of crap around with them? Honestly, it's really disgusting."

Now, I don't really care for Jim - he's a pain in our ass - but this woman just pissed me off with her snooty, holier-than-thou attitude. What a snob. I actually felt very defensive of him - in a way, he's one of our own. Weird.

So I basically continued to play dumb and she wandered away.

Goin' to California with an achin' in my heart

About a month ago one of our regular customers (kinda crazy but pretty nice) was leaving at closing time and told me, "This is the last time you'll see me - I'm moving to California tomorrow. I don't like it here." I wished him well and said goodnight.

The next night he was back again and said his plans got delayed for a couple of days but that he wouldn't be back after that. "Good luck to you," I said, "Hope things go well for you in California!"

I sort of forgot about him until the other night, when I saw him sitting at his accustomed spot at one of the computers. He wouldn't look at me and didn't say anything so I figured I'd leave him alone, but I do wonder what happened. Did he go and find out he didn't like California either? Did something happen that prevented him from going? Is he just so crazy that he made the whole thing up in the first place?

It does make me curious...

Why do they care???

My library system has 2-renewal limit policy, meaning that a customer can't renew an item more than twice. It's a good policy; it makes it harder for people to keep our stuff forever simply by renewing over and over.

Unfortunately, over the years, clerical staff have developed an *extension* to the policy that is pretty much impossible to explain or defend when customers complain. There is now a widely accepted practice of not allowing customers to return an item and then check it back out on someone else's card (wife or husband, for example). When customers ask why, they are told that it gives other customers a chance at the material and makes things more fair. I have even heard staff members telling customers that there is a "24-hour waiting period" before materials can be checked back out again.

This is ridiculous - there is no 24-hour waiting period, and we have no policy that prevents customers from switching items from one library card to another. Not only that, but it's truly impossible to enforce. If a frustrated customer left the circulation desk and came over to the reference desk and asked for the item, the librarian would simply do his/her job and go look for the item, and, finding it on the sorting shelf in the workroom, would give it to the customer with no questions asked, allowing the customer to check it out on the self-check with the clerks being none the wiser.

Recently I questioned this practice with the systemwide clerical services manager. Although he agreed with me that we can't defend this practice because there is no policy to back it up, he said that when he brought it up at a meeting of the clerical supervisors from around the system, they absolutely FREAKED about it and were vehemently opposed to changing the practice. They seem to have such a personal stake in it but I don't fully understand why - why do they care so much?

For my part, I just want the circ stats!

I understand the origin of the practice - a concern that people are hogging stuff and not letting anyone else get a chance at it. But if a staff member has that concern, all they need do is place a hold request on that specific item and the next time the customers try to get it, the hold request will prevent them from checking it out again. So in my mind there is a simple solution to their concerns.

My theory is that many clerical staff members feel essentially powerless - they are frontline staff who take an incredible amount of crap from people all day long and have to work so hard moving materials around, but they don't really get to control who gets to do what at the library - the high muckety-mucks make all the decisions. So when they get an opportunity to say "you can't do that," I think it makes them feel like they're in control, EVEN IF IT MEANS AN ARGUMENT WITH A CUSTOMER!

However, in spite of their objections, I understand that sometime in the next few weeks the administration is going to come out with a clarification that reinforces that we have no policy preventing customers from switching items from one library card to another.

At that time I will have to tell my staff that they need to stop doing this, and I'm not looking forward to the resistance and resentment that I know are inevitable. Every time a librarian bends "the rules" when a customer complains, the clerks get PO'd because we're not supporting them. But sometimes the rules need to be bent; everything isn't black and white all the time.

It will just be one more thing to reinforce the divide between the clerks and the librarians, which is truly unfortunate. What I wish is that I could figure out some ways to make us all feel part of a single team that's working together to do the best job we can, but so far I'm not succeeding. Sigh...

When opportunity knocks...

As the staff and I were walking out to the parking lot at closing time last night, a young woman ran over and shouted, "Someone stole my car!"

She told us that earlier she had had some trouble with her car as she was parking at the library and called AAA. They came and fixed whatever it was and she went into the library, LEAVING HER KEYS IN THE CAR DOOR (of course she didn't realize that at the time). Two hours later at closing time she discovered the car was gone. Well, duh.

Two of us waited with her until the cops arrived. She kept talking about how shocking it was that someone would do that, but in my mind, with the keys hanging in the door, the car was just sitting there shouting at passersby, "Steal me!!" Now I know there are honest people in the world who would have taken the keys into the library and turned them in, but that's not how it went down.

I bet she won't do THAT again.

Flag anxiety

About a month ago I noticed that our US flag was looking pretty tattered. It was less than six months old but I guess recent storms and high winds had really beaten it up a bit. I asked our supply clerk to order a new one, which she did fairly quickly, but we haven't gotten it yet.

On 9/11 an extremely irate customer informed me that not only was our flag not at half-staff (as it was supposed to be on a national day of mourning), it was extremely tattered. Luckily I was able to tell him that we had a new flag on order but that it hadn't come in yet. I checked my email and lo and behold there was a message from the administration that the flag was supposed to be flown at half-staff that day. The message had been sent exactly two minutes before we opened! They always wait until the last possible second to tell us the important stuff. Granted, I should have been on top of it myself, but I was on the desk and we were incredibly busy that morning, so I just blanked on it.

Anyway, I promised the customer I would lower it to half-staff right away and he went away relatively happy.

Yesterday the new flag STILL hadn't arrived, so I had no choice but to go out and buy one myself ($36! Of course, we have no mechanism for me to get reimbursed). My boss is coming out today for a meeting and she always notices details like that, and just LOVES putting me on the spot. One day someone had put an Olympics bumper sticker on the front door, and of course I didn't know it was there. She came out for our meeting later that day and very pointedly asked me what was the deal with the sticker on the front door. She seemed delighted when I didn't know anything about it. Sigh...

I know I'm supposed to be aware of everything that's going on in my library at every single moment and handle all of it immediately but sometimes it just isn't possible. But at least my boss can't get her jollies today from telling me the flag is tattered! (She is sure to find something else, though - she's good at that.)

Free still beats cheap

A young guy (fantasy, RPG-type) came in today to ask for a book. While I was looking for it, he stated that he used to live near a discount bookstore, where they would order any book he wanted at a cheap price. I countered with, "Now you can get them for free!" to which he replied, "Yeah, but I have to give 'em back." Well, there is that.

I still think free beats cheap any day. And (dare I admit this?) I can't remember the last time I actually bought a book. Why would I buy books when I can get pretty much any book I could possibly want, for free? Plus, I don't have to lug big boxes of books around when I move.

Working at the library does have some advantages.

Ah, September!

I can really tell school has started back again but they're just gearing up for the heavy work later in the year. Tonight I was on the reference desk for two hours and had maybe 5 customers. Wonderful!

It's sad that what I'm happy about is NOT having people come in the library, but after the summer we've had, we're thrilled to have a few quiet times here and there. It won't last long.

Too busy to be good

Here's a sad fact: the busier your library gets, the worse the service. Because of course there are never enough staff members to help all the customers who want you to do something for them ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It's impossible to give quality service when you have six people waiting impatiently and interrupting while you are trying to help someone else. Everyone comes in at the same time and wants service NOW. Not to mention the phone ringing off the hook.

Today I feel like an absolutely terrible librarian. We do not have time to fully assist anyone, and as a result, pretty much everyone who came in today is getting bad service.

It IS possible to be too popular. Sigh...

A good day

Yesterday was a good day at the library. Company X FINALLY sent someone to repair our public printers (which have been down for several weeks), so now we only have one out of service (it needs a part, of course).

Our alarm system, which had been malfunctioning for several days, requiring a bypass (sounds like open heart surgery, doesn't it? Sometimes it feels like it - with ME as the patient!), was repaired by a very nice technician who actually asked for me so he could give me an update before he left - amazing!

I contacted the company that supports our color copiers (not our black and white copiers - that's a DIFFERENT company) and scheduled a service call to put our color copier back in service (which has been down since May). I'm hoping they will be out by next week sometime - that would be awesome.

The person in charge of the city tech support department called to tell me that all of our computers will be upgraded next week, which supposedly will help with some of the issues we've been having. We'll see, but it was good to hear anyway.

We got a new volunteer who is in library school and is a workaholic - she got SO much done it was wonderful.

I got my odious monthly reports finished ON TIME! Whoo-hoo!

The A/C didn't go off - it stayed on ALL DAY!

And (this is not technically library related, but it really made my day), my very generous BF gave me a 1 terabyte (!!) external hard drive for my computer at home. What a nice guy. :-)

Woe the building

I work in a building that's less than 4 years old. In spite of its youth, we have constant problems with the building. Sometimes it seems like it's falling down around our ears.

Our A/C (which I blogged about in a recent post) goes out every time we have a power outage, which seems to be at least once or twice a month. It usually takes an entire day to get it fixed, and since my library is in a very warm part of the country, we have to endure 85+ conditions for way too long. It's been the bane of my existence this summer.

Our outside lights frequently don't work at all. When we leave at closing time, it is often completely dark. Repair personnel have come out more than once to "fix" it but it keeps getting unfixed somehow. We have taken to carrying flashlights with us when we leave.

There's always something wrong in our public restrooms. Seems like there's always a customer screaming at us because the automatic faucets don't work or the toilets flush too fast. (And don't even get me started on the day someone left a "gift" for us on the floor in the men's restroom. Gross.)

Our floor covering is carpet tiles, which shouldn't be a problem except the chairs that were purchased for the computers are very heavy, solid oak chairs that dig in between the tiles and pull them up ALL THE TIME. Why didn't they purchase chairs that would slide easily over the carpet tiles? It drives us nuts and of course is a tripping hazard. City repair people re-glue the tiles but of course they get pulled up again, over and over and over. I report at least three loose carpet tiles every month.

We discovered a few weeks ago that the brick facing on the outside of the building was coming loose. The builders failed to properly secure the bricks so now a whole section is sagging away from the structure. It looks pretty bad. They are supposed to repair it but who knows when they will get around to it.

Let's see...what else? We had raw sewage back up into our public restrooms the other day due to some work that was being done on our outside sewer drain. That was fun.

You would think in a building this new we wouldn't have all these issues. That's what you get when you go with the lowest bidder. Sigh...

Non sequitur

Do you ever get the feeling there is another whole reality going on of which you are totally unaware?

A man just walked by and said "Whatever it is, I didn't do it!" I have no idea what he's talking about.

I fix A/C?

Our A/C went off yesterday due to a brief power outage. I duly reported it in the prescribed manner (an email to the facilities manager, his assistant, and my supervisor), thinking someone would be out yesterday afternoon to start it back up again. No dice.

Sent another email early this morning, this time marking it urgent. Nothing.

Finally, about an hour before we were due to open, I frantically called the facilities manager, who said he had not seen either of my emails. He promised to call the city buildings people to get someone out here, but he couldn't say when they would arrive. He had no explanation as to why nobody else who had also received my emails had done anything about the situation.

We tried to wait patiently for someone to get here to fix it. Right before we were supposed to open, there was still nobody here to work on the A/C. It was still stiflingly hot (84 degrees) in the building, so I made a desperate call to my boss, who finally agreed (after some pleading on my part) to let us delay opening for an hour.

There was a crowd of people at the door waiting to get in, so a staff member went out to put up signs and explain what was going on. She was stopped by a guy in an A/C repair uniform who handed her his card and, in halting English, said "I fix A/C?" Thinking this is the repair guy from the city, she brought him to me. Now I don't speak Spanish, but luckily we have a staff member who does, so she was brought in to interpret. Turns out he was just an enterprising soul trying to drum up some business! I can just imagine me letting him at our A/C unit and him charging us hundreds for fixing it. I'd have been fired, I think.

Finally the city people showed up just before we were supposed to open and FLIPPED A BREAKER to get the A/C restarted. I asked them to show me where this breaker was (I had already been up there and could not figure it out) but they refused, insisting that we are not authorized to TOUCH anything on the A/C units.

So this is almost guaranteed to happen again. I hate having to deal with building problems, and we have plenty of 'em, I can tell you. But I'll leave that for another post.

How to feel good about life again (at least for a little while)

Teach a class, any class, as long as you like what you're teaching.

I was so bummed this morning about the inevitable decline of libraries that I could barely drag myself to work. I groaned when I arrived and realized I had scheduled myself to teach a PowerPoint class.

My branch offers a regular series of free introductory computer classes every month, starting with basic mouse and keyboard skills and progressing on to Word, Excel, Internet, Email & PowerPoint.

I usually feel very stressed when I'm scheduled to teach. But invariably, as the class is progressing, I remember how rewarding it is to feel like you're doing something concrete to help people. When the tough-looking tattooed guy in the front row said "That is just so cool!" after I showed the class how to create neat transitions between slides, I felt pretty damned good.

So yeah, if you feel crappy, teach somebody something and I guarantee it'll make ya feel better. :-)

The beginning of the end

Lots of people have said that public libraries will soon go the way of the dinosaur as advances in technology change the way we get information and entertainment. Web-based social networking offerings such as MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Flickr, wikis, YouTube, Google, podcasting, etc., etc., etc., are becoming more and more important in people's daily lives. Even Amazon's Kindle is providing a different approach to reading that moves away from the traditional paper book.

Public libraries recognize this and are scrambling to remain relevant in this changing environment, but it's an uphill battle to prove we can provide real value to the community, especially as funds get tighter and tighter in these tough economic times.

My first indication that we are losing the fight was a recent announcement by our city's IT department that they want us to consider reducing the number of public computers we offer in order to reduce bandwidth demands on the network. We all laughed when we heard this but in fact this is exactly the kind of approach that will kill us in the long run. At a time when we should be looking for ways to increase our ability to provide fast, robust online services that are up-to-date with developing technology, our wonderful city government is making noises about curtailing our ability to provide those services.

Free computing is increasingly becoming the main reason why many people visit us, but if we reduce the quality of computing services, fewer and fewer people will come in, which will make it even that much harder for us to justify requests for adequate funding just to keep the building open and provide materials that people need. It's the beginning of a downward spiral towards irrelevance.

Already the quality of our computing services has gone down just in the last year. Our computers are several years old and constantly freeze up when people are trying to do email, take a test, or fill out a form. Repeated calls to IT have not improved the situation at all. Two of our four public printers are down (one for over a month and a half), making it much more difficult for users to get their prints, not to mention causing a huge amount of hassle for the staff.

Computer services at my library have deteriorated significantly over the last few months and I'm beginning to wonder if it is an intentional strategy on the part of the IT folks (and by extension, city government). They are forcing the issue by refusing to provide adequate support services and there doesn't seem to be ANYTHING we can do about it. We are at their mercy.

They are, quite literally, killing us.

Storytime Tale

You might think that providing storytimes for children would be all sweetness and light but you would be wrong. There are few things that upset parents and caregivers more than not being able to get into storytime because it's full, or because they're LATE and the program has already started. I know children's librarians everywhere know what I'm talking about.

But when you add preschools and day care centers into the mix, things can really get complicated. This morning we got a call from the director of a local day care center who has already made plans to visit our library on a particular date and time and wanted us to accomodate their group (50+ children) with a library tour and storytime. Here's the problem: we already have two regular storytime programs scheduled for that day and with only one children's librarian on duty at that particular time (not to mention only one storytime room), there is no way we will be able to accomodate this group on that date at the time they want.

The children's librarian offered to come to their location earlier in the morning that day - no dice. She suggested a different date - no, they already have it set IN STONE in their calendar (which amazes me - they set this date without consulting with us to see if it would work?) She suggested they try a different branch library - nope to that as well. Not satisfied with anything the children's librarian had to say, the day care director insisted on talking to me, but I could only repeat that we would love for them to come see us but not on that date at that time. She argued with me, said I was being ridiculous, said I was being unfair, said I wasn't supporting the community, said I was being contradictory (I had mentioned our scheduled storytimes but then said that we really couldn't accomodate them in the regular storytime as it wouldn't be fair to our regular attendees.) I could only keep apologizing to her (when I felt like shouting at her - I want it noted that I actually held my temper in the face of this abuse) and she finally said that maybe they could come in after the regular storytimes. So she talked with the children's librarian and made arrangements to come in at 11:30 am.

Which all sounds great, except I have a strong feeling that they are going to just show up at 10:00 and try to bully their way into the storytime, and we're going to have to prevent them from coming in. If that indeed happens it won't be pretty.

This is all in about a month so I will post an update after it's all over.

It's always something...

Update on meeting room snafu

After our stressful morning the other day, things started looking up in the afternoon when the organizer of the group whose meeting somehow got deleted from our meeting room schedule came over and apologized for getting so angry. It's amazing what a difference a few hours can make. We were both so antagonistic in the morning during the inital confrontation but later on we had both calmed down and were able to have a cordial conversation. This is not to say that I no longer have bad feelings towards this group - with them it's always something - but at least this particular crisis was resolved with nobody going away dissatisfied.

My own difficulty with remaining calm in the face of accusations and verbal abuse is part of the problem, of course. My response to their belligerence was anger, and showing that only escalated the unpleasantness. When am I going to get control of my quick temper?? Gotta work on that.

Ommmmmmmmmm....

Doom and gloom

Well it's only 2 pm and so far today has been one disaster after another. The computer signup system was down when we got here so we called that in. The IT folks had the signup part working when we opened but then we realized we couldn't access the staff client software. This is after having both printers in the adult area go down yesterday, so we were having to move print jobs to the teen printer, but we couldn't access the staff software to do that. So we called that in. About an hour later we realized that nobody could print anything anyway, so we had to call THAT in. Apparently when they re-started the system this morning they neglected to re-start all of the parts, so we had to keep calling them in individually. Weekend tech support. Sheesh.

In the middle of all this a group showed up claiming they had the meeting room reserved. They didn't. There were at least 75 people in the lobby waiting to get into the room for this presentation, but a different group was already scheduled to use the room. The organizers got very, very belligerent with us about it, claiming it was our fault. They have caused lots of problems in the past so I wasn't feeling at all apologetic, and heated words were exchanged. In the past they've had the room booked for one date but advertised a different date, so we would have all of these people showing up with flyers saying they were going to be there, but the booking was for a completely different date. They are impossible to reach and never call us back when we leave messages. They often mess with the equipment, unplugging stuff and moving things around. So I do not have any warm and fuzzy feelings towards this group.

Unfortunately I cannot ban them from using the room due to political reasons. It would be a public relations nightmare if I cut them off from using our room. I won't go into any more detail, but that's not really an option. If only.

I ended up booting out the group that was legitimately scheduled in the room - they were a smaller group and could fit in a smaller room (albeit somewhat uncomfortably) and let the loudmouths have the large room. The whole time we were getting them into the room they were verbally abusing us. I was trying to stay calm but I didn't really succeed. This afternoon when they are finished in the room I am going to have to talk to them again to confirm the rest of their bookings to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future. Do you think I want to talk to them again? I do not.

Unfortunately I found out in the interim that at one point they WERE scheduled to use the room today, so it looks like this actually WAS our mistake. The person who used to be in charge of the meeting rooms was very careless and probably accidentally deleted their booking. So now we do have to make nice and apologize to these jerks.

Only 3 and a half more hours to go today. I can't wait until closing time. Sigh...

Regulars

Every public library has regulars who are there nearly every day, and my library is no exception. Most of them are, well, a bit odd.

For instance, there's the guy the staff calls "Hairy Legs" for obvious reasons. He's in his late 50s and I suppose he's retired because he spends most of his days in the library. He stands impatiently outside the front door at opening time and rushes in the second the doors are open to get on his favorite computer (#12) before anyone else gets to it. In order to do that, he literally runs to press the Enter key on computers 1-11 to make the signup system think someone is signing in to use those computers so he can get #12. It causes a lot of confusion for everyone who is right behind him (there is always a line to get on the computers when we open) so I asked him not to do it anymore. I thought he had stopped, but I found out that he still does it, but only when I'm not around.

After several hours on the computer he then signs up for a study room so he can "work on his book." Yeah, right - most of the time he's in there sleeping. Definitely against our policy but I just don't have the energy to fight him on it.

He's a big tattletale, too, always telling us whenever he thinks someone else isn't following the rules. Ironic, since he never does himself. Sigh...

Then there's the shushing lady. She's in every day playing computer games from a thumb drive she brings with her. I'd say she's in her late 30s or early 40s, and the main thing I notice about her is that she HATES anyone making noise, especially children. Lots of families use my library so we often have kids crying, usually as their parents are checking out. The minute this woman hears a kid crying she shouts "Be QUIET!" or "Oh, my god!" to let the child know that she is not pleased. I'm sure this is an effective way to quiet the child, who is usually all the way across the room. She got into it the other day with the guy on the computer next to her because he tried to get her to chill out about another screaming child. I mean, the kid was with his mom who was just trying to get her books checked out. She couldn't get him to be quiet (you know, sometimes there's NOTHING you can do), and she was trying to get out of the library as quickly as possible, but the shushing woman is so self-centered that she didn't care what the situation was. The ironic thing is that she has her headphones turned up so loud that we can hear her stupid game all the way over at the reference desk. We all hate her because she's just so mean.

Oh, and I can't forget our resident perv. Mid-40s, ruddy, pock-marked complexion, beer gut, spends hours on the computer looking at photos of scantily clad (but not nude) young women and chatting with I don't know who. He's often on his bluetooth as well. He used to be very loud on the phone until I went over and told him to quiet down a few weeks ago. He got PO'd, of course, and raised his voice at me (he's kinda scary) but since then has been pretty quiet. I guess he knows we can kick him out at any time, so he's always just on the edge of violating our code of conduct, but never really goes across that line.

And then there's our live-in family. For the last two months we have had a family of four literally living in the library. They are there every day from the minute we open until the minute we close, even on weekends. Mom & dad don't speak English very well (I think they are Russian, which is neither here nor there but I think it's sort of interesting) so their two kids do most of the talking for the family. The parents & teenage son all get on a computer immediately and spend their entire day doing that. (I should say here that we are "blessed" with enough public computers so that there's almost never a time when all computers are full - therefore, everyone can stay on their computer pretty much as long as they want because there's never a queue on the signup system. Other than first thing in the morning when everyone comes in at the same time, there's never anyone waiting to get on a computer.)

They wouldn't really be a problem except for their 6-year-old daughter. Mom & dad leave her with her teenage brother in the teen area, where she wreaks havoc all day long. They all pretty much ignore her, so she's always getting into something. The other day I saw her grabbing handfuls of rubber bands out of our rubber band can that we leave out for people to use when they pick up their hold requests. Anyway, she was just taking them out and strewing them all over the place. I often find big stacks of stuff just pulled off the shelves and scattered about, and I'm pretty sure she's the culprit. Today I found her pressing buttons at random on the printer because she found out that she could print out the configuration sheets and test prints that way. She had a stack of paper a quarter of an inch thick! And when I did a cleanup in the teen area I found juice boxes and cheese stick wrappers all over the place. I guess that's their regular diet.

I've debated about kicking them out but it's obvious they don't have anywhere else to go. And other than the daughter, they really don't cause any problems. And in her case, heck, she's only 6 years old! She doesn't know how to behave, and they obviously aren't teaching her. It's actually a pretty sad situation.

We have other regulars, too - people who spend hours just hanging out, looking at magazines, reading books, using computers. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it's what we DO. But I often wonder what their life must be like that spending all day every day at the public library is the most appealing option.

Tech support - ha!

We've had a public printer down for over a month so today I called the IT department to check on the status of the request and they said "huh, I guess we never got around to calling that in to [company X]." (I'll just call them X from now on.) So they called X about it. Now WE are not allowed to call X directly; we have to go through IT. I guess I should have followed up weeks ago. Sigh...

Anyway, a nice guy from X called me back within 20 minutes and asked me to do some test prints and call him back. He said they should be able to tell exactly what was wrong from the test prints, and that's all I would need to do. (Oh - we were getting "dirty" prints with extra ink all down the side of each page.)

So I did the test prints and called X back, was on hold for at LEAST 15 minutes, and finally got a different person. I explained what the other guy had told me to do and after asking me a BUNCH more questions she said, "Now have you cleaned the [something] window?" I'm like, "cleaned the WHAT?" She said, "All you have to do is get your cleaning wand, remove the fusing oil unit and clean the [something] window behind the fusing oil unit, being careful not to touch the [something]." I said, "First, we don't have a 'cleaning wand', and second, I don't have time to do this right now, so when I get off the desk I'm going to have to go over to the printer, take it apart, clean something with a tool I don't have, and then call back and wait on hold for ANOTHER 15 minutes." Her response: "Well, if you had called us standing right in front of the printer like we say in our guidelines you would be able to do it right away instead of having this delay." (Delivered in a sarcastic, snarky tone.) So I said, "Well, I thought YOU guys were the tech support for these printers - so far, it seems like I'm doing all the work and X hasn't done much of anything. We're not the ones who are supposed to be going into the printer and cleaning it out - that's your job." Whereupon she hung up on me.

Now granted, I was sort of a jerk, but what she was asking wasn't within my "realm of expectation," and of course hanging up on me wasn't particularly helpful. I called our IT folks back and told them about the call and they confirmed that our service contract with X only requires that we: fill the paper trays, clear paper jams, and replace ink cartridges. Nowhere in our contract does it say that we are responsible for cleaning the inside of the machine. So I hope to god that somebody comes and fixes the damned machine - our one remaining printer is currently being used by 40 computers and it's wearing out fast.

This is the kind of experience that gives tech support a bad name.

Meeting room mishap

We have a group that meets every month in our conference room to watch Laurel & Hardy movies. Their DVDs are some kind of European format (or Japanese format? I don't know) so they bring their own DVD player and hook it into the back of our TV. In my dealings with them before they have been haughty, impatient, condescending and just generally difficult to deal with, so I'm never happy to hear they need help with the equipment.

But this evening that's exactly what happened. Now our conference room has two doors, one leading out into the lobby and one inside the library proper. When I heard they needed help I went to the closer entrance inside the library and opened the door. Feeling some resistance, I sort of craned my neck around the door to see if there was a chair or even a person on the other side. Seeing nothing, I pushed the door all the way open, and immediately something crashed to the floor and everyone in the group gasped in horror. Their handmade "It's Time for Laurel & Hardy" clock lay in pieces on the floor.

I felt bad but at the same time PO'd because why the hell are they hanging their stupid clock over an ENTRYWAY, for god's sake? The looks on their faces, especially the guy in charge, were murderous at that point. I tried to pick it up and put it back together but it was a lost cause.

To top it all off, I was unable to assist them with the DVD player, either. While I was looking at it, several of them made snarky comments that REALLY pissed me off, so I just gave up and had them move to a different room where I knew the equipment worked.

I did the best I could but I know they are very unhappy with me. And I DO feel bad about their clock (as dorky and nerdy as it is, it's theirs, and they obviously love it), but it was an ACCIDENT, which was at least partially their own fault for hanging it in such a precarious spot.

Sometimes you just can't do anything right. Sigh...

Closing time

The other day at closing time, I was just about to lock the doors when a young woman slipped in. I told her I was sorry but we were closed. She said "Why?" Why? What kind of a question is that? Why do you THINK??? It's because we close at 6 on Fridays, why else? (Not that I said any of that to her, I just calmly stated our hours.) She then asked what time we closed on Saturdays and I said 6 PM. Her (very sarcastically delivered) response as she was walking out: "Well, that's really unfair because I WORK until 6 PM."

Y'know, I don't really care what time she gets off work.

Library mayhem

A few weeks ago we noticed a young-ish (mid 20s?) man coming to the library a lot. He always wore the same camo pants and bright yellow t-shirt, but what really made him stand out was his habit of talking animatedly to himself. He would buy a visitor pass so he could use a computer, and often he would get very agitated, standing up and exclaiming loudly about something he saw online. I would amble over there and nonchalantly ask "Everything going OK, sir?", whereupon he would immediately sit down and be calm for a little while. It was like his craziness would overcome him sometimes, but when someone noticed he could be relatively normal for a bit. We had several other customers voice concern about him but other than just getting a little loud and talking to himself, he didn't really do anything that would get him kicked out.

One night, though, I came out to the reference desk and a different man came up and urgently said "Call the police! That guy just took a swipe at that other guy." I looked over, and sure enough, it was the guy we'd been watching. While I was on the phone with the police, our assailant calmly got up and walked out. The "victim" said he was just minding his own business when the guy next to him started cursing loudly. Not at him but at something he was looking at on the computer. "Then out of the blue, he took a swing at me - missed me by an inch. I told him if he touched me or even came near me again he was in for some hurtin'." Cops arrived and said for us to call them immediately if the guy ever came in again, which he did the following week. Luckily they were able to trespass him with no fanfare, and we haven't seen him since.

I know we're lucky because this could have been so much worse, but it reminded me that the public library is not necessarily a safe place. Anything can happen, and often does.

Sex in the library

Apparently the library is a very arousing place. Years ago I was working at a small branch library that had those convex mirrors at the corners. It was very quiet and I thought everyone had gone, but I noticed some movement in one of the mirrors. We were about to close so I went over to check it out. It turned out to be a horny teenaged boy who just couldn't keep his hands off of himself. He literally ran away in what I assume was abject mortification. Poor kid. It was pretty amusing.

Some years later I was working at a much larger library and there was a man who kept exposing himself outside of the children's department. The large picture windows afforded the kids a wonderful view of this perv. Outraged parents would report him but he would always be gone by the time staff members investigated. Luckily, the police were able to catch him, um, red-handed (so to speak) one evening, and that was the end of that.

My friend who works in the Main Library downtown told me this story recently: apparently this young couple was so impatient to get at each other that they started having sex in the copier room. When security arrived, they basically seemed unconcerned and more than anything were annoyed at having been interrupted.

I guess there's something just so...forbidden about sex in the library that makes it more appealing to the adventurous (and libidinous) sort. I've always found it rather amusing. Beats customers hitting each other! But I will save that for another post. :-)

Left behind

I am constantly amazed at the number and variety of items people leave behind in the library. We currently have these items in our lost and found: hats, sunglasses, a sweatshirt, keys (car keys, house keys, you name it, we've got it), cell phones, chargers, CD-ROMs, a purse, several wallets, credit cards, ID cards of various types, photographs, stuffed animals, thumb drives, electrical cords, earrings, a necklace, notepads, folders, binders, baby bottles, a blanket, a cane, and a small bottle of prescription nitroglycerin (!).

How is it that so few people come back in looking for their stuff? We try to contact people if we find a name on something but that's usually not the case. Occasionally someone will come in and claim something but for the most part it just sits in the box for months until it gets so full that we have to go through it and get rid of the old stuff. Anything usable goes to the thrift store, everything else just gets chucked.

But how far can people get without their keys, for heaven's sake? And don't they miss their cell phone? Is it that easy to get a new one?

I will never understand people as long as I live.

Can you give me an umbrella?

A severe thunderstorm hit about 10 minutes before closing time this evening. Instead of leaving as soon as he heard the thunder, a man stayed until the bitter end. A minute before closing he came up to the reference desk and asked if we could give him an umbrella. Apparently he thinks one of our services is giving out free umbrellas when it's raining. Sigh...

Actually, we have people asking for headphones all the time, too. Which I guess isn't that outrageous, as we did lend out headphones at one time. But they kept breaking, and many of them walked away, so it was decided that we wouldn't offer them anymore.

People ask us for floppy discs, thumb drives, the use of our fax machine, coffee (the other day a guy asked if I could bring him a cup of coffee - I am not making this up), pencils, pens, paper clips, white-out, tape, the stapler, the hole punch, rubber bands, post-it notes, and, of course, paper. We're a free office supply center!

Sometimes people are just grumpy

Every now and then we have a day where people (customers, patrons, whatever you want to call them) are just grumpy. I've said previously that the library where I currently work is very busy. This summer we have seen our highest gate count (close to 36,000 in July), highest circulation (over 86,000 items in July - yikes!), and highest program attendance (nearly 2,000 in July) that we've ever seen. On top of that, we are quite short-staffed due to unfilled vacancies (hiring freeze, you know), vacations, and a staff member on bereavement leave. We're all totally freakin' exhausted! So when customers have a grumpy attitude from the get-go it's very difficult to be calm and remain professional.

Take today, for example. Today I had 4 grumpy customers in a row, and it was a challenge to be polite 'cause they were all acting like jerks. #1 was a lady who insisted that she had already paid her $25.20 fine over a year ago, even though it was not marked paid in the circulation system. Of COURSE she paid with cash, of COURSE she didn't keep her receipt, and of COURSE she didn't pay it at my library. I was supposed to just take her word that she paid it even though she had no proof and there was no way for me to check cash register records since it wasn't my library. I'm a reasonable person; what I offered her was splitting it in half - we would "forgive" half and she would still be responsible for the other half. This was not acceptable to her and she argued and argued and argued with me about it, while other customers piled up, waiting for someone to help them. Very unpleasant. I did not budge, though. (Honestly, I thought forgiving $12.60 was quite generous). Afterwards I saw her on a computer and it looked like she was filling out our online survey. I'm sure what she had to say was not complimentary. (That's the problem with the online survey - the only people who are motivated to fill it out are the ones who are pissed off!)

Anyway, immediately after her I had to deal with an irate man who had been in one of our computer classes. He was upset because the person sitting next to him in the class was "clicking too much" and distracting him, and he also thought the instructor was moving too fast for him. He really NEEDS this instruction and was just SO unhappy that things weren't just exactly perfect for him. What a baby. It's a FREE class, man - you should be grateful we're offering them at all.

Oh, and then there was Bridezilla! She was trying to print stuff from a Web site for her wedding - I guess honeymoon destinations and such. I showed her how to do a print preview so she could make sure she was printing what she wanted, and I also explained that only the first 5 pages were free and for anything more than that she would have to add money to her printing account. She said that was "just stupid." Really, that's what she said. I didn't know how to respond so I didn't say anything at all. Later I found out that she brought two pages up to the desk and said the computer printed the wrong pages so she wanted her money back. Obviously she wasn't watching when I showed her print preview! This woman was one of the most unpleasant people I've encountered in a long time - really a bitch. I truly feel sorry for the guy she's marrying - he's in for an unhappy life.

Then I had a guy who swore up and down that he returned all six of the DVDs that were checked out on his card. He was just absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt certain that everything had been returned in our bookdrop over the weekend. Now I can see where a staff member might miss checking in one or two items, but six in a row? That's unlikely. Plus, if they HAD been returned, wouldn't I at least be able to find ONE of them? I could not find a single one. Where the hell did they go?

We have lots of people swearing that they returned items that we can never find. When I check for these items on the shelf, I PRAY that I can even find at least one of them but I seldom do. Are people just lying to us? Are we that incompetent? Do we have someone coming in when we're not open and stealing things from the bookdrop? It's a constant problem, and it makes people really grumpy, staff and customers alike. Most of the staff are convinced that people are just liars, but I don't know what to think - they all seem so certain! My strategy has been to renew things for people and ask them to really check around thoroughly, but in following up I have found that most of the time, the items still have not been returned, nor can we locate them anywhere in the library. Where they are is one of the great mysteries of the public library.

Life as a library page

I started working in libraries in my junior year of high school as a library page. Typically, library pages re-shelve returned books, but I was lucky enough to have a job that only required me to sit at the checkout desk and check people out as they left the building. This was of course before the days of self checkout (and the Internet)! It was a sweet job - I just sat there working on my homework or reading books from 5-9 pm, stopping every now and then to check someone out. It wasn't demanding, it wasn't hard - a perfect part-time job for a book lovin' couch potato like myself.

One evening, though, things got a little weird. I was sitting at the checkout desk (which was all the way over on the other side of the room from any other public service station so I was essentially by myself most of the time), minding my own business, when a tall, sort of crazy-looking man came up to me. He didn't say a word but reared back and hokked a loogie directly at my face. It landed right over my left eyebrow. He immediately rushed out the door and I never saw him again. It's hard to react quickly when someone spits on you, and unfortunately, just moments after this incident, an elderly couple came up to check out, so I had to sit there with this guy's spit sort of pooled there over my eye and pretend there was nothing wrong. Once they left, of course, I was able to clean it off, but it was way too late to have any chance at all of finding the guy who did it. It shook me up and grossed me out but I'm not easily scared off so I kept coming to work as usual. I don't remember whether I even told my boss about it or not - it was so long ago.

You would think that an incident like that would sort of sour me on the library profession but in fact, I found the whole thing very interesting. It did give me my first taste (not literally - yuck!) of the kinds of things that can happen in a public library. You just never know what to expect.

In fact, that's one of the things I LIKE about this setting. It's seldom boring - weird stuff happens all the time and we spend hours talking about the craziness. Makes life interesting. :-)

I know it's been done before, but...

Yup, I'm another librarian planning to blog about the crazy stuff that happens in the public library on almost a daily basis. For years my librarian friends and I have said to each other, "We should write this stuff DOWN!" when some new nearly unbelievable thing happens. Well, I'm going to try to do just that. Some of it will be funny, some of it will be kinda mean, some of it will be me on my soapbox, some of it will just be rants - but all of it will be true.

I'm not gonna identify myself except to say that I work at a large branch library in a fairly large city (population close to 1,000,000). I've been a librarian for over 20 years, almost all of them in public libraries around the country.

Public libraries are truly open to all, which means public librarians see just about every facet of society at one time or another. It can be very stressful at times (not enough staff, budget cuts, rude customers, etc.), but it can also be very entertaining. Let the blogging commence!