Sunday, March 19, 2006

1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: HAH!

1:00

* The hordes arrive...paper, pencils, newspapers all disappear from the Reference Desk
* Today's genealogy researcher picks up the research requests we have for her to work on
* Photocopies for boy scout leader doing a maps thing with her troop of 2nd-graders at 2:00
* Headphones (for a very impatient lady)
* Temporary internet user signup
* "Where's the photostat machine?" [take your guess on the age of this patron...]
* No, we're out of floppy disks to sell, sorry
* Patron's son needs an article on fermentation
* How to build outdoor rabbit cages
* A book on Benedict Arnold
* Temp user needs more time on word processor
* Abraham (the patriarch)
* "I printed, but I don't know where it went" [I give him two choices and he finds it, but it only printed one copy, so I reprint for him]
* How to make legal-size prints on the copier (the photostat guy)

2:00
* "I got bounced off the internet before my time was up" [I reset him]
* Genealogist is finished
* Three SAM apps
* Headphones
* Abraham researchers having a horrible time; we finally get all straightened out and they start wikipedia-ing away
* Impatient headphone lady returns hers
* Can't-find-print-jobs brings me someone else's card he found by computer
* Mom finds article, pays for it, and I show her how to access this stuff from her house so her son can do his own research
* "Do we take checks?" to pay for print jobs [wow, that'll be some stack of paper she's planning to print!]
* 5-year-old needs net access
[All hell breaks loose]: registering people for net usage, filling up printers, trying to get a document to print (which takes an hour, off and on), finding Consumer Reports and want ads, finding job listings online...aaack....

3:30
* Finally got document to print...at the reference desk, after unsuccessfully saving it to about 4 disks and then emailing it to me... grrwoof
* Pay for print jobs
* Take lost card (see first hour) to circ desk to lost card box
* Take payment for print jobs...and credit patrons account for $4000-plus [message left for tech to go into the program and zero it out]
* Take genealogy back to Librarian F's desk for her to deal with
* Refill printer again
* Renew SAM time
* Look around at our resident freaks
* Start closing up, shooing people out
* At 4:05, I stop a mother and two sons from coming in; she turns on her 8-year-old and says "You said they were open till 5!" [hey, honey, YOU're the mom--take some responsibility once, eh?]

Finally get out of the building at 4:15. sheesh