1:00 -2:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: planning for upcoming inventory project.

1:00

• Spanish keyboard: naturally, since techy librarian just left [new computer means the plug on the keyboard doesn't fit in the USB port; we have no splitter to bridge the problem, BUT there is one computer left that still has all the right hardware...in the children's room. All of this takes 20 minutes, while I'm doing these other things]
• Local newspapers from 1898 on microfilm
• Restrooms
• Pouring rain--people dash out to shut car windows
• Restrooms [must be all the water falling outside...]
• Pay for print jobs, and more time online? [sure, he's a regular and only three computers are in use]
• Head of circ attempts to find the bottom of the junk drawer (pens, staples, letter openers, paper, paper clips, glue sticks, scissors...) [I commiserate but tell her I gave up organizing that drawer years ago]
• Old newspaper woman returns asking if there is an index.... [no, not really, unfortunately]
• Look up card number? [no, no ID...I send him up to use the laptops with the YA Coordinator]
• Poems by Richard Wilbur [I show her the anthologies; we don't have anything]
• Sign up for internet [can't, there is no parent is here to sign for him...I send him upstairs too]
• "My password won't work" [I delete it and tell him to start over with a new one]
• [Shelver asks if full cart of books are orphans; I come up blank. Then, "Yes."]
• Password dude finds a floppy in disc drive, which turns out to be totally stuck [message left for IT Guy]
• [phone] Reserve Breath of Snow and Ashes on CD for patron
• Poetry patron returns triumphant: we DO own something by Mr. Wilbur. [my question: why isn't it in the catalog??]
• Spanish keyboard guy brings back keyboard; he also replugged-in the 'regular' keyboard for me

For early afternoon on a weekday, this was a surprisingly busy hour!

11:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon; 1:00 - 2:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: Dewey stuff (nearly caught up!)
11:00

[phone call from family member, in response to a message]
* IT Guy stops to check email access from this PC (ours works---the director's doesn't)
* "Can this book be taken out?" [yup]
* Current newspapers
* Restrooms

WOW--Talk about quiet!!

1:00

[Librarian F informs me of someone doing a real estate test who will be finishing in the next few minutes--and she finishes at 10 after]
* [phone] Librarian at nearby library wondering if cancer program is still going on; the director would know [the director is at lunch, so I leave her a voicemail with the question and contact info]
* Public fax machine [don't have one...thank God!]
* The GO Diet [I do an ILL for her] and The Careful Carb Diet [can't find that exact title, so she'll do some more research]
[Circ person needs help with holds list]
[Grant guy needs help with something else]
[IT Guy is messing with the firewall, so if all the Internet stations crash that's why]

2:00 - 3:00; 7:00 - 8:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: running inventory lists, fixing miscoded nonfiction books--no, they really aren't fiction.

2:00

[Librarian F calls and asks for help in "fixing" the new monitor where she's working; it's too bright. She's having a hissy fit, so I go show her--if you can believe it--how to use the buttons on the bottom edge of the monitor. So techy...]
* Nearby schoolhouse being torn down (lots of flap in the paper about it)...patron went to that school--should she contact someone? [I send her to the Historical Society]
* "I printed something yesterday--do you still have it?" [uh,no]
* Finance, not really investing, general stuff [I walk him and his coffee cup to the stacks]
[While I'm gone, Librarian H gets shanghaied into answering questions on a price guide for action figures [nope] and Microsoft Office [yup]

7:00
[The coroner is doing a program in our meeting room right now--there appear to be about 70 people wandering into the building looking for it]
[I cut up scratch paper]
* [phone] History of psychology books on CD, which he's already searched on WorldCat
* More time and help printing images
[As I walk past Internet stations, I see a guy scanning quickly past a whole lot of bare skin--they turn out to be bare bottoms...just that...very weird]
[Serial Killer* walks by, carrying coffee. Very prosaic. If only he weren't so scary-looking]
* Pay for print jobs
* More time on Internet
* Drinking fountain?
[Art teacher is in here inspecting his students' artwork--this week is the school district's art show]
* Print jobs won't go to color printer...another girl pipes up and says it wasn't working for her earlier. She was told by "the librarian" to move to another printer. [I write up a note for Librarian H and IT Guy to look at it tomorrow]
* Sign up for internet access

I'm off to the circ desk for the last hour of the day.


*He's not really a serial killer..........to the best of my knowledge

11:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon ; 1:00 - 2:00 and 3:00 - 4:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: filing order cards; updating work blog; putting new Boy Scout manuals into 3-ring binders; chatting with assorted patrons and being generally amazed at what goes on in public libraries...everything from sleeping to autistic rocking to sermon-writing.

11:00 a.m.

* How to spell "juggernaut" (not j-a-r-g-o-naut, as he is pronouncing it)
* …and "laborious"
* "How to I get to this website?" (torn out of the newspaper) [it’s an email address, not a website, as evidenced by the @ symbol...sigh]
* Buy a disk, and access the internet (he looks like my sister does lately: has terrible tremors and is difficult to hear and understand...sigh...I'm trying not to tear up)
* Primary-source accounts of soldiers at Gettysburg [found! Hah!]
* Pay for print jobs
* Typing tutorial software? [no] Extra time online? [yes, if it’s job- or school-related]
* Today’s Wall Street Journal
* Pay for print jobs (in pennies...sigh)

1:00 p.m.

[call from family member]
* Paper and pen
* Pay for print job
* Cell phone ratings in Consumer Reports [we have a lovely chat; I need to look at this article too, when he's done]
* Pay for print job [only did 2--she's FREE!]
* Wall Street Journals are returned; now he needs used car prices [which reminds me: why is the car blue book RED?]
* I'm off to find an ILL for L---yville Library... [and I don't know what to do with it now...procedure manual, anyone?]
* Nice lady picks up errant dime in front of Ref Desk and gives it to me [I return it to Cons. Rpts. dude]
* "Where is this?" [J = Juvenile = kids' room...and off they go]...only to return because the woman they asked for help gave them the number for dolphin poetry. What they need is dolphin/whale poaching [we find some books on saving whales and dolphins and I vow to myself to bring Q-tips to work next week]

3:00 p.m.

* Register new SAM user and extend time and answer her complicated questions
[phone call from famly member...which sends me on a trip to the school to pick up a child who isn't there--though I burn 30 minutes waiting for him--and get back to the library at 3:50 whereupon Librarian F shoos me back to the workroom]

Addendum: at 5:00 the police arrive to cart off the Autistic Rocker; they got a call from a patron who was freaked out by him. He's a "known" person according to the cop. Never a dull moment.

7:30 - 9:00 p.m.

I've switched with Librarian D so that I now work on Thursday evenings. I'll be pulling some more Ref Desk hours, I expect...but Thursdays tend to be quiet.

What I'm doing between questions: working on the latest Demand order cards
7:30

BOARD MEETING NIGHT (natch--I'm in my best ratty, torn-up-at-the-cuffs jeans...)

* ESL tutor comes to make copy for her student at our printer/copier
* Reset time on internet; and "How do I get to R----'s Woods from here?" [oy--there are no straight streets between here and there, but we sort it out once she realizes it's near the police station...hmmm....]
[Noisy family arrives; girls immediately start arm-wrestling over the computer...and the mean librarian--me--says, "Girls!! Girls. That behavior is unacceptable!" Their dad shoos them off the computer and I flirt with the little boy]
* How to print in color
[I check with Circ: any changes since I last worked a night?? They can't think of anything]
[Circ clerk asks me how to print on the regular printer--not the receipt printer--from the circulation software--we can't figure out]
* How to print in color [one of the noisy girls, who is much quieter now]
* Change card number in SAM
[There is an awful lot of giggling going on by the internet computers--I'm going to have to go talk to them...two adult women, one of whom has been a regular here for almost 8 years!]
* Same little girl wants to know why the right edge is cut off when she prints [I show her how to reset the page "sideways"]

8:00
* [phone] "Can I print from a flash drive?" [Yup]
* State manufacturers directory
* "Where is Juvenile Poetry?"
* Little Girl: "How do you spell 'Chicken Little'?"
* Manufacturers directory guy needs help finding transformers; I sign him up to use the Internet to research one company more fully
* Headphones [for the boy I was flirting with]
* Two books in the Redemption series reserved for patron
* Flash drive people arrive to print
* Look up card number for SAM use, and the printer isn't working...at first, then suddenly it is
* Pen
* Flash card: can he print? [I don't know where our camera card USB thingy went, so he's using our new printer with camera ports]
* Stapler
* Pen...is RETURNED!
* Help with printing (transformer guy)
* Add to patron's print account
* Camera print-out guy just finishes at 9 straight up