9:00 - 11:00 a.m. ; 1:00 - 2:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: checking for typos (a quixotic process, at best, but for now I am caught up), collection development....
9:00

• [phone] (they hung up on me when I answered--first question(?) of the day at 9:35)
• "Is breakfast ready?" (one of our regular patrons, making a joke)
• "Are you open tonight?" (only till 5--and if you're leaving, you might want to log out of your internet acct.)
• [phone] (circ person asking how to run overdue notices--which no one working today knows how to do...derrrrr [we figure it out, though])
• Pencil
• Mr. Ick needs an eraser...and also wants to know where to buy them
• [phone] "Can I renew my books?" (sure--why did circ transfer this to me?)
• The book with all the prescriptions in it (PDR, coming right up)

10:00

• Help with using PDR (I go get the Consumer Drug Reference book which is 100% easier to use!)
• (He fills me in on his entire medical history for the past 40 years. He's remarkably upbeat. I could have lived without the comments about his catheters and the parting remark that he's been celibate for 40 years...but what can ya do?)
• Pencil
• [phone] Can I use saved Office 2007 files on your computers? (the public ones, not directly--they have to be saved as [Word, Excel] 97-2003 documents first)
• Pay for prints (nope, only one today: it's free)
• Prescription drug program (who knew? No one, except Librarian D who fills me in)
• Mr. Ick returns eraser
• Are my DVDs here yet? (no)

1:00

• (Is there some reason that people can move a chair across to the room to where they want to shoulder surf behind a friend/family member, but they can't move it back? D'oh)
• Make (unnecessary) change
• Paper
• Summer hours (same as the rest of the year) and the next time we are closed on Sunday (next week for Father's Day, and then not until Labor Day)
• Today's local classified ads
• [phone] Melatonin: spelling and anything we have about it (dude's a crank--I 'found nothing')
• Help with wireless connection
• Update SAM access
• Classified ads are returned
• Someone returns a wallet left at one of the computers
• [phone] Three book reserves
• Pencil
• Concerned wallet owner asks about found one--it's his

I do like summer weekends!!

1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: collecting all the books left laying around and sorting them onto a shelving cart (yes, it's supposed to be done by teenage pages, but most of these things have been sitting around waiting for over a month), fixing the call numbers for foreign films [unfinished], and prepping the Demand order for entering.

1:00

• "Those terminals don't have the internet on them"
• "Call of the Wild" only with lots of commentary about the area and the author...no author, no year... [can't find it; she's going to call her friend who has it and ask for some more info and call me back]
• Classified ads
• "Check the kids' room for open internet stations"
• Magazines from 2001 [I introduce her to microfilm--"COOL!"]
• How do I find books in my Lexile score? [damn--at least she knows what it is]
• Which computer did it assign me?
• Where is this book? [the new books section]
• Classifieds return
• When did Enron first hit the news? [World Book]
• Which computer did it assign me?
• Playgroup mom from 12 years ago--omg, is that her little girl??

2:00

• Where is this book? [eventually we find that he only needs to finish his bibliography; I show him the catalog record and introduce him and his friend to WorldCat citations]
• ...ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!!! Random memories:

  How to listen to CDs on the computer [I spend about 20 minutes off and on with him]

  How to print pictures...but I've never used a computer, and can't be bothered to learn now [probably close to 45 minutes]

  Scissors

  Do you have a typewriter?

  Circ person brings me a message to return a call

  Can I use a study room? [sure, go nuts!]

  Scissors come back to me, point first [niiiiice]

  The light bulb on the microfilm reader just went out [I go shut the machine off and turn it right back on...and it works again]

  Pay for print jobs

  Books on Rx drugs

  How to print just page one from Yahoo! mail [I can't get it to work]

  ....and I'm sure I've forgotten a ton of others...

3:00

• AAARGHHHHHHH!!! Panic stations continue....till about 3:20
• Do I need to check in with you to use the internet? [nope]; but I can't remember my password [I look it up]
• I need to type something up on Word [good luck with that--I send him into the kids' room to see if there are any workstations available there]
• Call back message--do we have anything by a group called "Ten Years" [no]
• [I go check to make sure the rest of the building is under control--so much for trying to do that a couple of times an hour...]
• How do I find the résumé template in Word? [Start Bar--oooooh]
• Pay for print jobs
• Of course: the mom-and-kids from hell are here [she calls 'em "little bastards" under her breath when they misbehave...which they seem incapable of not doing]
• Paper needed in printer [uh-no]
• CD-listener is done, but now what [I show him out to eject the disc and log off]
• Closing announcement done early [GET THE #&%*$ OUT!!!!]
• Pay for print jobs
• Stapler
• Peter Himmelman "Time Just Flew" guitar chords [lots of other songs by him, but not that one]
• Pay for print jobs x2
• Did my resume save when the computer shut down? [nope, sorry]
• FINALLY everyone leaves....

6:00 -9:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: whole bunches of stuff (not).

6:00

• [...and right off the bat, I break a nail...]
• YA staffer asks where People Mag is for a kid [back here behind the desk]
• Headphones
• People is returned
• [IMing with family member who works in academia--her library gets to close early; I'm incredibly envious]
• Serial Killer dude arrives...and says hi
• Headphones returned
• [It's dead--I'm going to wander around clearing books off tables...so I stay awake!!] [Someone else beat me to it--all I found was one religious tract]

7:00 (in the kids' room til 7:30)

• Headphones returned x3
• Headphones x2
• These headphones don't work [I swap with her, and throw the bad ones away--they cost us around 80 cents per pair]
• Headphones

[Back to regular Reference desk]

• Bible in Spanish
• Register for Internet [new card, should work to just sit down and login]
• Return headphones
• Can I watch someone's homework? [sure]

8:00

• Ownership info for address [hey, we can look up prop. taxes now, instead of just relying on the criss-cross...except that address isn't listed] This question is from a Crazy-Ass Paranoia Woman who is sure her ex-husband is trying to...do something...and she rattles on and on and on...for half an hour. I finally tell her if she has no further questions I really need to get back to work.
• Return headphones
• Look up SAM ID #
• Homework is retrieved [I'd totally forgotten it!]
• [phone] New translation of The Iliad by Ian Johnston (we'll have to ILL it)
• [closing announcement]
• Where is my print job?