1 - 2 ; 4 - 5 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: end-of-month stats, and cleanup stuff.

1:00

• The out-of-sync child [we own it, but she can only check out books from the library at the local college, which also owns it, so she's off to find it there]
• Scratch paper
• "Can I borrow a flash drive?" [no, those are for sale...I eventually just give him one that was left by someone else..after checked to see there's nothing personal on it]
• Look up card number
• Phone # and home address of former reporter for local paper [looking this up for someone sort of creeps me out, but she's listed in the White Pages...]
• Can we post a sign for a public training class? [yes]
• Holds for two as-yet-unpublished books
• Look up card number for two ppl, and get a bandaid for one of them -- and they both have overdues and fines to pay...grrr
• Pay to print
• Pay to print

4:00 in the children's room

• Lots of parochial school kids here this aft...very quiet ;-)
• Highlighter? [yep] -- and returned
• Pay to print
• "Do you have any notebook paper?" [nope: gotta bring your own, dude--he NEVER has supplies...EVER]
• [phone] Ink cartridges that I can recycle? [ours must've just gotten picked up, so no...sorry! :-(]
• Notebook Paper is sitting next to another kid who's playing a game that involves hitting one key over and over fast...and giggling. They are 4 yards from me, and annoying
• Hand sanitizer
• "Can I call my mom?" [the kid banging on the keyboard--these guys are here EVERY day: they KNOW the rules]
• Pay to print
• Books on Maine [well, yeah, we have 'em]
• Help with printing [not the same person as the person who paid before]
• Books on Kansas [yes...and I'm sensing a theme]
• These kids...we have GOT to find something for them to do while they're here, stranded, after school...here comes #3
• ...oh, thank God, they're leaving
• Bathroom key
• Key returned
• Bathroom key

1 - 2 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: finishing up checking our outlying patron holds list. Started over a week ago. Oh, and once I gave up/finished that, I moved on to catching up on Autocat posts.

1:00

• The room is hopping!
• Bathroom key [for the werewolf]
• SLOW down! [I get a shocked look, and he slows down]
• Returned key
• "Can the stuffed animals be checked out?" [the puppets? yes they can]
• Aquamarine [we no longer own, but I put it on hold for her for another library's copy]
• Mom asks boy, "Do you know that [other] boy?" "No." "Why were you standing so close to him?" [I know, without looking up what the answer will be...] "I was watching the computer." [yup] As they walk to the door, I hear mom say, "It's just a little weird for you to stand so close to him...."
• Bathroom key -- and returned
• Lost bracelet given to me, and "where are the Junie B. Jones books?" [in the Ps...which sounds odd]
• Lost mom looking for kid, and finds her ; and later, "The books downstairs are for sale?" [yes] "OK, she [the kid] wanted to check this out but my card's expired and I don't have time to renew it; besides we never come here. We live all the way out in [the same town I live in]." [I tell her I do too.] "Well, I'm a busy girl..." [as she walks away]
• "....can I do self-checkout?" as a family walks to the front [lol]
• I hear from behind me "I need to go potty!" [Dad starts toward the bathrooms with him and I suggest a key might help... ]
• Key returned

6 - 7 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: there really isn't "between" much tonight, but I do get a little work done on cleaning up the on order list for this month

6:00

• First question of the night: "my thumb drive won't let me save to it" [after 20 minute it turns out to be his teacher's flash drive, borrowed, PLUS it's only 512 mb, PLUS I think it's security-blocked...Librarian K's son is in this kid's class, so we use another drive with the understanding that kid will give it to K's son when he's done tomorrow]
• "Can you renew [book] on [name]'s card?" [it's her mom's card, and I renew it--which I shouldn't do, but oh well]
• Hunger Games? [100+ holds on it...nevermind]
• Alien abduction (yes, for kids) [and yes we have stuff!]
• Iguanas
• Hunger Games? [different kid--same result]
• Bathroom key -- and returned

1 12:45 - 2:10 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: hah!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha......

12:50

• [we briefly lost power at about 12:45 and, while the power comes back up fairly quickly, our catalog database does not...commence dashing about]
• Head of Circ interrupts director during her TWO HOUR REVIEW of another staff member to ask for help--"Call [maintenance guy]."  Thanks, thanks for that, you useless....
• We check the basement for electrical issues
• I call to ask to have our database reset--system IT guy doesn't answer phone, so I email him and backup IT person
• Head to Ref to relieve Librarian B, who seems ready to kill someone
• Someone is here, sans proctoring appointment, to 7 real estate tests. At once. I finish filling out all the paperwork for that, pending her finishing them all and returning them
• "My card isn't letting me log into the internet" [probably because SAM can't talk to our database right now...temp pass]
• ...x 2 
• Librarian K appears to see what help is needed and says, "[Database] is back up in the front...?" Sure enough. Thanks for the call-back, IT peeps. You fuckin' ROCK! {not}
• Pencil
• I call Head of Circ to ask if IT guy called her to tell her we were up. Director answers...and hangs up on me while trying to transfer ; HoC walks back here and says, "Not to my knowledge did we get a call." 
• Pencil & paper
• Paper
• Pencil
• Director appears to ask if I need anything. I complain about IT folks not calling back..."Yes, he did call." [and because I'm stressed and pissed about this place in general, I say, "Well, that would have been nice for [Head of Circ] or me to know!"] ; resultant blather makes it seem as if we were up and online a solid 10 minutes before he called, just before she walked back here
• Look up password
• Pay to print
• {{I need a drink}}
• HoC comes back to say, "IT Guy called...right as I was coming back after she cut you off on the phone" [we kibbitz]
• Job ad folder
• Nasty-ish note to Ref staff: don't override blocks on item records from other libraries ... duh  [softened, I hope, with a ;-)]
• I take Value Line issues over and file them
• "Do you have video games?" [not for anyone as tall as he is....lol]
• Fax
• Questions about Job Office brochure in folder on desk (same guy has been looking at the folder all this time) [we sort out locale and dates, which he thought were APRIL, not MAY]
• "Spanish-help??" [I go get some for her] ; it was a print question, so that was easy
• Pencil, and the guy is bringing his own noise-suppressing headphones [hurrah!!!]
• First guy this hour returns pencil and paper
• Complicated medical question
• Fax (and she feels the need to get involved in the other woman's question...grr...because she's taken a reference class.... grrr-squared)

Upon further conversation with HoC once I leave the Ref Desk, I send out a staff-wide email reminding people NOT to log back into the database unless cleared by [a short list of people who know what's going on], since it appears that's what happened this time...thus making myself THE most popular person on staff today (or not).

2 - 3 ; 4 - 5 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: reading Autocat, and checking rural holds (long story there).


2:00 in the children's room

• Trying like heck to rescue C, who was called up to the boss's office and begged me to come get her in 15 minutes.....
• Email to BWI because we can't get our order records to download correctly--I'm going to call next week to talk it out, because my brain isn't working today
• Books for 3rd-4th grade reading level that have short (2-3 paragraph) stories...for ESL students...that aren't 'childish' [uhm, yeah, not so much--how about a slice of Jupiter while I check, cuz that's about as easy to find, yo]
• Really obnoxious little girl in here right now, jumping off things, running, grabbing puzzles, fighting with her (sister?) about sharing a chair....Mom is patient but firm, but this kid needs a T.O.
• [phone] "May I speak with [coworker]?" [it's her son, and he sounds about 10 years older than when I saw him last!]

4:00

• [phone] Family history from an out-of-towner [and a very pleasant one he is]
• [phone] Reserve three DVDs
• [phone] Define "couth"
• More time on the net
• Pay to print
• Explanation of how come the dollar is "worthless" in England right now [sigh...thank GOD for Wikipedia!!]
• [phone] "Did you get my fax re proctoring a test next week?" [yup, all set]
• Books on soccer [yup]
• "I can't get into my email" [Yahoo!, but you don't just type your email into the address bar....I get her to the email login page and we're golden...maybe]
• ILL a book for someone (start to finish) [yay me!]

11 a.m. - 12 p.m. ; 2 - 3 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: catching up on email, etc., that accrued while I was at conference this week.

11:00

• Help custodial guy move table in craft room--which I doubt usually happens, judging by the rust stains on the floor from others mopping around it....YAY current custodial guy!!
• Really annoying dad with adorable toddler looking for lion books...er, cows go moo, yay (lol)
• OK, all the items ordered this week are in our Excel file...I need to download the records into Millennium, but I can't do that from here
• Help with printing...
• Dead quiet in here, thank God

2:00 [covering for Librarian B who has a Weird Thing going on with her arm and is at Urgent Care]

• Printing issues, sorta [not asking for help yet, but talking to herself a lot]
• Second staff member of the days comes to ask me if she left her [something important] here [I can't even find my shit, so it's unlikely I know where yours is!
• New "cooperative murals" from a local preschool on the walls are SUPER awesome; I even took a pic--will try to upload it and post (except my phone isn't "smart" and it takes forever, so it may be added tomorrow)
• Keys to bathrooms for cleaning dude
• And he returns them
• 2:35, and the first kids out of school arrive
• Former director comes in and asks if I'm "the only one here"--uh, no, oooooooooh, the only REFERENCE staff here?? lol [I direct her to Librarian C who can actually answer the question about how to use the computers in the training room]

Mural photo FINALLY arrived:

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: adding 505 fields to old lit books, downloading LT order records, and then authority cleanup.

9:00 in the kids' room

• I pre-set everything in here at about 8:30: computers are all on and ready for action, including the staff ones
• We have an author program today, so there are a lot of extra people here spazzing out and prepping for that--glad I'm in the children's room!
• Pay to print ; and then help with printing [for some reason, it's not being sent to the print-release station, so I suggest she try in the adult area while I reboot in here]
• I close the bathroom doors
• [phone from circ] "The guy just walking in owes $20 to [nearby library] and has been all over the building trying to get online" [ok then]
• Librarian B comes in to talk about our upcoming staff meeting
• Librarian J comes in because she isn't sure but thinks the Big Ower might have gotten online [I don't think it's the same guy, but I ask Librarian T, who warned me about him, to check]
• Kid is assaulting the mouse on a computer; when I ask why he says it's broken [sure enough--Firefox and Java are not playing nice, just like on the computer the woman was printing from earlier....message sent to IT Dude]
• "Where's the poster to sign?" [eventually find it on an easel by the front door--it's a get well card for a swimmer who was injured]

10:00 in the kids' room

• "Can I take one of the books on this cart for picklist?" [sure, they are being relabeled and moved from the young adult area to the children's room]
• Pay to print
• Hunger Games and Mockingjay in Spanish [found the first one, the other one has disappeared...grr...so I place a hold]
• Pencil
• Bathroom key [but the cleaning guy is in there so I tell her either use the adult one or wait 5 minutes]
• Printing doesn't work [different computer--and it's a word doc so I get my USB and save it and print it in back]
• Restarting two internet stations to see if that solves the printing problem  [nope]
• Another email to IT guy, and to the rest of the reference staff working today and tomorrow; also put a sign on the print-release station and a note
• ....and then explain it to everyone else verbally...

11:00

• ...which means I don't get settled at the adult desk till 11:15
• Librarian J warns me that there is someone coming in later for a proctored test
• One of our regulars left his jacket here--it's up at the front in Lost & Found
• "Is there a way to find books similar to books by this author?" [sure...oh, wait, it's nonfiction? Uhm, yeah, they'd all be more or less together by subject....since it's Christian self-motivation, I point out there is another area that isn't specifically Christian in the 100s....]
• People are filing out from the program......
• Blah blah blah from Librarian J about the way the furniture is arranged in the reading room [for fuck's sake, move it back if you hate it--grow a fuckin' spine]
• And MORE blah blah blah from Librarian J, this time about proctored tests
• How to use the internet here
• MORE blah blah blah about proctored tests [shoot me]
• Internet not working [one of our semi-problem people, she's been on for 90 minutes, logged out, and now it won't let her back in...I remind her that we only promise an hour and after that if we're not busy she can log in...yeah yeah yeah]
• Meanwhile, someone behind her who is online next to his ?girlfriend shout-whispers to the gf: 'what the FUCK?' and multiple heads turn--he (natch) is oblivious
• Pay to print (and I show him how, too)
• Local want ads [which he looks at right here and is done in 2 minutes...sigh]
• And yes...still MORE blah blah blah about those damn tests...fortunately, she will be in the kids' room for the next hour

12:00

• Fax
• Need to print from her laptop? [no, but it's online anyway, so as soon as she pays down her fine, she can get online here and print]
• "I was working on a PowerPoint on Thursday and [Librarian B] was going to save it for me...? [fortunately B is still here, but no she couldn't save it--the computers shut down and deleted it] -- poor kid
• Today's WSJ
• Pencil returned
• WSJ returned
• Pencil and paper
• Tax form 8889 [print form and directions for her]
• While I'm in the middle of that, a guy shoves a book at me, interrupting things to say, "Can you hold this for me here; I'll be right back" [dude, yeah, but couldn't you wait 5 seconds for me to stop talking to this other person??]
• Refresh patron's time
• Tax forms? [yeah, big sign, duh--hey, she said it! lol]
• Book guy returns... "And what time is it?" [I look at the clock he just walked past: "12:30"] [Pretty sure he's not 100% sober]
• Tax forms for [state 800 miles from here] [I print from the internet for her]
• Self-help material on CD or cassette [not much here]
• Tax forms [and some help matching directions and forms]
• [phone from director] "Everything ok down there?" [Yes, of course it is blah blah blah]
• Return pencil, and ( primarily one-sided) discussion of how OCD he is [I just smile--he's a nice man]
• Patron here to take test
• ...holy cats, EVERY staff member here today wants to chat endlessly......I finally escape to lunch
• [and making signs about the printer situation in J which the director demands]

And, at 1:20, circ person comes to tell me some idiot called 911 on one of our unstaffed phones (and the police called to see why we hung up), so now I have to figure out how to reset the system from "ALARM!"

12 - 1 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions:

12:00 in the children's room

• How to print
• We Were Tired of Living in a House [we have it on the shelf!]
• "Have you seen [custodial dude]?" [he came through with a little black cart about 10 minutes ago]
• Kid is taking, no lie, a full shelf of books to the front to check out....
• Sea lions, seals, and walruses [oh, yeah, we got that covered!]
• "Can I use my [nearish-town] card here?" [yup, long as your record is clear]

1 - 2 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: 

1:00

• Do reserves left from earlier today: Mrs. Kennedy and Me, Wishes Fulfilled, The Great Santini (on CD or tape), Great Expectations (the  Treasury of Illustrated Classics edition) [three are in our system, but I have to order Santini from ILL]
• Headphones
• Help sending Craigslist email
• Headphones returned
• Guy looking at want-ads wishes me a happy Monday ; and then his wife appears and needs a drinking fountain, and the local classifieds [20 minutes later they've scoured ALL the ads carefully and leave]
• Classifieds [or, as he prefers, "Classification ads"]
• Ads are back

11 a.m. - 12 p.m. (1:40 - 2 p.m.) ; 2 - 4 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: subject heading checking/cleanup

11:00 in the children's room

• No school today, but the weather is outstanding so not too many kids in here
• Pay to print
• ........aaaaaaaaaaaand we have another giggler watching something on the internet [lol]
• Toddler book(s) on body parts [nothing really works for her...]
• The giggler exits, stuffing his coat into his mouth...WHY do kids do this??
• What time do you close today? [same as usual: 6:00] ; Dora DVDs [oh yeah we got 'em]
• When is the last day for the Peeps displays? [later this month]
• Horrible assignment for kids: projects on plants -- this little girl has papayas and peanuts -- and they have to have 5 resources, one of which needs to be in Spanish [apparently there've been other kids in for this looking for guavas, watermelons....WTF, Teach?]

1:40 in the children's room (because once again the schedule changed...)

• Cartoons (funny ones), specifically The Pink Panther [we don't have, so I reserve it for her from another library]
• Bathroom keys for the cleaning guy
• Bathroom key (and he hadn't really started on one of them, so that worked out)

2:00

• Try to help someone print, but he figures it out just as I get there
• There are two women who've been talking--quietly--at one of the internet stations since I got here; they are starting to annoy me, and I wonder if the one logged on is aware that she's on the (internet) clock (no one in the vicinity seems bothered at this point)
• How to get on the internet [or so I suppose since the guy actually utters about 6 words total]
• Pay to print [not that I pay attention--$5 is the same as $1, right?...ugh]
• Director calls to tell me she sent me an email almost 2 hours ago and we aren't listed in the attachment as [city] but as City of [city]  [and I care...why?] ; and no it's not crazy, stay in your office [please]
• Look up password ; card is inactive [Why is this poor woman coming all the way out from the children's room? Twice now? Because, she says, there's no one in there--I run around trying to figure out what's going on...]
• Director gets involved in that and makes sure I'm "OK" [gah]
• Look up card number with DL and pay to print -- and his card is inactive [fail]
• Day pass--but he's got no ID, so I apologize for being mean [he's pretty nice about it: "you're not the first to be mean" lol] ; on the other hand, he's now sitting at a computer happily bouncing around the internet]
• Tape
• Is there an Easter egg hunt Sunday? [not here; our city's was last Saturday... :-(]

3:00

• Plato's Revenge [in the new books, where it belongs, yay]
• How to use the internet [upload her new card, get parent's name--and GO!] ; also, how to print 
• [phone] Is our ESL tutoring program suitable for an English-speaking disabled student? [I ask the ESL coordinator who says no, but she'll talk to the person]
• Coloring pictures for a nursing home [I check our storytime books, but there are tons online, so she goes hunting there]
• "Can I get a card?" [sure but not here--back up front--another "Elder" doing Time] ; how to get online? [I import his new card]
• Can I get online? [I import her card] ; and print [I take her money]
• Pay to print
• "Did anyone find a USB cable?" [not back here, no]
• Fax
• [phone] Excel tutors? [no, but we are starting class signups again shortly...he'll stop in later and do sort that out tomorrow or next week]
• Headphones [I give him the spare pair we have here]
• Ethernet cable returned

2 - 3 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: placing holds on newly-ordered demands, and checking on other demands (not yet ordered) in my collection development sections.

2:00

• Free record in use [new book that has disappeared...it never fails to amuse me when religion books go missing (i.e., get stolen)]
• Pay to print
• New card--how to use internet
• "Where are the newspapers?" [the current ones down in the reading room--I point to the sign] ; "They're downstairs?" [what? no the older ones are UPstairs....?] [ok, when I said "down" in the reading room, it confused him]
• "I don't see you at this desk very often" [I'm not out here that often, but I've worked here for over 15 years...lol]
• "How do I use the internet?" [he has a card from a nearby offline library, so I register him--he's a poet, learning to navigate his New Website, god-help-us]
• Three movies [can't remember which ones, all of this is happening at once; one is out, one we don't own but it's in the system, and one is on order for her]
• Newspaper guy is back, looking for a plumber...in the want ads...[I don't need to know why] ; apparently he has found on, as he is now making calls 20 feet from my desk (SIGH!)
• How to open a CD-ROM

1 - 2 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: reading Autocat posts (taking a break from recreating the budget spreadsheet that go over-written somehow by something entirely different)

1:00

• How to use the internet...to do taxes...omglol  ; also where's the IE icon [under the SAM popup, which annoys the CRAP outta me, but is easy enuf to fix]
• Paper & pencil [our regular youngish dred-haired "WEEZY" cap-wearing patron]
• Pay to print
• Newsflesh trilogy, book 2 on CD [doesn't exist; she swears she's listening to book 1 on CD, which ALSO doesn't exist...fortunately I know her, so I send her home and tell her to call me when she looks at the box for the book she's listening to]
• Today's classified ads [I get them]...
• ....and needs help with Mapquest [I ask him to come back when I'm done with Newsflesh woman]
• Pay to print
• Pencil
• Three new books, which I can't remember now because this was all happening at once [I reserve one and do demand requests for the other two]
• Meanwhile, Librarian C tells me that the guy on station #14 is using a card issued to a woman ; he's one of a cadre of "problems" that comes in daily, so I tell her I'll knock him off the net from here]
• Pen ... and, ten minutes later, white-out
• History of the local JC's chapter
• Finally have a chance to knock the dude offline... [heh, oh, the power]
• Renew income tax guys' time

1 - 4 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions:

1:00

• Weirdly, there's no panicked rush for the internet when we open...
• Long process of printing a $25 gift coupon for a local restaurant, which I just do cuz the guy isn't exactly savvy
• Scratch paper
• Pay to print
• Pay to print
• Helping out with a question about Wall Street Journal Magazine and pasta [ppl r weerd]
• Circ desk wants to know why someone from a small library to our west has something checked out and due 3/2/2013 (and the patron wanted to renew it thinking it was due nowish)...no clue
• Patron is assigned to a computer...which one? [#23...over there]
• Map-puzzle woman is done for the day
• Too-old-to-be-giggly women keep causing me to stare at them (in their late 20s)

2:00

• "What's the number I need to use a computer?" [she knows her password...the number is her card #...she's not overly endowed with brain cells]
• Pay to print
• I try to help Librarian C with the dingbat looking for "Irish Gaelic" for someone who is not all that brilliant
• Pay to print
• Fax and "can I borrow your stapler?" [....sigh]
• "Do you have cookbooks?" [yeah...specifically...?] Desserts [off we go to 641.83]
• Printing issues
• Werewolf-woman sent a letter asking for help tracing her Attila-Magyar ancestors...random...weird...blah blah, so we work on that for awhile

3:00

• The Shining, Vault of Horror, and City of Bones [we have the King book here, the others not so much; place both on hold]
• ...oh, and Foiled [got that one]
• Smile [it's here]