Tuesday

What I'm doing between questions: sorting the deadly Bottom Shelf books, many of which are now in OCLC after waiting a few weeks since we got them. Others will still need updating or full-on cataloging. Yay. And, later, checking Bookletters against our catalog to see what we need to order.

12:00 in the children's room

• Boxcar Children #2 [we don't own] for mom with hyper-allergic sensitivity child. I've talked to her at length before; this little girl is allergic to hand-sanitizer among other things--technically, she's allergic to alcohol, I think--and when I say allergic, I mean quick-time anaphylaxis when she's exposed. She's now home-schooled.
• Colored pencils [for a grown man who literally can't wait 2 minutes for me to walk into the workroom and back before he's harassing the front desk about "who's supposed to be in the kids' room" -- douche. Buy your own $2 box of colored pencils. Srsly]
• OK, seriously, when a room is closed and dark, why would you let your 2-year-old go inside? And, conversely, Librarian C, why are you annoyed with ME when I ask if I should shoo them out--they aren't here THAT early? And if you'd checked in before everyone got here you wouldn't be running around spazzing because a book is missing....

1:00 in the children's room

• Crashing noise of books falling...o_O...turns out to be a bag falling over and the books falling out. Whew: NOT a shelf emptying itself.
• Bathroom key ... and back
• Who writes the "Little Critter" books [Mercer Mayer]
• Books in Spanish for little kids [yup, over here]
• Lots of voting on the Peeps

7:00 in the children's room

• Don't even have time to sit down: "Do you have Harry Potter movies?" [yep, and I walk her over there]
• Librarian K is in here looking for the external floppy drive--no clue where it's ended up
• Pen
• Extra headphones
• Bathroom key ... and they start monkeying around in the doorway so I get to do Teh Glare
• Key is back
• Electricity, magnetism, and simple machines [for a science project, so I show her the science project books too]
• There's a little guy, maybe 8?, sitting at the table in front of me with a stack of 25 or so picture books. He's working his way through all of them, sorting them very carefully, looking through them. Keeps clearing his throat like it's sore, but otherwise absolutely silent and engrossed. Adorable. Restoring my faith in humanity and children

8:00 in the children's room

• Dictionary
• And it's back
• The room is completely empty except for me.......
• And the room is tidied and ready to close...at 8:53, which means some loser will walk in at 8:58 in a panic, but I'm closing down anyway

I've backed off doing this blog a bit in the last few weeks. It takes more time than it looks like and frankly is frustrating when I'm swamped in Tech Services to be plopped in public so much where I can't catalog. I mean, look at my schedule today, for instance: I'm covering for Head of Circ and another circ person who are on vacation. WTH--how is that financially reasonable!? /rant