Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Wednesday evening

What I'm doing between questions: the ever-popular Death Dates list: searching the March 2015 list, but I'm 9 months behind in actual cleanup....oh, and desultorily IMing with my husband periodically.

6:00
  • when I arrive at the desk Librarian Z is on the phone trying to explain our ridiculous "bus system" to someone who is calling from 1300 miles away for a friend who lives locally [so that sets the tone, perhaps, for the evening]
  • pencil sharpener? [all the 'office supply' stuff like that is on a table together now, in sight of the desk...except scissors]
  • Wednesday night group home visit [I warned circ that I really wasn't going to be able to wander around looking for one-hit wonders or random bands for people tonight....]
  • Pick up 6 reserves from the hold box at circ--all for the same patron, all true crime stuff from 5-10 years ago, none of which we own [I'm not allowed to ILL anymore because I do so few hours out here, a rather draconian decision taken because of T doing them wrong more than she does them right; she works out here more than I do, but it's "easier" to make a rule for part-timers than be "mean" to T...I love libraries and their passive-aggressive idiocy]
  • Annie (the new version) and Home on DVD--the former is checked out, the latter isn't due out for another 5 weeks [didn't want to reserve]
  • Same girls looking for Chicago Fire [all checked out, and now they do want to reserve everything]
  • Headphones to buy [yup, down to two more pair]
  • [the pen I'm using is from a Renaissance Hotel; this makes me laugh: obviously a left-behind-by-a-patronpen]
  • How to print
  • Librarian H is here--"just a figment of your imagination"--and says "there are only 3 cars in the staff lot--are there only 3 people working?" [we are, obviously, a little short-handed tonight...]
  • Note to ILL dept. about the six holds--since they are, in essence, all on vacation next week, should we not order anything for the duration?
  • And the YA summer reading checkin is here for the rest of the night, so the prizes and so forth have arrived 
  • "Did anyone turn in a library card?" [not here, but....] "then I need a new one" [ok, dude, relax...go back to circ and they'll hook you up]
7:00
  • Cute little noisy toddler with apologetic parents trying to do something quickly online
  • [YA Librarian T calls to say that she forgot to grab the extra reading logs]
  • I pull the apologetic parents over and let them know that there are internet stations in the kids' room if they want to take him in there next time [but he is super-adorbs, just wants to run around so I could care less if he's squawky out here]
  • "I got a new card; do I need a new password?" [nope, looks like they just changed the card # on your computer record, so the PIN stayed the same]
  • Same guy can't get logged in [we really REALLY need to get the extraneous crap off the login page because people WILL click on it instead of the "go" arrow]
  • Hairstyling books for a woman who wants to open her own salon...we have, essentially, nada [so I order some ILL options for her]
  • [phone] Address/location of former amusement park in metropolitan area [and I pronounce one of the streets wrong cuz I'm not from around here]; and are there black widow spiders in Belgium, England, or Poland [not native, no]
  • ...and I restock the request slips
  • ...and the paper in the printer
  • I greet one of our regulars, a tutor, and ask how she's doing: "TERRIFIC!" Well, ok then! :-) And she signs into a study room to make a phone call (which is weird since we're dead as a doornail and no one is in any of those rooms, but whatever)

8:00
  • [phone] Season 1 of Suits [says it's on the shelf but isn't where it belongs, so I place hold and hope the shelver/picklist person can figure out where it's hiding
  • Announcement re CALL FOR YOUR RIDE NOW, we're closing soon
  • Catching up on email, reading Now I Know, which is all about leprosy today, so now I'm researching leprosy, which totally counts as a reference question!
  • Son texts to say he's home from his hour-long commute to his summer job
  • First walk-through to pick up strays done--mostly so I could glare at one of our annoying regulars who spent 10 minutes talking on the phone [ok, he was fairly quiet, but it's SO dead in here that I could literally still hear him in the back of nonfiction]
  • Dude, seriously...now we have another regular across the room talking to himself
  • "When do the computers shut down?" [y'all have 10.5 minutes...lol]
  • Today's papers put away, final warning about computers shutting off at 8:50; time to clear the basement....
  • Of course, the only YA to need to pick up prizes arrives at 8:55 AND the children's librarian didn't shut down the meeting room after the program, so closing was a total cluster