Saturday

What I'm doing between questions: whatever I can figure out to kill time. So getting orders ready to send for my buying section(s), sending some of those orders, marking items in the catalog that we own that have received awards, sending the list of last month's Withdrawn Items to the buying staff...yknow, whatever.

9:00 [in the children's room]

• Family comes in with under-2 kid (mom, dad and two grandparents) [play for awhile, show off the library to visiting grandparents, leave]
• Staff member flies in to say there's a crisis in the workroom and they're swamped at the circ desk [Tech Staff person's pet bunny died suddenly at home--she's wrecked....don't judge, people!]

10:00 [in the children's room]

• Yes, that was seriously all that happened. Currently, at 10:10, there is one adult in here, looks like she's going through her mail or something. The sun is shining outside and I definitely see people coming and going through the front doors, but no kids.
• Bunny grandma has come in and calmed down TS person who won't leave because we're short-staffed today
• Shelver asks for an explanation for the way we're numbering/sorting the Star Wars books in the adult fiction section; I verbally explain this chart to her [Star Wars people, I love your geekdom, and loathe everything else about the 'universe' in which you live]
• Also, I just realized the books on the shelf, if I owned them all and wanted them in order, should start with the leftmost book being the furthest back in time (25,793 Before the Battle of Yavin) and count backwards to 0 BBY and then start at 0 ABY and count forwards to 45 ABY (at least to date) [the shelver just turned and walked away shaking her head]
• Librarian AB comes in to ask me about stats and logins and blah-blah with our ILS [my short answer is "I don't know, but I don't think what you're doing will change the stats counts] ; she also says she's fine with me staying in here for another couple of hours
• Shelver returns to ask about a call number on a Board Book ["I don't understand this board book..." My response: "I'm really sorry about that!"]
• Truck books, REAL trucks, not stories [holy crap an actual reference question!!]
• ...and Kleenex

11:00 [in the children's room]

• (same) Shelver has yet another question....about the His Dark Materials series, which I love and can therefore answer easily
• Check in with bunny mom and tell her to just go home if she needs to
• [there are now TWO SEPARATE FAMILIES here in the area--so BUSY!!]
• I go get my lunch bagel because my stomach is scuh-REEM-ing
• Rump (Shurtliff) [we have 4 copies, but three are in storage, and the other is checked out--off I go to the scary basement to retrieve a copy]
• Librarian AB calls to remind me she needs to eat lunch, oops

12:00

• ...so now I'm at Ref
• And I replenish the nickels in our change drawer because the print station isn't returning nickels automatically today [tech win!]
• How to transfer music from disc to thumb driver, only she didn't bring the computer in, so I sort of show her and she says she'll try, but probably will come back with her laptop
• Guest pass for internet use (and extend time till closing)
• How to close out when done online
• [so basically in 15 minutes I tripled my patron interactions for the 3 hours at the kids' desk]
• Book with "things to write in sympathy cards" instead of repeating what everyone else says [in this case, Google is what he needs, not a book; who uses books anymore??]

Monday

What I'm doing between questions: reviews for purchasing in my buying sections.

11:00 a.m.

• Quick primer on "how to do the Reference Desk" since I haven't been out here for months (long story)
• "Can I use the phone for an emergency call?" [it's re: a case number, she doesn't have a phone--homeless--so, yeah....and as I expected it's been 10 minutes so far: she's nucking futs. This shelter she's been staying at has "poisoned her with cancer" (multiple repetitions of this one) and she's suing them for throwing her out; ohmygod, it's a crazytown rant. Bless the woman on the other end of the phone] I'm getting lots and lots of names: Betty W...n, Donna, LaVerne, Kim D....n, Ron W...s, John S....z, Sofia,  [Kim has apparently wants this woman's legs cut off, or otherwise kill her; also the hospital stole her ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes so they could rape her]
  I love my job!
• 35 minutes later...Librarian H arrives to look for her son in the paper (not this week?) and she says the woman (who had just left) has been in to get a guest pass so I was able to pass long some of the warning bells

1:00 p.m.

• Help with printing
• Scratch paper
• Do we have a calculator for a test? [yup--buried deep, but functional]
• Help printing Amazon return label
• ...and the line commences....
• "How much to scan and email to myself?" [free]
• How to save doc to desktop to download to resume site [it amazes me that people trust that we'll delete it from the computer and don't even ask]
• [other stuff I don't remember]
• Circ person arrives with 15-item list of DVDs for patron. I place 5 on hold and set the list aside for doing more later this week

5:00 p.m.

• Finagling with Publisher and Word [if I could manipulate the doc myself, I'd figure it out, but the guy is about at my level so I just tell him to keep trying stuff, or Google the hack]
• Print from phone [dude's barely ESL-literate, it takes 20 minutes, but we get it done eventually]
• Look up card number for a known cutie-pie
• Calculator is returned, after she passed her test [w00t!]
• Consumer Reports [ultimately, the information she needs is behind the paywall online, and we don't have access--we should do that, derp]
• There was more, but I spent so much time with those big questions that I have no memory of what I was doing in the gaps

Wednesday

What I'm doing between questions: trying not to rub my sore, allergy-ridden eyes which hurt like hell today. Also checking Fiction Core Collection against what we actually own.

3:00

• Renew time online x2
• "Can you look up my library card?" [yes, because he's a cute kid]
• "Can I sign up for Summer Reading?" [well, it's got less than a week left, but sure since this week's prize is free entry to next week's county fair...]
• Library card kid comes back--"can I get a guess pass?" [no dice figuring out his password]
• I fill them both in on the fact that they can use the YA area now (going into 6th grade), which they decide is far cooler than hanging out here in the grown-up section [DUH!}
• "Can we have a screen?" [he has a card, he knows his password, so...uhm, yeah....]
• Mr. P (on of the regulars) "donates" two pens he found by his computer [they started life as ours anyway, so....]
• Second time renewer finishes up and returns the pencil she borrowed earlier
• Look up card number + compliment about how great our library is compared to hers [though, having been to her library, hers has a MUCH better view: lake + beach!]
• Summer Reading kid returns, can't get online in YA [his birthday was entered wrong in his card; I fix it and give him a guest pass just in case]
• "Screen" guy meanders over for a pencil; his daughter/sister/wife finds a writing utensil so by the time he meanders back she doesn't need the pencil she sent him here for [we discuss Job's patience and taking deep breathes while she mutters to herself]
• Mr P stops to say bye and tell me that his wife is going to be incensed that he went to the library dressed "that way"--a pocketed clean blue T and clean jeans....--then he warns me it's likely to rain right around closing again tonight [great]
• I'm searching for a book someone requested in my collection section (200s: religion)--I finally find it in Amazon: self-published manure re Jesus [call patron and say no-one owns and we can't buy]
• "Screen" dude seems to be on the verge of murdering his companion; she is a bit (ahem) pushy
• ...but they're leaving and she's actually fine in person, if a little ding-dongy
• approx 3:35...RANDOM MAYHEM...

4:00

• Husband arrives from train station to fill me in on his trip to the hospital in the Big City....
• ...MAYHEM CONTINUES....till about 4:30 [I actually called for backup, twice!]
• 700,000 Summer Reading check-ins [omg this is the last week thank God!!]
• Reserve several movies for my regular Weds. aft. patron [she does NOT like subtitled movies, and she had two she asked for this time: "nevermind!"]
• Help with scanning to a flash-drive and uploading the doc to email to someone
• Mystery v. Mysteries, Western v. Westerns on genre labels [staff question]
• Pen
• Director from nearby library stops to say hi and give me a hug (she's a buddy) [the consortium directors met here this afternoon]
• Sign-in for study room x 2
• People magazine [we keep the current one back here so people might be less likely to trash it]
• Someone I know from Al-Anon walks by and says hi [she looks great! ...hmmm and yay]
• Scanned doc patron returns our flash-drive, and asks me to delete his file from it [I delete his AND four other people's....and send an email to Ref staff to remember to do this themselves!!]
• more flippin' genre label questions.... "are we doing Horror? What color?" [I have a sudden realization that in about 5 months someone is going to 'realize' that we should have used "Russian Stories" or "Novellas" or "Pseudonymous Author" (or other random things) and want to add them. We already caved on "Time Travel" which I think is covered under "Fantasy" and we aren't doing "Suspense" which is basically 75% of what we buy it feels like.....  /rant
• Ice Cream Museum yada yada yada

7:00

• There was stuff

8:00

• There was more stuff, and showing new staff how to close up shop and of course Zooey came in at 15 minutes prior to closing and stayed till 5 minutes after....

Monday

What I'm doing between questions: Rural and Reciprocal holds

11:00

• I run to circ to swap the "big bills" for printing change
• Library D has disappeared from here and not reappeared where he's scheduled, so Miss W is freaking out
• No, the fact that Google has a (ridiculous) doodle today is not because they're trying to irritate you, Crazy Woman; and no, it doesn't look like poop: it looks like flour and potato peelings, which the subject's claim to fame [Librarian D already warned me that she's complained today about her card's barcode having her birthday in it--we did that on purpose of course]
• Reset password
• Password dude's dad strolls in whistling
• Staple remover
• Crazy Woman leaves, or at least logs off and heads to the front
• Staple remover back
• Help downloading books to her Kindle [she has an "emotional support" dog in a baby stroller--so that's a first for me]
• Old maps [long complicated back story, and she didn't bring her reading glasses so she can't actually SEE the old maps....] I am saved by the next Ref person's arrival so I can eat lunch

1:00

• YA reading logs--and someone has fubar'd the login (prob the boss) so it takes twice as long as necessary
• Help finding link for job openings at local parochial school's website
• Placed hold for The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey) for patron who I am positive has read it at least a dozen times
  
• Help with printing
• Help with SSA printouts, logins, etc. Also electricity bills (can't access that for some reason)--poor folks with no computer skills being told to log in to do stuff they don't understand....sigh
• Adult Summer Reading Prize
• Local paper + CR buying guide for this year
• Help with printing from a flash drive
• Guest pass
• YA reading log

4:00
Everything I typed here disappeared. Grr.