Friday

What I'm doing between questions: ILL requests and generally trying to keep myself mentally distracted.

9:00

• Dude needs help getting his friend to [nearby state] and out of dude's basement because dude's wife is getting increasingly annoyed with friend living in their basement -- fifteen minutes of trying to come up with suggestions for him, and generally listening to the dude vent. Another patron pokes he head around a pillar 10 feet away and sighs heavily before sitting back down at his computer....
• ....so once dude leaves, I ask The Sigher if he needs help. His reply: "What, did that guy just come in to socialize?" I reply that he needed help and it was a complicated situation (which this guy CERTAINLY could hear), and it is my job to help people. "He's been talking for 10 minutes!" ??? Well, people do talk.... "This is why I come in here early!" [???  WTF JUST HAPPENED?? Bah humbug to you too, asswipe *]
• Several reserve requests arrive from ILL person
• Railroad magazines ("wailwoad"--it's definitely early!) [Model Railroad is perfect, yay]
• Property tax bills for homes in sunbelt state [actually, first I looked up her card number, but eventually it just seemed easier to do the whole thing for her]-- she even pays me for printing without me having to remind her

10:00

• ...waiting for The Sigher to get all bent out of shape about two women working together on a computer across the reference area; there is instruction going on, and not particularly silently....
• Help with getting into Word [to type her annual Christmas letter, just like last year and, apparently, the year before that!]
• Local weekly paper
• Pay to print

3:00 in children's room

• The day hasn't improved since I left the desk this morning, so I'm just trying to hang on at this point
• "Why is my card blocked?" [no parent's name in Guardian field, and fines of more than $6]
• Worried 8- or 9-year-old notices her mom has left the room, can't find her, didn't hear her say she'd be back in "15 minutes"...is concerned, even though her stuff is all here  -- aah, here she comes!
• Bathroom key
• Those are crafts to take home -- "Can I take two?" 
• "How much was that fine?" asks the kid from earlier
• Keys for cleaning dude
• ...and back

4:00 in children's room

• There is card-playing going on at one of the tables across from me: Go Fish, I think
• ...they've moved on to War
• Just realized I'm freezing!!
• Bathroom key
• "Where do I return books?" [at circulation, which you walked past] Oh, duh. "What about my daughter's first library card picture?" [still hanging on the wall--he finds it]  "OK, good, now I'll go back over and return these and head to Santa's hut to get it warm for him and the kids tonight."  [I love living in a small town!!]

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* Mind you, this hits a little harder today anyway, since at my review on Wednesday I was told to keep the chatter in the workroom down, and also to "treat the staff the way you treat the patrons" i.e., keep my anger in check. So, yeah, asswipe...you're lucky your a patron, or I guess I'd probably rip you to pieces. Cuz apparently I do that to staff.

Saturday

What I'm doing between questions: checking to be sure we have all the Man Booker short-listed titles (and winner), cleaning up the on-order material, and reading reviews.

1:00

• Pay to print
• Computer shut down [he actually accidentally punched the off button]
• Refesh time
• I'm instructed to "stay warm" by one of our regulars [who has sprouted a beard since I last saw him...oddly charming]
• Help with the scanner...picture coming up too dark [and the Queen of Technology--hah!--fixes it all up]

2:00

• [phone] Three items requested: we have one on the shelf, another is checked out, and the third hasn't been released yet so I do a request for purchase
• "Catholic" movies [for teens...er....]
• Look up card #, and can she ask for extra time if she needs it [blah blah, basically yes, unless...]
• [phone] Morality and moral controversies [uh, no, probably a college library...]
• Borrow the USB drive
• Librarian H warns me that she sent a woman here to use a study room because the quiet area she was in suddenly was invaded by a group of kids working on a project ; she arrives, grumpy as promised

3:00

• [Big City Nearby] magazine from this August [so much easier to get to these now that we've moved them to the reference area]
• A flock of baby Mormons arrive....
• [phone] "Amazing Grace" the DVD [is here, and I set it aside for her]
• ...at the same time "Dead Poet's Society" [our copy has disappeared, so she's out of luck :(]
• Renew expired nearby-library card...front desk [takes awhile to sort this out due to language issues, but we're good]
• Pay to print
• "Do you have any hard candies?" [his throat is dry]
• Help with photocopying
• Pay to print
• VERY complicated question about a college paper on the character traits and ethics of Katniss Everdeen

4:00

• Pay to print
• Refresh patron time (and calm him down, since the guy next to him--the hard candy dude--is coughing...so...MOVE, buddy!...and he does, without me having to say it)
• Very Loud Woman needs Debbie Newcomb [i.e. Macomber] books
• Discussion with Children's Librarian post-Día de los Muertos program about cleanup and her after-work activities [mine included shoving food in my piehole and going to sleep]
• ...and the panic of closing commences

Saturday

What I'm doing between questions: checking the catalog for dead people--I'm only 10 months behidn.

9:00 in kids' room
The entire children's room has been overhauled in the last day and a half--I knew about some of it when I left work on Thursday, but today it's totally rearranged, except for the books. And, naturally, the only email from the children's librarian mentions one part of the whole thing, something that's been ongoing for several days this week. So, yay: where are the puppets? I dunno. Where are the magazines? I dunno. Where are the intermediate-level activity kits? I dunno. [OK, actually, I do know, but only because I've prowled around and been given a heads-up by another staff member]

• Easy books about occupations [they are now with the occupation....]
• The Calling (Tiernan) [our copy isn't there, so I place a hold on it]
• Woman from church comes in with a new pink cast (replacing the former over-the-elbow cast of two weeks ago); she's looking for books for her grandkids

10:00 in kids' room

• Discussion of teacher cards and dual-language and checkout limits....
• Look up library card number for SAM use
• Oh carp that twerpy kid is here--it's his sister who needed her card # [the freckle-faced one in this post]
• Librarian J wanders in with new magazines to shelve--and doesn't know where the magazines are now 
• Bathroom keys for cleaning dude ... and back
• Twerpy kid, his sister, and mom leave [he'd been pestering the grandpa/grandson on their computer--thank God for other kids' patient grandpas!]

11:00

• [phone] Do we have public computers with floppy drives? [no, but we do have an external floppy drive that patrons can borrow]
• I've already had to move three public-area chairs that apparently Librarian J didn't notice were completely out of their places, and while I'm up a do a quick walk-thru to get the lay of the land; there's a guy reading the paper with one of his shoes off ... lol
• Of Mice and Men [for a h.s. kid--and it's here!--who just finished 1984 and loved it. YAY!]
• Help with setting up Excel page for bill payment [the gentleman calls me "Señorita" thus earning massive cred for being blind to all the gray in my hair... ;-)]
• Copier not giving change--out of order sign on it

12:00

• Cleaning guy wheels past with mops, et al. [I suppose cleaning the bathrooms at the same time you mop them would cause some kind of short circuit?]
• Oh, really?! BOTH copiers are out?! NIIIIIIICE. Good thing the scan station is working, unless you need legal-size
•  ...and then I got swamped

Wednesday

What I'm doing between questions: checking the roof for worsening leaks, and various "do we have this?" lists against our catalog. [I also have vertigo today, so I'm trying not to move my head too much or too fast. And I'm crabby, too.]

12:00

• "How do I get onto the Internet?" [new card--just sit down and go]
• Please, Librarian F: talk squawk a little louder because we can't actually hear EVERY word you're saying in your office!
• Sign in for study room (x2, oddly) 
• One of those guys needs a guest pass for the internet
• "What's my password?" [I show her]
• Help with saving a screenshot and emailing it to himself
• Add money to SAM account
• Fax [of course the new system doesn't send the confirmation email right, so I end up sending the fax the old way, which of course works fine]
• Guest internet pass
• Help getting online  [these last three are all going at once]
• Paperclip?

1:00

• A whole flurry of stuff: YA prizes, help someone picking out a phone at Radio Shack's website, patron leaving a resume for Libarian T, money on SAM to print, patron looking at job ads, signup for study room  == all within 5 minutes
• Two guest passes for internet [clearly, there are a ton of people here today from not-here]
• Help printing
• Help with printing (same person) and logging off
• "My sessions are ?disabled?? But I haven't used up all my time today?" [all fixed--SAM doesn't like if you computer-hop too quickly]
• Another flurry: two phone calls (horrible, horrible connection on both!), two people paying for print, some others needing to scan, GRE books [luckily, Librarian H happens by and can take on the scanning part while I do the rest]

Saturday

So, yeah, it's been awhile. I've been buried, both from the cataloging standpoint and while out at various public desks. Busy times at the library. I'll see if I can keep up with this today since it'll be interesting to have a snapshot of a rainy Saturday during Summer Reading Program time.

Also, I'm setting this all up prior to the library's opening, so that helps. Lights in the building flash on at 8:43--yes, I have been sitting in the (relative) dark in here since 8:15.

_________________________________________________________________________

What I'm doing between questions: checking the most recent Death Dates list(s) against our catalog, and checking my buying areas of our collection against the latest Public Library Core Collection (a.k.a. PLCAT). 

9:00 in the children's room

• Two girls arrive, looking for the "Horse Diaries" series [no one in our consortium owns, so I do a request and get a name to contact when we get them]
• They are also looking for their "first library card" pictures in the bin--Mom eventually finds them because they do look different from a year ago ;-)
• "Where can I look something up in the catalog?" [I point him to the dedicated computers, rather than the Internet stations]
• Pencil [same guy]
• "How many items on a specific subject can I check out?" [same guy]
• Nope, gotta check out everything at the front desk [same guy--really, there are other people here, but they're doing their own things]

10:00 in the children's room

• Page comes in here to run this morning's picklist
• One of my favorite patrons--whose wife has the same disease as the one my sister had--passes through with a cheerful greeting
• How to look up children's books in the catalog
• Sign up an adorable little guy for SRP
• How to get online, and what the games computers have on them [yup: games]
• Prizes for two little ones...

11:00 ...ok, I really thought I would make it today, but--like everyone else in town--I just don't feel good, so I'm going home early (again)

12:00

Monday and Tuesday

What I'm doing between questions on Tuesday: trying to find the email I left for the schedule person about being gone tonight. I guess I didn't actually do that, even though we talked about it. Shit. At least she's in a good mood today... whew

MONDAY 1-2
not crazy-busy, but didn't have time to log into Blogger or refgrunt at all.

12:00 in the children's room

• Pen, and (later) stapler
• Everyone using the computers in here is an adult. :(
• ...and that's it...whee