1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: Demand order.
Yesterday was busy--lots of people. That doesn't bode well for today being peaceful. Oh well, here we go...

1:00

* Tax forms
* Word proc
* Earthling [crusty old man, my favorite]
* Word proc
* South Beach Diet and cookbooks from Weight Watchers
* Tax forms
* Classical novelists, American [I name a few, he lights on Steinbeck, and heads to Fiction to check out our selection]
* Word proc
* County tax forms [don't have; should we??]
* Find someone named Stoner in Ohio [I couldn't make this up!]
* Word proc
* Encyclopedia volume with Scotland
* Publsher isn't working for one of the word proc people...[oh well]
* "Do we need to stop by everytime we want to use the Internet?" [no--and yes your adult card will work on a chidren's computer]
* Publisher folks need to buy a disc
* Queen Bees and Wannabes, and other ideas for about parenting a middle-school girl

It's 1:30! Yikes.

* Encyclopedia volume with Alaska
* Tax forms
* Encyclopedia volume 'M' [I'm sensing a theme here....]
* State tax form for non-residents
* [phone] Bibliographic information for books he left at school
* 8th-grade project on childhood cancer
* Word proc
* M volume dude needs another encyclopedia [I show him Britannica and warn him]
* "Why is my printer printing 'dirty'?" [I suggest printing from the main printer instead]
* Speaking of American authors: "Any books by Ayn Rand (spelled "Eyn") on his notepaper, which he took directly out of today's newspaper... [he takes Atlas Shrugged to wade through]

2:00

* Word proc
* Excel? [All the public PCs are taken, so...no]
* Pencil
* When will an internet terminal free up? [well, you could wait, or check upstairs, or....]
* Another Country
* "Icebreakers" for a party
* Can I give her more time on the net to do some legal stuff...? [I'm such a sucker...]
* Tax form 8889 & instructions [printed from their site, since we don't have any copies]
* Where did my paper print? and Can I have more time? [the latter just as his document gets deleted because he only gave me 2 minutes to find the password to do that the way it needed to be done]
* Headphones
* Tax forms
* How to cut and paste from Word to a form on the Internet...in theory, because he's not online right now
* Instructions for 1040 schedule D
* Three books on Italy for a little girl; everything we have is checked out [what a mess: her card's expired, plus it's blocked, AND the phone number on her record is wrong...and she's gone already]
* State tax forms--she really can't see them [because they're inside the instruction book]
* "Why is Word typing over everything when I go back to make corrections?" [Let me introduce you to the 'insert' key...]
* Medieval music examples for the vo-tech level high school kids [oy]
* How to do a bibliography for a local history book edited by one person....etc., etc.
* "Where can I log on to the Internet?" [Once a terminal becomes free, over there, but right now no place]

3:00

* Books on wolves
* Headphones [very quiet, non-English speaker--it takes me about 2 minutes to figure out what he wants...I'm a dope]
* "I've been waiting upstairs for an internet terminal, but..." [right there, there's one free, quick go get it!!]
* More bibliography help
* Lost card [I leave a note on the record and put it in the lost box]
* State tax forms [in the instruction booklet; he says thank you, then stops at the desk on the way out the door to whisper "thank you" since he yelled it before... ;-) ]
* Return headphones
* More help with bibliography boy--this time he wants to borrow a dime for a photocopy [I make a copy for him on our printer for free]
* Headphones
* Patron wants two books: "Birth of a Nation" [when I tell her we have the movie but not the book it was based on, she says, "It was a movie??"] and "Life in the Woods" by 'David Wallace Thoreau' [so I get her Walden and tell her it's the same thing...which it is]
* Quiet boy returns headphones
* Last set of headphones is returned
* "Why can't I get my floppy in to save on it?" [from a 6-year-old....]
* Bib. boy thinks he can type a 3-page paper in 5 minutes....bzzzz [I have to eject him]
* No one else seems to want to leave either.


Whew NUTS-busy day!

10:30 - 12 noon

What I'm doing between questions: weeding.

10:30
* Word proc
* Tax forms [not out yet]
* Magazines (same guy)
* Pay for prints
* Tax forms
* Calendar

11:00
* [phone] reserve word processor
* Books on Social Security hearings
* Word proc
* Word proc reserver arrives
* [phone call from family member]
* How to rewrite in a text box in Publisher [he'd inserted another box over the text box...]
* Local obit from 1969 [I show her how to use the microfilm...as well as someone else who was confused by the whole concept]
* Telecourse tapes
* [phone] Love Story (the movie) [We don't have it]; ok, then the book [We have it! A book, imagine that! AND, it's on the shelf!]
* Now Showing: Unforgettable Moments from the Movies, by Joe Garner [reserve it: it's only at a VERY small library on the western edge of the state. Odd]
[My replacement has arrived. Eureka]

11 - 12 noon

What I'm doing between questions: barcoding new books, keeping an eye on the weeding that I've farmed out.

[We've been closed since last Thursday: there were five carts worth of books in the bookdrop this morning, and people are swarming the building today.]

* [phone] Multipart question:

1. "You know all that stuff going on in Asia? What language do they speak there? Because I thought English was the universal language now..." [well, and thank God you're on the phone, lady, so you can't see my face]
2. "What's the difference between "Crown Prince" and "Prince"? [dictionary.com]
3. "Where does Monaco get all its money?" [WHAT??]

[Circ Supervisor tells me that the pages shouldn't be working together because they're chattering too much; I tell her I'll talk to them. I do: "What did you do to piss off [Supervisor]? Try to pretend you aren't working together..." There; I talked to them. We all roll our eyes and go back to work.]
* [phone] reserve books 5 and 6 in the Lemony Snicket series
* pay for print jobs [although I can barely understand her]
* SAM isn't allowing this poor woman to log back in after she went to the bathroom [the tech is called. Evenually we just delete her and reenter her in SAM and all is well...]
* the copier is saying "1-2-3" and flashing [yup, go ahead and make copies--it's insane]
[the pages have been sent to me because they need something to do; they are all caught up shelving...they can weed, since my slave-for-the-day (offspring) has disappeared]
* patron wants the fish video she returned last night [much hilarity ensues because she's a little on the weird side and the tech and the pages all go into slight hysterics after she walks away]
* [phone] annual CPI for 1999, 2002 and 2003 in Chicago [thank God for the Internet]
* Fish lady wants "Christmas stories" [we go to the 394 section and she starts getting weird again--I leave before she causes me to get hysterical]
* Career section from Sunday's paper [we forgot to grab it out of the paper this morning, so I send him upstairs to look for it]
* three temporary SAM apps in a row [two of them for "I never saw him before in my life" brothers who are absolutely gorgeous]
* patron with wall eyes needs a "big piece of paper" [I get her a legal sheet out of the copier]
* Career guy asks for the state manufacturer's directory, kept behind the Ref Desk
* pay for print jobs and needs a few more minutes [what the hell, why not?]
[pages are leaving, so they tell me what they've accomplished on the weeding]
[Librarian N arrives for his shift--I tell him about the "Asia" woman because he speaks 3 languages. one of them from that region...]

Whew!
Number of books barcoded: 0

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: trying not to pass out. Doing the demand order, and going to Public Library Catalog to see what I missed last year in my collection development sections.

I blew it--it's been a strange morning, full of computer glitches and me not feeling great (dizzy and headachy). Why do I stay? Don't know. Inertia, most likely. Possibly in order to infect everyone I come in contact with...

I've had some wonderful questions, too:

- can I check out some of the ESL/Literacy Reference books [I was able to say yes in response!]
- 2003 tax information/forms on disability
- an old amusement park, now defunct (although she didn't know what that word meant) in the vicinity [after digging for more information, all she could give me was her teenage daughter's vague "oh, within an hour or so of here" response; I told her to pump her daughter and call back...none of our old-timers could think of anything except in the city]
- not a question, just a non-trad student who spends her day here doing research and classwork who is walking 'weird' today: she had a hysterectomy this week and has a paper due tomorrow. Aaaackkkkk! Apparently she's unwilling to ask for an extension.
- "how's your Spanish?" question: I translate a 'come-on' email from a Mexican hotel for a patron. Disfrute!

12:00
* Today's Wall Street Journal
* Bathrooms (where are they?)
* Buy a floppy disc
* VERY nice woman signing up for Internet use
* [phone] phone number for "Darlk" company on M- Road [can't find on 'net or in criss-cross, so I suggest she call the city's Economic Development office and see if they would know]
* Woman gets up to leave, walks away and comes back to make sure she's logged out of the 'net, then leaves for good [she's not logged out--I can tell from here, so I go do it properly for her]
* [ I'm bored. Sue me. I found a funny office supply site. Not sure if it's meant to be funny, but it amuses me. Check out the gallery.... ]

10:30 - 12 noon

What I'm doing between questions: barcoding new stuff. If I have time, I'm going to read reviews, since I haven't ordered anything in my subjects in several months.

10:30
[quiet morning, although lots of people are here surfing...]
*Stapler
*Double-sided copies (I just take it to the staff machine for her)

11:00
*[phone] Have we received Citizen Girl? [yes] She's already on reserve for it and she's really excited to read it. She apologizes for calling [I told her I'm always happy to know someone's excited about a book]
*Pay for prints
*Phone book
*"I thought I knew where the writing and publishing books were..." [I show him--maybe we shifted shelves?]
*Pay for prints and get into discussion of money-exchange rates
*Literay Market Place vol. 1? [Same guy as above. Vol. 1 checked out, today!]
*Regular patron asks for the network connection cable as he starts bringing in his "laptop" (four desktop components) [think of the workout he's getting everyday!]
*Long discussion with patron over getting hold of articles out of two historical journals from the state and Big City (Big City library was apparently totally unhelpful and useless when they asked for help there)
*Why is the fly in the 700s flying in a circle and then just sitting there? [this from a woman with white flecks all over her face...]
*[phone message] phone number for our county's incarnation of The Business Journal; he can't find in phone book [and he's on the phone, so I can't tell him what I found]
[Sleek needs to use this PC and it's noon anyway]

9 - 11

What I'm doing between questions: DDC checking, because that's all my brain can handle this morning....

9:00
* Corporate pilot salary survey...
* [phone] Virgin Queen by Philippa Gregory...turns out it's called Virgin's Lover -- I do an order card for it
[there's a message saved on the phone from OCTOBER 14!!]
* Hi to Sleek
* Job/Research computer
* Look up SAM number
* Where do print jobs go (from Job computer)?
* Circ person passes along message that proctored-test person will be here today at 2 not at 1 as originally scheduled [hoookayyyy]
* Someone waiting to use Internet....I suggest upstairs; he goes, clearly excited at the concept
* Pay for print jobs

10:00
[I'm catching up on my blog-reading; it's really quiet today!]
* The library card spiel (what do you need to get one, the difference between the basic rural card and the full rural card, etc.)
[I complain to Sleek about the minuscule issues left on my PC--can't adjust clock, can't print to the copier...]
* Circ person has a patron wondering why two books in a trilogy are shelved in Science Fiction, while the third--actually the second in the series--is in Young Adult [hmmm....I'll move it when she's finished with it]
* Pencil

[No one is here to relieve me, but I'm outta here!]