HALLLOOOOOWEEEEEENNN

What I'm doing between questions: reworking my evaluation for the midyear review--apparently we all did them wrong, par for the course for the former boss...

11:00 in the children's room

• ...which is blessedly EMPTY after yesterday's mayhem!!
• 11:48: bathroom key
• ...is back

Tuesday

What I'm doing between questions:

1:15 in kids' room, covering for a sickie

• Half day for the school district today (not weather-related) so lots of kids in here this afternoon
• Long discussion about YA lit with a patron, which ends when...
• I go break up a kissy-face session going on across the room (behind the patron, so I'd been watching)
• Bathroom key
• "Have you seen a 10-year-old boy in a blue T-shirt, alone?" [apparently he was outside without a coat looking confused...the dude was concerned about him]
• ...and back
• Scissors and paper
• Two little guys =  my new best friends
• Help finding a new series
• Headphones
• My new best friends are using up all my staples, along with making me laugh....

3:40 covering while we call the cops 

• Someone reported someone else with a gun. The someone else has (natch) already left after threatening the first person
• Technology help, guest pass, spare headphones, contracts, lost phone (nope), and a very full set of internet stations and people with not a lot of functional brain cells...no own time....at least we got a two-fer from the police

6:00 in kids' room

• Spiderwick field guide [we don't own :( ] and no, MOM, I don't WANT to download it to the Kindle, I want a BOOK!! [omg, I'm so happy to hear that, and I tell her that!]
• "We saw a book here awhile ago...not sure of the title..." [I adore keyword searching: "beach playa go" finds it]
• "How many DVDs can we check out?" [uhm 5, I think]
• Vampire stories [we find the scary short stories in 398....and I tell the girls they can take whatever doesn't scare their papa, cuz dads are easily frightened]
• "Can we print on the computers?" [yup, but it costs 10 cents per page--then again, she's currently got mom's purse while mom's carrying the zonked out baby]
• Dude runs into storytime without putting on the one shoe that fell off when he got off the chair
• Very scary guy walks through in a very scary way...why do these people need to walk through this room to get to where they are going?!?
• What is that long written thing after I log in that says "Agree" or "Cancel"? [those would be the rules...which I shorten up to "if you're mom would smack you for doing something on the internet, it's against the rules here too" -- and his face lights up in a big smile. I believe he was worried there'd be a test on the rules, and being ESL was more than a little concerned that he was doomed. Mom, though, those rules he can follow!]
• ...and it won't load his game, something to do with add-ons and flash [I suggest he find another website with games]
• How to get a library card for a 5-year-old
• Captain Underpants [we should probably buy some more copies of those...]
• More add-on problems...I move him to a different computer and reboot the one he was using
• Do we have books for kids online? [yup, really? REALLY?? People still don't know this?]
• 5-year-old is very excited about her library card :D
• Do we have DVDs for kids? Uhm, yeah....
• How many DVDs can I check out [5]
• Do we have to check out before the kids go into adult section? [?? wow, uh, no]

Monday

What I'm doing between questions: series and name-change checking, but not much of it

1:00

• "I remembered my flash drive! Aren't you proud of me?!" [dude, I am proud of everyone who remembers to take their flash drives--and he shows me the note he wrote himself to remember, lol]
• Guest pass for internet [pretty adorable guy, too, sigh]
• Nerdy Pet Mormon walks past, wearing a nice pink tie under his gray sweater...first sign of color
• I call patron re a request she made for "Beautiful Ruins CD" [music or audiobook? Audiobook, for this month's book club--no one owns the CD yet, so...I order it and she eventually agrees to take a book]
• Map of state just north of us [I talk her into copying a page of one of our Delorme Altases for the area she's interested in and she walks away THRILLED]
• Temporary internet pass [she has $10 in fines, so I warn her and then print out a pass so she can print "one thing"]
• Never fails: one complicated (-ish) question and suddenly 6 people need me by phone and in person:

• Books with pictures of "cocoon" clothing from the 1920s [eventually, I do find what she needs, both via Google Images and in a few books]
• [phone]
• Circ person comes back to take this end of the call
• Pay to print
• [phone]
• More time on card
• Head of Circ collecting our money for deposit
• [phone]
• ...other stuff I can't remember...

• No messages on phone after all that ??
• "This map you made isn't right..." [well, I didn't make it, but I print out a new map from his new directions, and hear all about why he needs it...]
• Librarian K here to snag a flash drive for a project
• [phone] Chronicles of N-A-R-N-I-A [he spells it out] movies [I find the first one on the shelf and reserve Prince Caspian for him]
• Rose calls for two movies, which we don't own so I leave 'em for Librarian C to find for her

5:00

• [phone] Opera? er, AUTHOR of Like the willow tree [Lowry...wow, my ears totally don't work] and commiseration about Schools These Days
• Please oh please nothing else from N-A-R-N-I-A dude!!! [whew, he leaves as soon as I get here]
• There is a dude online who has been acting rather weird, according to previous staff out here; I'll keep my eye on him, but I think he's less "drunk or high" and more "generally wacko"
• "Is there a waiting list?" [wow we are full, but no waiting list yet--he just didn't look far enough]
• "OK, wow, so, I haven't ever been in here....do you have movies?" [yep, you walked right past them...lol]
• Weird dude comes to ask if his search history and so forth is deleted once he logs off [yep]; is that new, cuz I used to have to delete it all? [uh, no, not for like 12 years]; ok, he's leaving....but I have to call him back about his plastic bag of stuff in the floor where he was sitting
• International fax, which doesn't work [something is not right with the phone number: country/city codes are probably fine]
• Consumer Reports for washers/dryers
• Weirdness on the computers, and I call for help
• Scratch paper
• More weirdness on the computers--and someone left his college app and backpack at an empty computer (now behind the desk)
• And...we're officially full
• Help with attaching a file to an email [thank God for leftover flashdrives]
• Regular skater-ish-dude wants to know what time we close [9, and oh, don't bother looking, all the internets are full--nevermind, he'll do something else even though we have a way to use the next available....]
• Extend time (for later) for the guy who likes to call the cops for us
• [phone] Dead Poet's Society DVD [our copy is long gone and she's not sure she can wait for it to be brought over here on load for her]

Sat

What I'm doing between questions: LCSH-a-go-go. Looking back through old entries of this blog, wondering if I should create a page for our regulars and staff members...in my spare time. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.....I crack myself up.

10:00 in the kids' room

• Guest passes for internet [and the printer in here doesn't work, so...I send them to the adult desk]
• Bathroom key
• Lightning Thief on CD or DVD [uhm, the audiobook is only on CD...and we have it]
• Bathroom key back
• Check out here? [nope]
• All of the above has been for the same family...I'm their personal librarian today
• Bathroom keys for cleaning
• Pay to print
• How much to print?
• Lost sunglasses
• Help with printing, and payment
• Bathroom key
• VERY pushy woman wants DVDs about Jesus, not animated: "real people" [uhm you do know they didn't have videocameras in 1st century Palestine, right? And I am NOT getting you Passion of the Christ for your 8-year-old grandson; sorry, you have to figure out where that is on your own (unless you ask)]
• Key back [patron asks when we started doing that...uh, yeah, like YEARS ago, at least 3]
• Help with printing (same kid)  -- 3 minutes later, he gets up seemingly having figured it out himself this time. ;-)

11:00

• I'm enjoined by departing Librarian J to "have fun" [ugh]
• Can't log in, password isn't right, so I fix it and she's in
• Werewolf: pay to print and needs help [but not as much, she's getting the hang of it]
• Pencil/Paper
• Circ/Tech person asks me to run a weeding list for her to use for the Collection Development class she's taking
• Paper--and he doesn't want to sit where I (or other passersby) can see him  (i.e., he doesn't take the computer that's right across from me and all the others are in use), so...he's off to the front of the building instead
• Werewolf is working on this "Huns/Magyars genetically related to American Indians" thing. Still. Just printed off 19 pages from Wikipedia that need stapling
• Stapler (bird-in-grill dude)
• Day pass for internet (he forgot his card [I'm not supposed to do this, but ... ]
• Pay to print
• List of nursing textbooks [we don't buy textbooks, so she's SOL here; I suggest the community college library, and then show her that Amazon has rental and used options for less money--and by the way, the three specific ones I looked at totalled less than half of one of my son's chem texts]
• Pay to print and today's classifieds
• How to put an accent mark over a letter in Excel
• How to upload pix from a camera card [I get the Belkin for her]
• Ads are back
• Renew time

12:00

• I have no idea what happened for most of this hour...some phone reserves, some gossiping with staff, some LCSH stuff...lots of internet help

Thursday

What I'm doing between questions: items in processing lists to work on later, and Man Booker Long- and Short-Listed titles (at least we have the winner!). And, this will be a surprise (not), subject headings.

9:00 covering for Librarian K

• Two phone messages return which result in me pulling 4 books from various shelves and putting them on hold shelf
• [phone] Werewolf calls looking for books on Shawnee and Navajo, which I find and put on hold shelf
• Suddenly it's 9:40
• [phone] Register to vote [can't do it here nearer than 4 weeks from election and he hangs up in a bit of a snit before I can give him the number for the county clerk]

10:00 covering for Librarian K

• [phone] Apartment lease to copy, and she doesn't have a computer [our book has been lost/paid--just about 3 months after we bought it: #$&^(@] 
• Help with printing x2 [and some discussion of me having been here a long time, since way back in the 90s...: yes, almost 16 years]
• Great, having just finished my breakfast (10:20), I now have the hiccups
• Mouse not working [hmm, weird, eventually I get it to]
• Computer shut down [loose plug he must've kicked--I plug it in more firmly and re-up his time]
• Day pass for internet
• "Can I print from my laptop?" [...sigh, no, not yet (probably not for at least another year since our tech budget got balled up for this year)]
• Help with read-only PDF [no, I can't make it let you fill it out; they've blocked it, and I don't think we can convert it without an account in Adobe...anyway, it's a series of checkboxes with literally one line that needs writing in, so I offer to do the writing if she'd prefer]
• Pen. For the printed PDF.
• DVDs on U.S. history, 50s and 60s [we don't have much... :( ]
• I discover I've been tracking all the questions this morning in the afternoon slot of the tally sheet so I toss it and start over
• City of God on DVD [on hold lists--no, he doesn't want to add his name]
• One of our regulars walks in, gets himself all set up at an internet station, including emptying his pockets--cell phone, sunglasses, papers, etc.--and walks away with it all sitting there [so trusting...]
• City of God guy comes back past me and makes a phone call in the middle of the quietest part of the library [srsly?]

12:00 in the children's room

• New walker stumbles in, staggers all the way across the room to the play area, stops dead and then makes a good run back to Mom...SO FREAKIN' ADORABLE!!
• Not one single question or interaction the whole hour....

5:00

• Referral to the closest thing I can find at the high school to "shop" classes for a woman who wants to donate a bunch of woodworking (and other "man craft" magazines)....then I email the referrals so they can avoid answering their phones for awhile. ;-)
• Renew time
• Could Librarians J and C talk a little louder in their office? I can't quite make out the actual words to the full-volume laughter/conversation. Jeez.
• Pay to print
• Help finding a book she reserved 6 months ago that we ordered and hasn't arrived; I'm going to ILL it instead
• "How much does it cost? I thought it was 10 cents?" [yeah, she did pick the color printer though; fortunately realized it before she started printing]
• Weird interaction with bird-in-the-grill guy (from yesterday). He's one of our regulars and slightly bizarre but usually in a fun way
• "Can the backpack kits be checked out?" [yup]
• Pay to print (same printing person as before)
• Pink-haired guy is back today....shudder
• [phone] Ishmael (by Quinn) [we don't own and she has the kind of card that only allows access to our books]
• Til Death Season 2 [we don't have ANY seasons...]
• How much to print?  ...and then her card's expired (and she owes almost $11)
• More time online (dude that loves calling 911 on our behalf)
• Check out backpack here? [nope, and they have the keys for the little locks up front anyway]

Hump Day

What I'm doing between questions: s u b j e c t s. YAWN.

9:00

• "Time to make the donuts" says the 4th person walking past [exactly what I was thinking...creepy!]
• A large group of 11-12 year olds just quietly went downstairs....hmmm
• Pay to print
• I decide to clean out the "lost computer paraphrenalia drawer and end up throwing away about a dozen CD/DVD discs and a 6" stack of floppies (after destroying them); I'll keep the 10 thumb drives to reformat and hand out as people  need them; also, all the Out Of Order signs are back in a folder together again, and the 2 calculators, 1 cell phone, and glasses case are in the regular lost & found where they belong.
• Found money in wallet after asking questions about SAM (can't remember what--I was distracted by my project above)

10:00

• Patron comes in furious because someone has a dead bird stuck in the grill of their car
• How to get online [new user, new card]
• Bird dude decides that he will fix our jammed stapler, and by the time I get back with a different one, he has, by golly!
• Where is Notepad? [He can use Word for what he wants Notepad for, and I show him how]
• Headphones? [I give him a pair of earbuds I saw in the paraphrenalia drawer...and now I'm untangling left-behind earbuds....]
• Downloading a photo [need the cable that came with the camera, that there is your phone cable, but we have left-behind cables too...no dice]
• Fax
• Substitute stapler back "home" as I get done at the desk

3:00 in the kids' room

• How to change font color in Word [easy pitch to start the hour]
• Fuh-reeezing in here
• 3:25 and about 30 people (mostly kids of various ages) walk in, in clumps
• Dork Diaries books [there are actually a few on the shelf!] and "can you check out with a school ID?" [only if it has your picture on it...not picture :( ]
• "What time is it?" [3:35]
• One minute of "Why?" "But why?" "WHYYYyyyyy?" [whine whine whine] child with mom, who stands firm and doesn't clock the kid either
• ...so yeah: one hour=3 questions........yawnnnn