Retired

So far, it just feels as if I've had a day off. Still trying to wrap my brain around the concept of this not being a vacation. I'm really not going back to the library and the office I occupied for nearly 20 years.

My apartment is a mess right now. The den, which I use as an office of sorts, is particularly messy with all the junk I brought back from my work office. And that was only a portion of the junk I had there. I gave a lot of things, mostly office toys, to fellow staff, then tossed the stuff I didn't need (duplicates of what I have at home, mostly). One of my staff took so many things to remember me by that her cubicle resembled a shrine to me last I saw. That tickles me, that someone thought enough of me as a supervisor to want some of my things.

Looking back, I can honestly say I was a supervisor I would've wanted: someone who would be great to work for if you didn't give me any crap. Some people gave me crap -- whining about schedules, going over my head when they didn't like my answers, not being team players, always late, and so on -- and toward them, yes, I was not always the nicest person to work for. I wasn't a fair supervisor because I didn't treat people equally. I tried to be fair, really, but some people are a lot easier to treat fairly than others. I did the best I could and I never asked people to do things I wouldn't or couldn't do, and I tried to learn from my mistakes. I'm proud of what I did at that library and the branches I worked in previously, and I'm going to miss my colleagues and staff. I wish them all well.

I'm going to miss most of the public, too, especially the ones I've gotten to know while doing phone reference. That branch has a lot of regulars and I loved talking books with many of them. There are others I won't miss, especially the ones who insisted on talking over the phone with the TV or radio blasting in the background, or worse, people arguing in the background. Or the ones using cell phones that cut in and out, or picked up street noises as people walked and talked and then got annoyed when I couldn't hear everything they were saying and had to keep asking them to repeat what they'd said. I'm not going to miss the rude people or the ones who felt entitled to special service for whatever reason.

But I will miss my fellow science fiction fans and the man who also loves historical mysteries, especially set around World War II. Or the folks who loved talking to me, who said they were glad they got me because I always found the right books for them. I'll miss the ones who enjoy trying new things and were open to my suggestions, then were nice enough to let me know whether or not they enjoyed the books I recommended and didn't blame me if they didn't like them. I'll miss the feeling that I was making a difference in people's lives. That's the greatest kick of all.

But I sure don't miss getting up early, before the sun rises this time of year, and commuting on the subway during rush hour. Nope, I don't miss that at all.

Feeling: mellow

~~~o0o~~~

File Under Tales from the Library

From today's phone reference stint...

Patron: Can you send for the book from Canada?
Me: No, we can't get books from Canada, anymore.
(This continued back and forth for a while til I said: Canada is a separate country from the US.)
Patron: No, it's not. It's a province.
Me: ... (Well, no, I didn't pause. I stupidly tried to explain.)


Feeling: bemused


~~~o0o~~~

Links and Libraries, Perfect Together!

I don't think I've posted this before: World's Largest Chocolate Bar. Link found on Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine.

And this chocolate pouch, with the rather odd name of Chocolate Bar Yummy Pocket, is perfect for any self-respecting chocoholic. Found on Neatorama.

From the library phone reference trenches...
Her: What programs do you have this fall?
Me: We don't have the whole schedule yet, but we are doing a resume writing workshop.
Her: I need that. I need someone to type my resume for me.
Me: Actually, it's to teach you how to put together a resume. We can't type it for you. We're a library, not a typing service.
Her: Well, I don't know what you all do!

Feeling: tired



~~~o0o~~~Technorati Tags: links

Notes from the Short Work Week

I worked Thursday and today. Not much time and yet, nonsense happened.

First, I spent most of the time going through emails. And doing telephone reference. It's the latter that yielded the following bits of nonsense.

Thursday night, a patron calls and asks to register for the computer training program on Saturday. I've been away, so thought something new had been scheduled, but no, there's nothing. The rest is paraphrased and shortened from the original.
Me: Do you mean the one on Nov. 7? That was last Saturday.
She: Yes. The 7th. I'd like to register for it.
Me: It happened already.
She: So, can I register for it?
Me: We had it last week. It's over. We don't have another session scheduled, but we might in the future.
She: So I can't register for it?
Me: No.

(It's a longshot, but I've submitted the above to Not Always Right, one of my favorite blogs.)

And then, today, from one of our regulars, a pleasant woman who should've known better: "Don't mind me munching in your ear." Did she ask if I'd mind? No. She just said it. And did it. And I did mind. And it was hard to understand her over the munching. So. Very. Rude.

Feeling: in need of another vacation! :)

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: libraries

Dewey or Don't We

Found this bit of library fun over on Anne's site:

Shelly's Dewey Decimal Section:

210 Philosophy & theory of religion

Shelly = 985225 = 985+225 = 1210


Class:
200 Religion


Contains:
The Bible and other religious texts, books about the general philosophy and theory of religion.



What it says about you:
You don't mind thinking about the unknown or other very big ideas. You will never feel like your work is finished. The 200-series is dominated by Christian topics, so you may feel like you're constantly surrounded by Christians.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

They give you two results, so here's my second one.

Shelly's Dewey Decimal Section:

005 Computer programming, programs & data


Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works


Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.



What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Not bad. Anything in the Arts would've worked, too.

Feeling: pretty much the same.

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: quizzes

Library Laughs

Evidence that there are people who don't listen.

My first two reference calls at work started thusly:

1.
Me: (name of) Library, how may I help you?
Him: Yes, I'd like to make a doctor's appointment.

2.
Me: (name of) Library, how may I help you?
Her: This isn't the library?

Yup. One of those days.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: libraries

Work Work Work

An actual, decent day at work. Granted, it was short because I left early to go to the gym, but still, a decent day is worth noting. And the library administration sent flowers in honor of National Library Week here in the US.

And I gained only a half pound over last week when I went to the ballgame instead of the gym, so that's not bad.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: libraries

Actual Phone Call

In the "You Can't Make this Stuff Up" department, an actual special ed teacher called the library and said this to me today:

"I'm teaching a visually impaired child who is blind..."

It's not exactly a redundancy, but it sure comes close.

Meanwhile, today's suckage isn't as bad as yesterday's suckage. And I remembered my camera, so I went to the park on my lunch hour and took way too many pics of squirrels. There were 4 or 5 of us with cameras and the poor things kept coming over to us in the hopes, no doubt, of getting some food, but all we had were our cameras.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: libraries

Long but Nice Day

Went to a library function after work, to celebrate the centennial of my former branch. The cake was yummy, but it ended up being dinner because most of the food was gone by the time I got there.



The branch was renovated a few years ago, finally, getting long overdue air conditioning. It was a beautiful renovation, with the original wood shell for the shelving kept and refinished, along with the original wood floors. A couple of painted over skylights were exposed and cleaned. Here's to the next 100 years!

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: libraries

LibraryLand

Two-pound chocolate bunny helps library.

Speaking of libraries (and isn't that a great segue?), we brought up our upgraded computer system at work today. I feel like a kid with a lot of cool, new toys to play with. Sure, there are a few itty bugs in it, but the older version had some of those, too. The upgrade has a lot of nifty, time and work saving features that will be great once we get comfortable with them. I'm actually eager to get to work tomorrow so I can play some more and how often does that sort of thing happen?

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: libraries work

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Because, really, nothing's going to stop it from snowing.

Tech guy came, but the mother board hasn't arrived yet. He did fix the slowness problem since the meltdown on Wednesday night. Seems one of the memory sticks wasn't in all the way after the Gateway guy had us pull them and reinsert them. Tech guy said he couldn't tell if both were in, but the PC said only one was, so he removed both and shoved them back in and things are better now. He thinks the mother board should probably be replaced even though the PC is working. Clearly, something was and probably still is amiss.

For the library-minded amongst you out there, I offer up scanned photos of my old book exhibits. Most are YA-oriented. The older pictures, the ones on the matte paper, are very faded and I fiddled a bit with them in Photoshop, but the color is still off. I'm going to scan pretty much every photo I have so I can have them on CD.



I feel like I have a gazillion projects and don't know which way to turn first. But at least, I finished scanning in the Hawaii photos from 1995, so I feel as if I accomplished something. There were a couuple of hundred of those suckers.

And for once, I remembered to watch Hustle, a British import which is on Saturdays at 10 p.m. Of course, I didn't remember til 10:15, but at least I finally have seen this show. I like it a lot.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
computers
photos

We Get Letters

We get letters at the library. At first, the letter that showed up yesterday looked legit. Sure, a post office box in CT return address isn't typical, but then, we get letters from people who are incarcerated, so I usually don't pay attention to such details. And it started out harmless enough. The writer had some questions. We often get such letters (well, at least a few times a year) because folks are always sending such letters to (name of major urban library) and we're near the top of the list. About 2 sentences in, however, it became apparent, if not obvious and painfully clear, that the writer was either having some fun, oddly sincere and therefore perhaps had issues, or, well, nuts.

After a fairly humorous paragraph describing a visit to an unnamed library somewhere in the northeast, where the writer got bored because there were no videogames and the librarian kept shushing him, he asked some questions. To wit (I'm repeating only the ones that were actually funny, the rest being rather lame):

"Would webbed feet allow me to park in a handicapped spot so I can stop taking the bus?"

"Are knee high nylons part of the dress code for librarians? Thigh highs or perhaps control top pantyhose would not only look better because the waistband is roomy and the hosiery silky, soft, comfortable, and not to mention elegant, but they feel better too."

Clearly, Mr. KS has never worn control top pantyhose which, unless you're already skinny and have no need for them, have an annoying way of cutting off circulation. Unless, perhaps, he finds lack of circulation comfortable. I don't.

In addition, he adds that libraries should "advise the public that the only thing they're going to find at the library is books -- and most with no pictures. Also, that there are no arcade games like Space Invaders."

Again, he shows no knowledge of libraries, or missed the CDs, DVDs, videos, magazines (with plenty of pictures), computers with internet access, and other things that aren't books. However, he did provide me with a few chuckles on a long, somewhat annoying day, so for that, he has my thanks.

Feeling:

libraries

Saturday

I ranted about Michael Gorman's Library Journal article here on Occasional Blog. His article has been the topic of much discussion in the blogosphere and as a librarian, I felt the need to add my two cents.

Spent the day catching up with some stuff, but never as much as I start out planning to get to. Did watch tapes from last night's JAG, Third Watch, and for the first time, Numb3rs. I liked Numb3rs a lot, but hadn't bothered with it before because there's just too much on I like on Fridays, mainly the SciFi Channel's lineup of the 2 Stargates and Battlestar Galactica (and it was nice seeing Callum Keith Rennie on it again; he'd done the mini-series). But my favorite actor, Keith Szarabajka, was on Numb3rs last night, so I had to see it. He played the train wrecker on the show and is best known for playing Mickey Kostmayer on The Equalizer and more recently, Holtz on Angel. I'd heard his voice on the previews (it's very distinctive) and knew I couldn't miss it. He's not the best looking actor or the most popular. He isn't all that well known. But when someone gets under your skin, well.... There's just something about him. First time I saw him was in a movie starring Alan Arkin called "Simon." That was back around 1980. He had a small part in the beginning as Arkin's lab assistant, but he got under my skin from that first moment I saw him.

I did get to briefly meet Alan Arkin during the filming of "Simon" at Columbia U, where I was in library school. I got his autograph, which was cool, because I've been a fan of his since I was a kid and had seen "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!" Many years later, I got to see Keith S. on stage, a few times (among his other stage roles, he played BD in "Doonesbury: the Musical," but I didn't get to meet him til a few years later), and got to speak with him and get his autograph, too.

A Link and Some Library Talk

Sometimes, a site comes to one's attention that answers questions few think to ask. I know I have not gotten even one question on this topic in my 23 plus years as a public librarian, but if I do, I now have a place to go for the answers: Ian's Shoelace Site.

Busy hour on reference desk doing phone work. Mondays are always the busiest for calls. Most of the folks were great — I even got blessed by a grateful reader — and were even understanding when I had to put them on hold. One patrons was having trouble hearing me (despite sucking down water to keep my sore throat lubricated, I was losing my voice after 45 minutes of calls), so I apologized and in a louder though squeakier voice told her "Sorry, but I have a sore throat." She said, "That's all right. I'm hard of hearing." Then we shared a laugh. I love phone calls like that.

Ditto the woman who called who shares a name with a big-name author. At the end of the call, I asked if she got teased about it. She said, oh yeah, and told me she even resembles the author and people were always asking her if she was the author. I told her next time to just give her autograph. Another laugh was shared.

Which more than made up for the woman who spent 10 minutes bending my ear, not letting me finish one search for her before starting on something else and not listening to what I was saying, and generally digging in like a pit bull about things I told her she was mistaken about re: our service. Calls like that are draining. Calls like the others are invigorating.

Stress Relief

Chocosphere: the place to go online for most, if not all, of your chocolate needs. It ain't pretty, but it is chocolate.

Been ranting on Occasaional Blog, talking about books on Shelly's Book Shelf, and nattered on a bit and posted a link over on Presto Speaks!

Stress at work continues, though we seem to be past the most stressful aspects of trying to get service to someone of privilege who likely won't actually use the service because we really don't have the materials he needs or wants. There's such a level of frustration built into this process. Similarly, we have people who insist on sending their requests to the branch head or calling him directly instead of just dealing with the reader services staff because they think they'll get better, faster service. And they won't, because if he's out for whatever reason (illness, vacation, meetings), the request just sits there for anywhere from a day to a couple of weeks because we don't usually open his mail or listen to his phone messages. And even if he is there to get the request, he'll just hand it to me to handle, anyway, because it isn't his job. It's mine and my staff's. But we can't explain that to some people. They just don't grasp the concept that sometimes, the folks on the bottom of the work ladder are the ones they need to talk to.

When you add that sort of thing to the usual phone calls like this one today (a brief excerpt, and I'm paraphrasing the patron's dialogue a bit because it all sort of blurred together in my at that point numbed mind):
Patron: Are all the books listed in the online catalog?
Me: Yes.
Patron: So I can find all the books you have in the catalog?
Me: Yes.
Patron: I can look in the catalog and find out what books you have?
Me (torn between laughing, crying, and banging the phone receiver on the desk a few times): Yes.
It took 3 repeats of every answer to satisfy this woman and then she had more questions. Thank goodness for the woman who blessed me on Tuesday for helping her and the man today who thanked me and told me what a great job we're all doing. Leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside and I can almost forget the more challenging patron transactions.

It's Not Just Library Books

Argh! Sorry, I just have to vent a moment. I finally have some time to sit down with the PhotoShop 7 manual I got over the summer (and therefore, too late to return it to Barnes & Noble) and I'm in chapter 2 and what do I see? Someone's highlighted text and used a dark highlighter that's making the text difficult for me to read. Plus they didn't highlight things I want highlighted. And I've been highlighting and making notes up to this point, so that's another reason I can't return this book.

It's very annoying. It's very distracting, and I don't know if this person (a Mac user because when he or she highlighted commands, they chose the ones for Macs, not for PCs) marred this book in the store or took it home, did it, then returned it. And I'd flipped through it in the store and didn't spot the damage. And if either, why bother highlighting? Sheesh. So tomorrow, I'll be looking for a replacement because this is just too annoying.

Argh. No, it's not just library books people vandalize.

Highlights and Lowlights

Fun and hijinks at the library:

A patron calls to change her address.
Me (re: her apartment number): H as in Harry?
Her: No. H as in.... help. H E L P.
Me: uh...

Someone has underlined in pencil many passages in four books, and included written commentary. Not to be outdone, someone else has taken a yellow highlighter to 6 other books (two of which also sustained serious water damage). A couple of these were fairly new and are now ruined. Books aren't cheap these days and library budgets are still depressed. I hate thinking about the cost of replacing all those books, though fortunately, we can probably afford it this year. But I can't stop thinking of how many books are still to be returned that are as badly marred or damaged.

Still riding a chocolate high from yesterday. Had a couple of the chocolate (dark) covered grahams I got yesterday at the Jacques Torres shop for dessert tonight. Chocolate covered grahams never tasted that good to me before. Now if I can only find chocolate covered jelly graham cookies that taste like what I remember from when I was a kid. Yum.

The day was clear and pretty nice, but cold. This was the first real chill which means, I guess, that winter really is coming.

"House" just gets better and better. "NCIS" had a nice, taut episode and some really funny moments.

And now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go try that Jacques Torres hot chocolate.

A Telephone Non-Conversation at the Library

Me: [name of library], may I help you?
?: Russian?
Me: No, I don't speak Russian.
?: No Russian?
Me: No Russian. I speak English.
?: English?
Me: Yes, English.
?: English?
Me: Yes, English.
?: (silence)
Me: May I help you with something?
?: (says something in Russian)
Me: No Russian. I can't understand you.
?: No Russian?
Me: English. No Russian. (second phone line rings), hold on a moment. (I put ? on hold to get other call and put it on hold, ? hangs up)

And so it goes. I feel bad I couldn't communicate with this person. This is one of the very few times I wish S hadn't retired 7 or so years ago. She could speak Russian, Yiddish, and German which was very helpful with our non-English-speaking patrons. Unfortunately, her language skills were her only real people skills.

Fortunately, the rest of the calls I handled today were pleasant and I was able to help the callers with what they needed so feeling useful wins over feeling frustrated today.

"Stormy Weather" and Other Book Miscellany

Sometimes, people are amazed when I tell them that some people who borrow library books actually damage or deface them on purpose. Sometimes, it's simply a cracked spine that leads to loose pages because the reader wanted to make sure that book was open while he or she was reading.

Water damage is ho-hum typical. True, sometimes a library book gets caught in the rain, but sometimes, a library patron likes reading in the bathtub. Or no, they don't know how it fell into the toilet, but here it is and can they get the fine waived? And then there are the stains: coffee, tea, fruit juice, blood, unidentified liquids. And quite often, crumbs are held between the pages, yearning to be freed.

Sometimes, books are returned with unusual objects that were used as bookmarks, including leaves, mail (yes, people have left books on the counter with their bills, letters, and cancelled checks inside), and condoms. I've heard that at least once, the condom was a used one. And there's no thrill quite like the thrill when a bloodcurdling scream echoes through a library when the clerk checking in a book is startled when a roach crawls out from between the pages. (Yes, I witnessed that about 15 years ago.)

Some patrons, however, write in books. One woman returned a book in which she'd filled every available bit of white space, from inside front cover through the pages to the inside back cover with her religious views. It was out on a 3-week loan, so she had plenty of time to write that "essay." And sometimes, readers comment on the content. Like the book I had to discard last week because a patron had taken exception to the passage, in a book about a woman and her beloved dog, where the author said the dog had gained a lot of weight: "Stop feeding him, you silly woman!"

Or take this example, a brief yet succinct review of Carl Hiaasen's Stormy Weather:



"TOO MANY CHARACTERS
BY THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK
CAN'T MAKE HEAD OR TAILS"

Well, there you go. Everything you needed to know.

The Blogging Realm and Libraries

Work Meets Play

I now have a legit reason to blog. On Blogger. My library branch is starting its own blog. I'm building it on Blogger and as soon as I get the password to ftp it to our library system's server, I'll be able to publish it. Whoohoo! I am so jazzed. This is the first time all my playing online has translated into helping me at work. And I owe it all to the World Wide Web.

First, it was the website. Though it uses Cold Fusion, which I have no experience with, I picked things up well enough once I started learning DreamWeaver for my own site. Even though DW isn't a Cold Fusion program, it taught me enough about how websites work that I could figure things out or at least figure out what the instructions were saying. Until then, I had no clue what to do and the instructions from our webmistress made no sense to me. Now, it's all so easy. And now, when I ask her questions, I know what I'm asking. I can say more than "Help!" and she knows what I'm talking about.

Second, it was message boards. Last week, we started posting in the forums on our library website and hope to get folks talking about books and library service. Because I've been on message boards for 8 1/2 years, I easily figured out the user interface. I just need to learn the ins and outs of the administrator functions.

Third, the new blog. Lots of libraries have them, but ours will be the first for our libary system. Our webmistress will help me fix the template to match other pages on our webpages, but again, I'll know what she's talking about and will be able to make my own changes. I am very comfortable working in Blogger.

So, how cool is all that? (insert big grin here)

Linkage

Appropos of the above, Blogwithoutlibrary.net.
They have a very nice slide show presentation online on blogging basics. Even though it's geared for libraries, it's rather interesting for non-library bloggers or folks who are new to the blog experience.

Also, from the list in the presentation, another free blogging service: Pitas.com.
More blogging info is on Weblogs Compendium.

Found on Chaos Theory, among others:

The Hook Project or how books can grab readers.

Saw this link on a blog, but I forgot which one:

The Library of Unwritten Books.


A Librarian's Lament, in Haiku

Found on Borg Librarians by tinylittlelibrarian.

"An Urban Library"

Readers are so rare
We deal in porn and movies
Librarians weep.

Kind of makes me wish I was good at haiku, so I could come up with an appropriate answer.