Week 6 - Bestsellers, AOL, and the Old Mex

Pretty slow day (again). Worked with a 20-year vet of the system who normally works at the same branch as Sunday Librarian 2. S/he was nice and showed me how to do something potentially useful on the computer. I volunteered for downstairs again, and she was fine with that and checked back a few times during the day to make sure I didn't need a break. Nothing too exciting happened -- had another person spend a good portion of the day looking at porn on one of the computers. I'm going to save my remarks on that for a separate post. As for the patron interactions, they were few, but yielded one real hardcore librarian question!

• Showed a middle-aged woman how to place money on a print card.


• A young South Asian woman needed to borrow a pen. I lent her one. She returned it later. Awesome.


• A middle-aged woman came in with a bunch of book review clippings from the local newspaper, including the paperback fiction bestseller list, with half the items circled. Of the eight books, one wasn't yet available in the system, one was supposed to be on the shelf but wasn't, and the other six were all checked out, so I ended up placing holds on all of em (none of which I've read): Christopher Hitchen's God is Not Great, David Baldacci's The Collectors, Donna Leon's Quietly in Their Sleep, Vince Flynn's Act of Treason, Nicholas Sparks' At First Sight, Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children, and Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise. Also requested Karin Fossum's The Indian Bride. I've not read any of these, although I did read Norweigan author Fossum's first crime novel (Don't Look Back) and enjoyed it a great deal.


• A middle aged woman came over to leave a reminder for the branch manager regarding her inability to renew books or place holds from her home computer. Apparently everything worked fine at the library computer, but for two months it hasn't worked from home -- when she tried to log into her library account she got gobbledygook (ie. pages of server error codes). I wrote out the message and then asked her to show me what she does, to see if we could replicate her problem. Rather oddly, she logged into her AOL account and then searched for the system's website through their search box, even though she knew the URL. As she had said, she was able to perform the tasks she needed to from the library computer. I was pretty stumped, although I suspected that there was some kind of setting on her home machine interfering with how the system's servers were interpreting her requests. I said I'd think on it, but suggested that she try accessing the system's web site directly from home, instead of going through AOL. About half an hour later she called back and told me it worked! Now, I'm no techie -- but I know that when in doubt, eliminating AOL from your life can solve a lot of problems.


• Toward the end of the day, a middle-aged woman came in looking for books for her 16-year-old's AP history report on "the politics and economics of early Latin America." Finally, a classic reference question! In school we learned how to take very broad requests like this and conduct a "reference interview" to tease out further information and narrow it down a bit. Alas, since the student wasn't there, the mother had to call the audibly annoyed teenager for more info. We eventually learned that "Latin America" actually did mean everything from Mexico to Patagonia, and that "early" meant 1000AD. While the woman looked at books on tape, I poked around a bit for a general history which might provide a starting point. The only thing I found on our shelves was The Penguin History of Latin America, which seemed broad enough to meet the student's needs. It struck me that looking at some stuff on the Aztecs and Incas might help, but we didn't have anything useful in the adult area. There were a few things in the Juvenile section, but those seemed pitched unlikely to help someone in AP History... The mother and I discussed the possibility of consulting a local academic library, or even another branch located in a neighborhood with a large Hispanic population (and thus a collection that should theoretically be stronger in Latin American history). She seemed satisfied, but then ten minutes later the teenage daughter showed up with more info. Apparently we were supposed to be turning back the clock a little and checking out BC, not AD, and some bunch of folks called the "Old Mex, I think?" Er, yeah...that would be the Olmecs. The system actually had some good Olmec stuff, but mostly on their art, only two or three history books. Of course, the kid needed something this afternoon and wasn't interested in waiting a few days to have books sent over. She said "no thanks" and walked off while texting -- a living cliche.


• Minutes before closing, a young man came in breathless, looking for Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics (I've read other Kaplan books, but not that one). For some reason, our copy had been discarded (probably damaged), so I had one sent over from another branch.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Week: 1 for 6
Year: 3 for 44

Week 4 - The Rookie

The title of this week's post comes from the following interaction:
I arrived at the library about 20 minutes before opening. There has still been no key made for me, so the custodian is having to come in on Sundays to open and close the building. The lights are on, so I can tell he has arrived and I am looking in the front window to see if I can catch his eye. A patron helpfully tells me that the library doesn't open until 1. I say, thank you, I know, I work here, I'm trying to get in. He says to another patron waiting outside, must be her first week - and I say well, it's my fourth, but yes, I am new. He says, well I'd call that a rookie. So, a rookie, I am.

By my count there are 7 people waiting when we open the doors. 5 of those head straight to sign up for computers. Only one of our computers is down this morning - a great improvement over last week. Like last week, the first hour was very slow - I only had one patron interaction and that was a request for a pen and scratch paper.

The real stuff:

• A patron wanted to know if Iran's president was in the US. I did a Google News search to find out his scheduled (at Columbia on Monday, and the UN on Tuesday) and let her know.



• A young man was looking for mythology books. I directed him to appropriate part of the non-fiction section.



• A young woman was looking for A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Although our catalog showed that we had one copy available, it was missing, so I placed a hold for the patron.



• A patron came in looking for On Becoming a Person (this must be for a class or something, since Sunday Librarian 1 also had this request yesterday). Our copy had been discarded and she couldn't wait for a hold. She needed the book today, so unfortunately she was out of luck.



• I received a phone call asking if our wifi was working. Answer - Yes!



• An elderly gentleman came over and asked where we kept the mp3 players (which contain preloaded audiobooks). I walked him to the appropriate section, while he explained that his wife was using them to read all the classics. I thought this was pretty great!



• A patron called me over to her computer because she said it was freezing. It wasn't actually freezing, so there wasn't much I could do to help her.



• A patron came in and asked if we had Blonde Ambition - we did have a book by that title, but it was a YA book and I didn't think that was what he meant, so I did a quick search on Amazon to see if there was another book by that title. There was - a biography of Anna Nicole Smith, which is the book he meant. We didn't have it. He then asked for the new book by Bill Clinton - Giving. Our copy was checked out and he didn't want to place a hold. He then asked for the latest by Hillary Clinton, but she hasn't published anything since Living History, which he had already read. Finally he asked if we had anything by Sylvia Brown. One book, My Guide, Myself, showed up in the system, but both copies were missing. So 0 for 4 for this patron. The annoying thing about this interaction was that the patron would ask for something and then walk away, so that I had to follow him around or raise my voice so that he could hear me. It was very disconcerting.



• A patron called me over to his computer to ask why he "couldn't move on". After determaining what he meant (the website wouldn't let him go anywhere but the homepage), I let him no that this was because the website's server was down (which the page that was appearing said) and that he would have to try again some other time.



• A patron came in looking for "Web of Man" which he described as an ecology textbook from the 1960s. There was no book by that title in our system, but a search of Open Worldcat found Man in the Web of Life, which was the book he was looking for. Unfortunately our system still didn't have the book (nor did any of the other local systems), but I was able to give him a slip with the correct title, author (John Storer) and publication year (1968).



• A patron came in looking for Black No More. Our copy was checked out, but I placed it on hold for the patron.



• Another branch called for a shelf check for The Ludlum Triad by Robert Ludlum. Our copy was on the shelf and I was able to trap the hold for their patron.



• I showed a patron how to print from the public access computers. Although I knew how it worked in theory, this was the first time I had walked a patron through it and I was gratified to see that it worked in practice too.



• As per usual, I also helped a patron get on a computer using a guest card, although she also got a library card while she was there, so she'll be able to use that next time. And finally, 4 weeks, I had my first question about where the bathrooms were!

Week 5 - Traffic, Pizza and a Plea For Advice

Once again, my co-librarian was late... Fortunately, I had the phone list in my bad and was able to reach him and find out he was caught in traffic. So I called the branch manager at home, and she came over and opened up. That all went fine, and once the other librarian showed up, he elected to take the upstairs desk, where he could catch up on his magazines and watch a DVD. That didn't really bug me, since I'd just as soon have more patron contact while I'm new and learning. I was a little taken aback when he left for 15 minutes without letting me know and then came back with a pizza and large beverage!

Meanwhile, the circulation staffer wore his headphones most of the day, and must have sent about 20-30 text messages. This, combined with his really soft voice might have given the impression of surliness to some. Or at least to the elderly woman who came over to me and said "If your check out person hates people so much, he should get another job." Ouch! This presents a bit of a dilemma, because I believe I'm supposed to report any complaint to the branch manager. But like the shirt says, no one likes a snitch... But the branch manager seems to greet every elderly woman by name, so it's possible the woman knows branch manager and will mention her complaint to me. Argh, not sure what to do. Advice anyone?

There were a few other notable events, such as the failure of our internet connection for about half an hour. This is a pretty bad thing to happen, since the majority of Sunday patrons are there to use the internet. We called the Sunday supervisor to let him know, but basically there's nothing we can do other than put an out of order sign on the computers and apologize. Unfortunately, it means we can't do anything basic like look up books or anything.

A strange moment involved one branch calling looking for the phone number of a third branch... I read them the number off the phone list which is on a flyer all the branches have sitting out for patrons and they seemed pleased. Not sure why they felt the need to call us for help... Anyway, on to the patron interactions:

• A young woman, probably a teacher, wanted picture books about airplanes appropriate for preschoolers. This was the kind of request I knew was coming eventually, and still dreaded. There's actually a nice reference book that is basically lists of picture books by subject. The problem is, even though it had something like 50 books listed for "airplanes," who knows which ones we actually had? The branch manager showed me the quick way to solve this (which I then demonstrated for the patron so she could do it herself in the future.) In the system's online catalog, basically search for the topic you want picture books for, and use booleon logic to add "JUV" to the search. This will generate a list of all the children's books about the topic. Now, it's hardly perfect, since not all JUV books are picture books, but it's probably a good way to go, since you can limit the search to the branch you're in. Once again though, the limitations of SIRSI are frustrating...


• A middle-aged woman was looking for Thursday editions of the local newspaper from July. We keep four months worth, so I was able to dig them out from the back room. Apparently she was looking for some kind of probate announcement that was supposed to have run in the legal notices section of the classified ads. One interesting twist to this interaction is that I learned that the full-text database of the local paper does not include any of the classifieds -- only the articles -- so if she needed to check on an older announcement, she would have been out of luck.


• A middle-aged woman came in looking for a copy of Roddy Doyle's excellent novelThe Woman Who Walked Into Doors. Don't know how good the recent sequel (written a decade later), Paula Spencer, is.


• A 30something man, who turned out to be an adjunct history professor, was looking for a copy of Sebastian Haffner's 1939 memoir Defying Hitler, which I was able to find for him on the shelves.


• A middle aged woman was looking for four books, Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land, Paul Bowles' classic 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky, Nassim Taleb's breezy pop non-fiction exploration of randomness, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and Patrica Beard' Blue Blood and Mutiny: The Fight for the Soul of Morgan Stanley. The first three of which were checked out and I ordered from other branches for her. The fourth was just published, so I put in a request for her, even though its billing as "The inside story of the power struggle that rocked Wall Street's most prestigious financial institution" sounds like a real snooze-fest.


• A young woman was looking for Carl Rogers' 1961 psychology classic On Becoming A Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy, which I was able to find for her on the shelf.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Week: 1 for 6
Year: 2 for 38

Week 4 - "The Easiest $100 You'll Ever Make"

After two weeks of "training" by the branch manager, I'm now back to working by my own wits and ingenuity. Since I still don't have a key and the librarian with the key was a little late, that meant convincing a building engineer to let me in when he came to check the AC system ten minutes before opening. A few minutes later my co-librarian arrived and checked the voicemail, learning that the circulation staffer had called in sick. So, that left just the two of us to run the place for the day. What that means is that one of us sits upstairs in the children's room and basically does nothing (since that room doesn't get much use on Sundays), while the other person takes care of both circulation (checking books out) and the reference desk. I chose to do the latter, since sitting upstairs would be kind of a waste of time, in terms of learning opportunities, and the other librarian seemed awfully content to disappear up there with the Sunday newspaper (aside from the 20 minute trip s/he took to Safeway).

As it turned out, despite the increased traffic generated Friends of the Library booksale, things were pretty quiet -- which was a good thing, since I was flying by the seat of my pants on the circulation desk. SIRSI is such a cumbersome and non-intuitive system that trying to sort out people's problems was pretty frustrating. Some typical problems included dealing with fines, a woman who'd checked out a DVD, but one of the two discs was missing, a woman whose sister's nanny had used her card and not returned any of the items, and other such mundane stuff. But there were only a handful of non-circulation interactions:

• An elderly woman came in looking for a book on hold, Stendhal's The Red and The Black. We didn't have it on hold, but it was on the shelf, so no harm done. This is one of those classics that I'm seriously unlikely to ever read: a 600 page satire of post-Waterloo French society? I think not...


• A middle-aged woman called looking for Mark Salzman's The Laughing Sutra, which I pulled and held for her until she came in a few hours later. I've heard of the author, but not this particular book. Apparently it's a kind of fantastical young adult book published about 15 years ago. Must be for a book club, since you'll se in the previous post that a patron at Sunday Librarian 2's branch was also looking for it.


• A young woman, whom I'd talked to a few weeks ago, asked for a reminder on how to access the downloadable audiobooks. I gave her the flyer with the URL.


• A middle-aged man called and wanted assistance with the system's downloadable audiobooks. The problem was that he knew more about it than me! He'd gone through a video tutorial, read through all kinds of help pages, and now wanted to know whether he should use Overdrive or NetLibrary or both. As far as I knew, the library didn't even subscribe to NetLibrary, so it was fairly embarrassing to sit there with him on the phone as he directed me to the page on our system's web site that detailed that we did. This raises the semi-interesting point of how the system keeps us librarians abreast of the latest services, databases, and events. I assume that we would all get emailed updates with this sort of info, but since I have yet to get an email account, I can't verify that yet. Will post about that later when I do.

This last one is the only interaction I might classify as requiring an MLS, however since I didn't have the training/info to deal with it, I ended up looking somewhat foolish.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Week: 1 for 4
Year: 1 for 32

In any event, the day went by pretty quickly thanks to all the circulation work I did. One semi-good thing about getting a lot of circulation work in is that it helps you understand just how porous the system's databases are. For example, there's no obvious way to merge patron records in the event of duplicates (which happens quite a lot, pretty much whenever people lose a card). Or the surprising number of books I checked in that had never, in fact, been checked out!

At the end of the day, the other librarian came down to shut down the joint and we traded smalltalk, and I learned that s/he was a regular full-time librarian and the Sunday hours were overtime, which s/he characterized as "the easiest $100 you'll ever make." Badda-Bing!

Week 3 - Flying Solo

This was my first week on the desk by myself. When I arrived there was a note from my branch manager explaining that only one of our public access computers was working. One of the non-functioning computers was turned off (explains why it wasn't working!), but three remained non-functioning for the whole work day. I started the day by calling the IT department, but they were not fixed by the close of business.

There were only a handful of people waiting when we opened and the first hour was very slow. 3 weeks in, I recognize some of the regulars and they are all very friendly - making a point to say hi. This definitely reminds me that we are a neighborhood branch!

My interactions for today were:

• A regular patron brought me two books (The Queen Gene and Sufficient Grace) and asked me to put them on hold for her. I'm not sure why she didn't want to check them out now, since she was here, but I did and they will be waiting at the circulation desk when she returns.


• A woman came to the desk looking for books for her children's school projects. There was a book list provided by the teacher, but almost the whole system had almost none of the books. I doublecheck a few of them on Amazon to get author's names, etc, and they were fairly old books (one from 1953 on the Magna Carta, etc). It made me wonder how the teacher had chosen those books. I was able to reserve a copy of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on CD for the patron to be delivered to the branch closest to her house, but on the whole she struck out, I am afraid.


• A patron was looking for books on photography, and I directed him to the appropriate section of Dewey. I should find and print out the general Dewey breakdown, because at the moment I am having to do a subject search and check the Dewey numbers of several books that come up. A little librarian homework for me.


• A couple came in looking for guidebooks to Egypt. I directed them to the appropriate part of the non-fiction section.


• Another branch called asking if our copy of The Laughing Sutra by Mark Salzman was on the shelf. It was and I was able to trap the hold for their patron.


• A high school student came in looking for books that dealt with East African history during the period 8000 BCE-600 AD. Such a specific topic area is a little bit beyond the breadth of our small collection, but she said she had already been to the central library and had not found much that was helpful. We did find one book that covered that period and I also gave her the appropriate article in the Encyclopedia Britanica and showed her how each entry ends with a bibliography that could suggest other sources. I think we found her some relevant information, but I don't think we completely met her information need by any stretch.


At the end of the day, when we were closing, she came back looking for a copy of the Kite Runner, but, even though the catalog showed us having 2 copies, I wasn't able to find either one on the shelf. She didn't want to put the book on hold, so I fear she will have the same problem next week.


• I placed holds for a patron for "the latest James Patterson" (The Quickie), The Happiness Myth, and "the new mystery by that author, i can't remember, her name begins with E" (Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich).


• Received a phone call asking if we had White Pages for the surrounding suburbs (we do). The patron was looking for the phone number of his old roommate, there were two possible numbers in the phone book, which I gave him. Then, because our White Pages were from 2004, I also checked whitepages.com, which confirmed that the second number I gave him was the one he was looking for. He was very happy and grateful, which felt pretty good.


• Another branch called looking for The Transformation by Mette Newth. I eventually found the book shelved in the Adult section, even though the librarian who called described it as a YA book. I was then I able to send the hold to that branch for their patron.


• A patron called with his daughter who was looking for The Boyfriend Trick. We didn't have the book, but I read off the branches that did and they found a branch close to them to try to get the book at today. I then gave the patron the branch address so that they could drive over.


• Another branch called for a shelf check for Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. Our copy was on the shelf and I was able to trap the hold for their patron.


• A young woman came looking for Charlotte's Web. Although we were supposed to have two copies available, neither was on the shelf - either where they were supposed to be or misshelved in YA or Adult. I did place a hold on the item for the patron to be delivered to another branch more convenient to her.

Other Activities:

• One of my duties as a Sunday Librarian is to reshelve the new books in our front display areas. I am amazed by how many financial planning books we have - such a popular subject matter!


• Gave a patron her pin number so that she could renew her books online.


• Directed a patron to the circulation desk so that she could get a library card.


• Helped out with the computers, to the best of my ability. Gave a patron a guest user card. Having only two computers available was definitely limiting and it is good that the day was relatively slow.

Final Thoughts:

The missing copies are frustrating and I wonder what we could do to limit them. I wonder how often the shelves are read and if that would cut down on some of this. I also wonder if I should be marking these books as missing in some way to prevent folks from coming to the Branch for materials that aren't actually available.

I still find SIRSI to be clunky and it is especially annoying for trying to search for only age appropriate materials (I still can't seem to limit to only YA or Juvenile or Children's). Advice from SIRSI users kindly welcome!

Why Sunday Librarians and the NFL Don't Mix Well

One of the things anyone who works on a Sunday might face is that you can't watch football (aka helmetball) live. I'm no longer nearly as big a fan of football as I used to be -- primarily because after years of watching soccer (aka football), NFL games are, by comparison, pretty boring stop and start affairs.

However, I still like to watch the home team, and as I mentioned in my last post, last Friday was the start of the NFL season. Since "the big game" was during library hours, I set the VCR (yes, VCR not DVR) and trundled off to work. Watching the game later with the ability to fast-forward through commercials and any dead spots in the game is actually pretty ideal. However, the problem is that you have to make it home without learning the outcome of the game...

And the reason I bring this up is that the circulation staffer sitting 30 feet away from me had the game up on the circ desk computer as soon as he got in. Seeing this, we talked about the team's prospects a while and then I told him I was recording it and to please not say anything about the game. Alas, over the course of the day he spent a good portion of any dead time on his cell phone talking to buddies about the game's progress in tones just loud enough for me to catch every fourth word. Then, at the end of the day, he completely forgot and recapped the game for a patron right near me.

So...opening day spoiled... Just one of the hazards of being a Sunday Librarian!

Postscript: I did still end up having the game on while I worked on assembling a small bedside table from Ikea. That thing was a nightmare, it had more parts than any Ikea item I've ever bought! Turns out that taped NFL is a pretty good match with annoying Ikea assembly tasks.

Week 3 - Books in the Dumpter

This week I learned a little more about various procedures -- like what to do if the building's on fire, or if someone falls down the stairs, or if a kid barfs. All useful tidbits that I will share if the occaison warrants. In the meantime, here's my log of patron interactions for the day:

• A middle-aged white woman was looking for any of Sam Llewellyn' nautically-themed mysteries. There were a number available in the system and I placed a hold on three: Maelstrom, Clawhammer, and Death Roll. I'm a crime fan, but I'd never heard of this series. As a librarian, it's good to know about themed genre series though.


• A young white woman was looking for Hermoine Lee's 870-page doorstopper of a biography Edith Wharton. I'm convinced that contemporary biographers are wildly inept, as no one seems to be able to write one under 600 pages. Somewhere, I hope the remainders of these are being used to build houses... Seriously, how many people are going to sit down and plow through almost 900 pages on Wharton? Our copy was out, and I offered to have one sent over from a different library. However she wanted it sent to a location I wasn't familiar with, at which point a more senior librarian stepped in and took over. I'm not sure what ended up happening, but when the woman was leaving, she seemed pretty annoyed and was complaining to her friend.


• A teenage white woman was looking for Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This relatively straightforward request was complicated somewhat in that the two or three copies that used to be in the Adult Fiction section were all missing. However, there was an ancient copy listed in the 800s (Literature) section that we managed to find for her. Don't get me started on why some things are in the 800s... Anyway, not a book I've read -- although I have, of course, seen the famous film adaptation starring Jack Nicholson when he could act rather than just ham it up.


• A young woman called from another branch looking for a copy of Orhan Pamuk's Snow. It was where it belonged on the shelf, and I pulled it for her. Not a book I've read, although I did read another of his and found it pretty uncompelling. When she came in we had a brief conversation about book clubs and how one often puts off reading the book until the last minute. Her friend was looking for audiobooks for a car trip, which gave me another chance to tell people about the downloadable Overdrive stuff.


• A young white woman needed to use the internet, but didn't have a library card. I gave her a guest card and showed her how to log on.


• A young white couple asked if I knew a good place to buy a couch! Since distance wasn't an option, but price was, I suggested Ikea and West Elm.


• A young woman called looking for Irene Hunt's Across Five Aprils, which I didn't immediately find on the shelf. Then, I went back and checked the computer and found it in the Young Adult Paperback section. Never heard of it, but it's a Newbury winner from 1965 about the Civil War.


• A young woman, possibly a girl, called to ask if we had any free magazines. As far as I know, we don't, but I directed her to another branch, where I know there is a big trunk of donated magazined.


• A man called looking for help with the "Playaway" version of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans he had recently checked out. Playaways are basically cheap little MP3 players that are preloaded with audiobooks - kind of an interesting format. The selection is somewhat limited (only about 20 or or so titles per branch) and I haven't seen a title that's sparked me to try them out. I had to turn him over to the senior librarian, since I don't know anything about the devices. I later figured out how to pop the back and replace the AAA battery.


• A young white man was looking for DVDs and pointed out our woefully non-alphabetical selection.


• A middle-aged white woman needed help logging onto the computers and using the print card system.


• A young white man was looking for books on yoga. Here's a case where not knowing the Dewey system by heart slowed me down a lot. I had to go into SIRSI, search for "yoga" in the title, and scan the list of result for the right Dewey number. Yoga is a little bit of a pain, because it appears in a few different areas, such as Eastern Philosophy as well as Health.

So, a little more variety this week -- a few things I had to learn about, but still not any significant challenge.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Week: 0 for 12
Year: 0 for 28

This week was the opening of the NFL season, and I was expecting things to be relatively quiet. Despite what I've logged above, they were, so I ended up doing some really basic stuff to fill the time. For example, at one point, the circulation worker was pretty backed up, so I went over to help check out books at the second computer. (However the scanner wasn't working, so I ended up typing in all the barcodes by hand, which took for-ev-er.) At another point, I went outside and emptied the after-hours drop box (almost gashing my hand in the process). One of the two boxes wasn't locked, and were someone inclined to go around the city checking these things, they would have struck a jackpot of about twenty DVDs and thirty books with this one. Normally, this is something the circulation staff would do, but since there was only one working, he couldn't leave the disk. Then, toward the end of the day, I started working on alphabetizing the DVDs. Got about halfway through before closing, and am curious to see what shape they're in next week.

Which brings me to the title of this week's post. Our branch has a pretty active friends group, and their annual book sale is next weekend (conflicting with the central branch's own sale, don't ask me why...). They've been sorting through donations like crazy, and had about fifteen bags of books to throw away. I fully understand that there are some books that just aren't salable, but I'd just as soon see them offered to local artists to make into altered book art, or at least recycle those that can be... But as a newbie, I'm not going to sit there and argue this with my boss -- not to mention the PR fallout were the local media to learn of books in a library dumpter. In any event guess who got called in to haul the heavy stuff out? Yep, that's how Week 3 ended for me, throwing out books.

Sunday Librarian 2, Week 1

This is being written two weeks after I worked for the first time, so there will be more general impressions than specific details.

After three months of post-interview waiting, things with the library system moved very quickly once they made the offer – a week later I was in a branch. My training consisted of one hour of informal conversation/time on the desk with the branch manager earlier in the week and then Sunday I was on! Luckily the branch manager had arranged for another adult librarian to work with me my first two Sundays and show me the ropes. Like my colleague, my first day started with a tutorial in opening the building – doors, lights, security alarm… The circulation staff was late (and we weren’t allowed to open without them) and so we opened a few minutes late, much to the consternation of several patrons. There were probably about 15 people waiting when we opened, most of whom headed straight for the computer sign-up station.

For the first half of the shift, the other, experienced librarian worked the desk with me and handled shelf checks and patron interactions. She showed me the basics of SIRSI and how to give someone a guest card to use the internet. Then for the second half of the shift, I was on my own.

Through the haze of two busy weeks, my interactions were such:

• A middle-aged white man came in looking for books on Maryland or Baltimore history. I was able to direct him to the appropriate portion of the non-fiction section and also let him know that we could place a hold for him on any books that he might be interested in from other branches.


• A twenty-something white woman was looking for travel guides to Kyrgyzstan or (if that was too obscure) Central Asia. My branch didn’t have anything, but there were guides available at the central library and I offered to place a hold and have them delivered. Since that library was near her work, she decided she would just go over on her lunch break one day.


• A middle-aged African-American man was looking for books and, later in a separate interaction, videos on Germany. After a reference interview, I determined that he was looking for travel guides or similar general information and not information about World War II or specific historical events. I directed him to the appropriate portion of the non-fiction section. Unfortunately, our video and dvd selection is somewhat limited, but I found some materials in the central library that might be of interest and let him know about those.


• A thirty-something white woman was looking for a specific book in the YA section (title and author now escape me). We were able to find it on the shelf together. Success!


• A twenty-something white man was looking for audio books. I led him to that section and pointed out that we had books on tape, cd, and individual mp3 players (one of which I will have to check out next time, just to see how they work). I also let him know about the downloadable audio books.


• A thirty-something African-American woman was looking for books on science fair projects for 2-5 year olds. I wasn’t able to limit by age (although maybe there is a way to do this in SIRSI), but I took her to the appropriate section of the children’s non-fiction area and she was able to find a few books. She later came up looking for read-aloud books that dealt with play (I got the impression that this was for a class assignment). This was incredibly hard to look for (lots and lots of children’s books have play as a subject, I still couldn’t figure out how to limit by age and so I was getting not just picture books, but board books and easy readers, picture books are vaguely organized by author’s last name, so there wasn’t a section we could just browse in). I’m not sure that I satisfied her information need at all. (The fact that she asked 15 minutes before we closed didn’t give me much time to figure out the best way to look for these sorts of books either). I think this is the kind of question that the children’s librarian in the branch would have been able to answer fairly easily – being much more familiar with the literature in general and also with the branch’s particular collection. Next time, I will be sure to suggest calling or coming back by at a time when she is working.


• A thirty-something white man came in looking for two specific books on mortgages. One was available in the system and I placed a hold for him. The other was not, but I let him know that we could do any interlibrary loan and also that another local library system had the book and that he would be eligible to get a library card in that system too, if he wanted to travel out that branch.

Other interactions:


• Directed 3-5 local college students looking to get library cards to the circulation desk.


• Set a young woman up with a guest card, so that she could use the internet. At that point in the day (an hour until closing), all the computer time for the next hour was booked, but I was able to get her onto the 15-minute machine, so at least she got a little internet access.


• Called an elderly male patron’s wife to come pick him up since the library was closing. I’m still not sure what I think about this interaction, but at least he got home.

Shockingly (to me), no one asked me where the restrooms were! Also, I was surprised that over the 4 hours in the library, there were only ever two children. I'm not sure if that is a reflection on the neighborhood or Sundays or just the fact that it was the last weekend before school started.

There was probably other stuff too that I have since forgotten, but overall it was a good introduction to public librarianship and I think I survived okay. One more day with training wheels this Sunday and then it’s sink or swim for me.

I am going to stay out of the “do librarians need master’s degrees debate” (although in brief, I say yes, just not necessarily for what happens most of the time on the reference desk at a public library), so no tracking of interactions for me!

Week 2 - "Training" Commences

My second session as a public librarian had a bit more to it, since the branch manager was able to be there and "train" me a little more substantially. Most of this "training" was admin procedures and more on the SIRSI system. A bit more activity on the patron front though:

• Another branch called to place a hold on John Irving's Cider House Rules. Our copy was on the shelf where it should be, albeit, rather battered. Never read it myself, can't say as Irving has ever caught my interest.


• Another branch called to place a hold Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island. Again, right where it should be! Haven't read Lehane either, although I've read plenty from his buddies George Pelecanos and Michael Connelly.


• A young female med student studying for exam needed stapler. I had one. She used it.


• A middlle-aged white woman was looking for Tracy Chevalier's The Virgin Blue, which she couldn't find on the shelf. Turns out it was mishelved, and was sitting up a level (not to mention completely falling apart). Never read Chevalier either.


• A middle-aged white woman was looking for books on CD. I showed her the shelf and told her about Overdrive downloadables (see last week's post).


• An elderly white woman was looking for Michael Arlen's The Green Hat and Rosamond Lehmann's Invitation to the Waltz and Weather on the Streets, none of which I've ever heard of, and none of which are in the system. According to the interweb, both are writers worth knowing. Arlen was an Armenian who became a rather well-known writer in the '20s and '30s, working in multiple formats and genres, even making the cover of Time Magazine before fading into obscurity in the '40s! The Green Hat is his best-known work and was made a Greta Garbo film called A Woman of Affairs. Lehmann was another well-known writer of the '20s and '30s, whose works are all still in print through the feminist Virago Classics imprint.


• A middle-aged white woman called looking for Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, which we had. I put it aside for her since she said she would come get it. Not a Wharton I'd heard of; apparently it was for her book club.
  


• Another branch called to place a hold on Dennis Kimbro's What Makes the Great Great. I pulled it from the shelf and we're 3 for 4 today on shelf-checks.


• The circulation person stepped out to grab a snack, so I stepped over and checked out several books.


• A middle-aged white woman wanted to know how to print from the public computers. I got her a print card and showed her how to use it. She seemed inordinately thrilled by this, although she was British, and maybe you can't print in British public libraries? I know I'm not supposed to look, but her printouts were results from some kind of horse jumping or showing competition.


• A case of new books from Baker & Taylor was sitting by the desk, so I was shown how to process these. This involves checking the contents vs. the packing slip, putting a "New" sticker on the spine of each book, stamping the date of receipt on each book, and then checking to see if there are any holds on the book.


• There was a folder sitting on the desk that appeared to be "lost", so I went though it to try and see if there were any identifying documents inside. Found one, contacted the patron, and he came in and gratefully picked it up.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Week: 0 for 11
Year: 0 for 5

Week 1 - "Training, We Don't Need No Steenkin' Training!"

There was a great deal of confusion in HR over my hiring, and a a result, my branch didn't know I was coming until two days before I started. So my first day as an adult librarian consisted of me being shown how to "open the building" (ie. unlock doors, turn on lights, sign in, etc.), a very brief tutorial on how to login to the computer and navigate the ILS (our system uses SIRSI), and that was it -- I was on.

Fortunately, our branch is pretty quiet on a Sunday, so I only had five patron interactions in the four hours I was on:

• A woman called looking for Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire on DVD. Our copy was checked out so I referred her to another branch which allegedly had it in since she wanted it that day. For some reason it struck me as emblematic or ironic or some other "ic" that my first official interaction as a librarian involved the Potter franchise.


• A white woman in her late 20s was looking for audiobooks. I showed her where they are and told her about the system's new Overdrive downloadable audio books and gave her a flyer for it. She seemed pleasantly surprised.


• A woman called looking for Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea on audio. Her interest had been sparked by the miniseries that came out a few year ago, and she had been referred from another branch since SIRSI said we had it in the Juvenile area. Alas, I couldn't find it, and the circulation details said it hasn't gone out in 8 months, so it's probably missing. Unfortunatly, after I told her this, the woman wanted to ramble on about various other fantasy/sci-fi series (she liked Harry Potter, and the old Dragonrider series, but hated on Eragon).


• A white couple in their late 20s were looking for a whole bunch of stuff they had found in the catalog, but couldn't find on the shelf, including Tery Pratchett's Small Gods, Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and Neil Gaiman's Stardust. This proved to be rather a frustrating venture, since any or all of these could have been in many different places, and SIRSI can't be relied up to tell one the correct place. They could be in Adult Fiction, Adult Paperback Fiction, YA Fiction, YA Paperback Fiction, YA Graphic Novels, Juvenile Fiction, or in the back room overflow shelves for any of these -- all of which are in different places spread over two floors. After lots of running around, I found one in Adult Fiction, one in Adult Paperback, one in Juvenile Fiction, and one on a cart to be reshelved in the Juvenile room. As they followed me about, I felt like an idiot... Especially when I couldn't find any of three copies of The Amber Spyglass that our branch allegedly had in. I also told them about the downloadable audio books, and they seemed pretty psyched about that.


• An elderly white woman wanted to looked at the latest Consumer Reports info on kitchen appliances. I took her over to the Consumer Information nook, which I had noticed earlier. But that only had buying guides and magazines from 4+ years ago, and nothing recent. I know we have all that stuff online, but she didn't strike me as someone who wanted to deal with that, so I asked another staffer if we had more recent stuff in print. He showed me a drawer at my desk where all the more recent Consumer Reports (and maps, and NADA Guides, and Almanacs) are kept. So, I was able to help her out, but was left scratching my head over the logic of keeping the most desired items hidden... I thought libraries were about increasing access to information...

So what was my takeaway from my first day of being a professional librarian after spending two years in grad school to get the degree to qualify me to do this? Other than surprise that five of the six items I was asked to track down were fantasy or sci-fi related, it struck me as I drove home that the vast majority of my job could be performed by a high school graduate with decent customer service skills, good attention to detail, and a few hours training on the system's ILS and procedures.

Yeah, yeah, I know that's basically heresy in librarian circles, and that kind of talk got me in more than a few argument in library school, but consider the five patron interactions I had on my first day. Did any of those exceed my "high school" metric? No. In fact, I'm going to track this over time and see what happens -- so far, 0 for 5. Tune in next week...

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Week: 0 for 5
Year: 0 for 5

Here We Go

So, the idea here is that a friend and I both graduated from library school and started working for the same public library system as Sunday librarians (ie. we only work on Sundays), and we thought it might be fun and or useful for us to blog about our experiences for the benefit, amusement, and/or horror of other librarians, library school students, and/or anyone else who might trip over this little enterprise.

Unfortunately, for the moment, we're going to keep this kind of anonymous, and we're not going to tell you what system we work for. The reason for this is that our system has no policy about employee blogging, and since we want to be honest about our experiences, some (OK, much) of what we say may well be very, um... uncomplimentary. Thus in the interest of not scuttling our public library careers before they start, we're keepin' it on the semi-DL.

What we can tell you is that:
1) Our system is in a major North American city.
2) We work at different branches.
3) One of us is a man, the other a woman.
4) One of us is married with a child, the other isn't.
5) We are in the 25-35 age range.
6) We are both white.

As we are able to, we will reveal more... Now, on with the blog!