Week 11 - A New Begining

This week marked the start of my switch to the branch I will now be based at. The two techs, one LA (library associate), and other librarian I met all seemed nice, and the first ten minutes were spent showing me around the branch. It's an old Carnegie library, and is filled with nooks and crannies. Plenty of junk stashed in back rooms, a real project of a place. It's allegedly next on the list of branches slated for renovation. Like many other branches, the children's area is upstairs, and the other librarian seemed eager for me to work up there. This struck me as kind of odd, since at my previous branch, the other librarians seemed to like to "hide out" upstairs. After a slow first hour, I started to see why she was so eager not to be up there.

This new branch is in a more economically mixed area, and the bulk of my duties in the children's area involved babysitting the use of the three computers and making sure all the kids who were waiting to get on didn't get too unruly. Theoretically, this is all automated using a reservation system named PHAROS, but I had to keep helping kids sign on, and hunt around to tell people it was their turn. Basically, after that first hour, the computers were in constant use the whole day. There were a few black kids, but it was overwhelmingly Latino boys, roughly 10-16. For the most part they seemed to be gaming, checking out girls on Facebook, or looking at cars.

Aside from that I had a few other things to do:

• A kindergarten teacher came in with a long list of books she was looking for. I helped her a bit and tried to explain that it's way more efficient to look everything up online from home, and then just grab the books that are here, as opposed to searching on the shelf for each item.


• A woman came in looking for books in the Amelia Bedelia series, so I looked up what we had in the catalog and let her know.
  
• A teenage black girl was looking for Walter Dean Myers' The Beast. We had it, but it was down in the YA section, which I took her to.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Nothing, I got nothing this week.
Week: 0 for 3
Year: 6 for 68

Week 10 - Substitute

Sorry for the delay in posting, a few things came up -- like Thanksgiving!

This first week following my transfer, I was sent as a substitute to one of the system's several temporary branches. These recently opened to serve communities where the main branch in that area was closed for long-term renovation or replacement. I'd been to one in another neighborhood before, and found it to be a very nice, clean, bright place brimming with current books and tons of computers -- in other words, markedly different from most branches...

I'd never been to this particular temporary branch before, but thought I knew where it was, and took public transportation there. Alas, while I had the street right, I was off on the number by about 25 blocks and had to take a taxi to get there in time. (As usual in our city, the cabbie ripped me off.) Anyway, I got there on time and met the tech who usually works there, along with another tech who was substituting. Like the other temporary branch I'd been to, this place is pretty small, but nice and well-stocked. There's no separate space for a librarian, so I basically hung out at the double-sided "island" where the circulation staff works.

It was quickly obvious that the main draw at that branch is the 20 computers. They were all in use pretty much the entire day. From what I could tell it was a mix of people checking email, job searching, writing letters, and checking social networking sites like Facebook. One aspect of this that the senior tech spent a good deal of time policing was the all the toing and froing of teen users. There's a rule that only one person can sit at a computer, and she was pretty rigid about that.

This tech definitely commanded respect from the kids, and that led me to think about the role race might play in dealing with kids in the library. She's black and looked to be in his late 30s or early 40s, in other words, the same age as their mothers might be. I wonder to what extent a white male like me would be able to be as firm with them without somehow coming across as provocative. It's a real issue, given this city's history and my own experience living here -- and depending on which branch I'm assigned to in the future, something I'll have to figure out.

Anyway, since the computers are the main deal, I didn't have a whole lot to do. There were only three real "reference" questions:

• A middle-aged black woman was looking for something she thought was called the "Civil War Guidebook." I did a search in the catalog and then led her to the 973s, where we looked at a guidebook called Civil War Sites: The Official Guide to Battlefields, Monuments, and More, which proved to be exactly what she was looking for.


• Another middle-aged black woman was looking for biographical and/or critical information about the playwright Arthur Miller. After explaining to her that a small temporary branch like this one was unlikely to have too much on specific writers, I showed her how the Biography section was set up. There, we found Enoch Brater's Arthur Miller: A Playwright's Life and Work, which she spent the next several hours poring over. I also gave her a quick tutorial on how to use the online catalog to find relevant materials throughout the system, place them on hold, and have them sent to the most convenient branch.


• Finally, a black teenager came in looking for books about skateboarding. This branch happens to be next to the city's only skate park, so I figured there'd be a nice little set of books, but no dice. The only thing I could find in the 796s was Evan Goodfellow's Street Skateboarding: Endless Grinds and Slides, which the kid was really into. I felt bad that we didn't have more -- since I have seen plenty of skating books in branches in whiter neighborhood. So, I did another quick tutorial on how to search the catalog and have books sent over.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
The first interaction was super-basic, but I guess the other two used my MLS to a certain degree -- in the sense that I tried to show them how to do stuff on their own. It's kind of a borderline call, since anyone comfortable with our online catalog could have shown them the same thing, but I'll be generous and count those two.
Week: 2 for 3
Year: 6 for 65

Week 12 - Happy Thanksgiving!

It was a quiet day at library today. The big excitement was that three of our internet access computers were down when I arrived. As we only have 5 adult internet computers, this is a huge deal. The reservation software will not tell you what is wrong with the computer - so I have developed a system for dealing with this. I add myself to the queue and promote myself to the front. Then I enable one computer at a time. This ensures that this computer will be assigned to me and I can check out the computer and see if it is in fact working and should remain enabled for the rest of our customers. Today I was able to reenable all three computers, which helped the computer reservations to run smoothly. Internet access is a huge deal in libraries - and I think it is so important for libraries to do their part to bridge the digital divide, which is so very real (even in the neighborhood for my branch, which is relatively affluent).

Other interactions were as follows:

A patron called looking for four children's books: Lights of Winter (not in the system), Nine Days to Christmas (available at another branch, I placed a hold for the patron), Pancho's Pinata (on the shelf at our branch, placed it on hold at the circulation desk), and The Night of Las Posadas (not in the system).

A patron called looking for You: Staying Young, which was not in the system yet. I expect that it will be purchased, since we have others in that series and they are quite popular, but I went ahead a filled out a purchase request for the patron as well. This way it should be placed on hold for her once it is in the system.

Another patron came to the desk asking me to submit a purchase request for Day of Empire, which was recently reviewed in the New York Times Book Review. This happens not infrequently on Sunday. Folks in the branch read the book reviews in the Times or the Post and then come up to see if we have a particular book. Often we don't - either because it is so new that it hasn't been processed yet or because we simply hadn't planned to buy it. I think it's great when patrons request books. It ensures that we are buying books that will circulate, shows them that the library is responsive to what they want, and fills in gaps in the collection.

One of my regular young patrons came up looking for books on fish (639s), Skateboarding (796.22 - but we didn't have any in our branch), Soccer (796.33), and Math (510s).

A new young patron came looking for books on States (973-9), Countries (940s-990s), and Maps (912).

And that was it for my day. I imagine things will pick up next week when everyone is back in town.

"Conscious-Minded" Women, Listen Up

A known associate of SL1 and SL2 wrote the succinct Seven Reasons to Visit Your Local Library This Fall for the folks at ForHerInformation.com -- check it out.

Comments?

OK, I've had a few people tell me how much they like the blog in person, or via email. So I know there are at least a few readers...but don't be shy, add your 2 cents via the comments! Pretty please?

Transfer News

OK, so the system that us Sunday Librarians work for, suddenly decided to close about half the branches on Sundays -- including mine. According to my manager, this came out of nowhere, and she only learned of it midweek. The story is that with the holidays coming up, the system was having severe staffing problems. You see, the system's employees are largely unionized, and thus can't be forced to work on Sundays. However, a lot of them elect to, for the extra money. The system also hired a bunch of people like me and SL2 to just work on Sundays, to fill the gaps. Apparently, some of the regular employees who work on Sundays don't want to work as much over the holidays, and thus they were projecting staffing shortages. So, the people downtown did an analysis of the door counts (which are total BS) and circulation for Sundays, and figured out which branches to close. So last week I worked at a different branch just as a one-time deal, and starting this week, I'll take up residence at a new branch. This new branch is one I've been to, I sort of know the neighborhood, but I imagine it'll be somewhat more challenging just because of the demographics. My old branch was in a wealthy, quiet neighborhood, and the people who use the library there tend to be pretty self-sufficient. This new branch is in an area that is vastly more mixed in terms of race, class, language, etc. so I imagine I'll be kept on my toes a good deal more. Wish me luck... Oh yeah, the good news is that it's a much simpler commute.

Week 9 - Educated with Reading

This week I seem to have passed some sort of unknown test because one of our regular homeless patrons (a very nice man who always straightens up the table area before he leaves) decided that this was the week to tell me about his theories involving The Da Vinci Code, masons, religions, the holy grail, and all number of other related topics. This went on all day and was quite frustrating for me by the end, but I wasn't sure how to let him know I was not interested in these theories, but would be happy to help him if had an information need. He did however provide me with the title of today's post when he said "Librarians are supposed to be educated... with reading, not computers."

Our computer that holds the catalog is still not working, so all catalog searches had to go through me. I hope this is fixed tomorrow, because it is somewhat ridiculous to have patrons not be able to search for their own materials.

A patron called looking for the book How to Make Dances in an Epidemic. It looks like a fascinating book but neither our nor any of the other local systems had a copy - although must of the local universities did.

A patron asked if we had Stoner by John Williams. We did not. She then asked how long we kept the New York Times Book Review - a question I answered by walking over with her and taking a look. We had back to the beginning of the year.

A young woman was looking for three books: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, the new John Grisham (Playing for Pizza), and The Choice by Nicholas Sparks. Only Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was on the shelves, so I placed the other two on hold for her. She also wanted a guidebook on Dublin. We didn't have any Dublin specific ones at our branch, but I took her over to the travel section and showed her the general guidebooks on Ireland that we had.

A man was looking for an article in the Washington Post from March. We don't keep copies that far back, but I offered to call the central branch and see what they kept there. They do have the full run on microfiche, but the librarian let me know that the system provides database access to the Post online and I showed him how to access that. It was a good reminder for me to not forget about the databases.

A patron was looking for the phone number of a restaurant downtown - Food Docker. After talking to her for a minute, I realize she was looking for Fuddrucker's and looked up the number for her on yellowpages.com

In computer news this week, two of our public access computers were down, but I enabled both of them and they were working fine, so sped up the computer wait.

I helped a woman who was word processing her resume with edits and then showed her how to attach that to her email and send it on to someone who had promised to proofread it for her.

Finally, I helped a patron connect to our wifi, which was working that day!

Week 8 - Never Let Downtown Know Where You Are Happy

Due to the extreme lateness of this entry, you already know that there are changes afoot in our library system with half of the branches now being closed on Sunday and with SL1 being transferred. My branch will remain open on Sundays so I am staying put, but there have still been changes at my branch. The system decided to shuffle employees and many were transferred. My branch, which has only four full-time employees - branch manager, adult librarian, children's librarian and circulation clerk saw a 50 percent change. Both the circulation clerk and children's librarian were transferred elsewhere. I don't know what the reasoning behind this shuffle was, but as an admitted outsider to the system, it seems like a bad idea to me. The system refused to take commute times into consideration and, while they asked for location requests, they didn't seem to honor them. As a result, the commutes of both our transferred employees increased tremendously and the system has two unhappy campers on their hands. (The title of this post comes for the overheard comment of a circulation clerk who only works at our branch on Sundays, but was also transferred from his normal, during the week branch. The full statement was: "Never let downtown know where you are happy, because they will quickly change that.") Also, as a librarian who only works in the branch once a week, I was especially sad to think of the loss of the institutional knowledge that I had depended on.

Despite the workplace drama, it was a fairly quiet Sunday. I had the following interactions:

A woman called hoping to reserve one of our meeting rooms for a tutoring session. I checked that one was available that the time she wanted and reserved it for her. She wanted to know if the room had an outlet. I was sure that I did, but couldn't swear for certain, so I told her I'd check when I had a quiet moment on the desk (the meeting rooms are upstairs) and call her back if it didn't. She wanted me to call back either way, so when I finally got a chance to check at the end of the afternoon, I called back to report that the room had 5(!) outlets.

A patron came to the desk to report that while he had returned a DVD - one volume of the History of Britain, it had never been checked in. I did a little catalog sleuthing and determined that it was on it's way to another branch (thus showing that it had clearly been returned). I then checked the DVD in for the patron and forgave the fine that had accumulated. He was also looking for the next volume of the series, but it appeared to be missing. (The catalog showed it as on the shelf, but it was not there). As we have the only copy in the system, this was bad news for the patron.

A patron called to see if Peace Like a River by Leif Enger was on the shelf (it was!) and then asked that it be placed on hold at the circulation desk. The woman also asked about Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, but our copy was checked out so I placed a hold for her. I had to do it twice, because she asked that she be called rather than emailed when it arrives and this requires a special note in the catalog when you are placing the hold and I didn't put it in the first time around.

Our computer that provides access to the online public access catalog was not working. Or rather it was working, but in an effort to keep the computer for catalog use only it is set to not allow general web browsing and will also not let a second window open. Our website was updated and the catalog now opens in a separate browser window and is blocked as a result. As a result, patrons had to come to me for all searches (annoying for them and a definite barrier if there was some search they wanted to do that that didn't necessarily want to share with a librarian).

One such search was for children's books on number concepts. I was able to find some using the subject plus JUV search that SL1 talked about a few weeks ago and I walked the patron over the relevant area of the children's section.

Another patron came in looking for a children's book about Robert Frost for her granddaughter to use for a report. She needed the book that day (the report was due on Monday!) and so could not wait for any of the juvenile biographies of Frost that were in other branches of the system. However we were able to find a book of Frost's poetry that had a biographic essay in the beginning and that satisfied her need.

A regular patron of the library came to see if we had the DVD, The Nightmare Before Christmas. We don't have it at all in the entire system, which was surprising to me. I suggested that he place a purchase request for the DVD online, which I hope he will do.

A woman called asking when qi gong was. I checked the meeting room calendar and let her know.

A patron asked about health books by Marilu Henner that we might have in the system. I placed a hold on one for her.

Transferred!

Breaking news: The branch I work at will no longer be open Sundays, so I am being transferred! Details to come.

Week 9 - Back in the Fortress of Solitude

This week found me back in the children's room, which as I mentioned previously, is pretty dead:

• A young black father with his kids was looking for Andrew Griffin's Stanley: The Great Big Book of Everything. Looks like a nifty book, but we don't have it in the system.


• A harried middle-aged white mother was looking for books on Jacques Cartier for her son's 7th grade report (due the next day!). There were two different books in the system: Jennifer Lackey's Jacques Cartier: Exploring the St. Laurence River, Marylou Kjelle's Jacques Cartier, neither of which we had. We looked at the "explorer" area and she grabbed some general books and scooted out.


• A young white woman and her boy came in looking for books on prehistoric marine life. Apparently they'd seen a film or exhibit at a natural history museum the day before, and the kid wa all juiced to learn more. They found some decent stuff on the kids shelf in the dinosaur section, and while they did that, I grabbed some books from the adult section and brought them up. They were stoked, because two of the three books were very nicely illustrated, which the kid liked.


• A young white father was looking for Easy Readers, but not sure what level was appropriate for his kid. I don't really know anything about Easy Reader, but figured out that they are simple books designed to slowly build a kid's vocabulary, and each "level" corresponds to an age or grade level.


• An older white man with two small boys came in looking for some general fiction for them. I assumed he was their grandfather until they called him "Daddy"... It was kind of a weird scene because they kept bringing him books that caught their eye, often with flashy covers, and he kept saying "No, we're not getting that." or "No, you're not reading that junk." Really judgmental and negative, and probably not the best approach to getting your kids interested in reading. Instead, he seemed intent on picking out "classics" he knew. Eventually, he had me help him find Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Once again, a week with nothing that really drew upon my MLS. Had I specialized in children's services in library school, I suppose I could have helped the father more with the Easy Readers and maybe with the dinosaur kid too. But since I didn't, I just applied common sense, and the patrons seemed happy with the results.
Week: 0 for 5
Year: 4 for 62

Week 8 - Holding Hands

Sorry it's been so long -- been away and busy!
This week I was back in the adult room, but it was awfully slow:

• One minute after we open, a woman with a strong South Asian accent calls with a grammar question. She wanted to know which sentence was better: "Currently, I am working as a teacher's assistant at ____ Elementary School." or "I currently work as a teacher's assistant at ______ Elementary School." Since I'm not so strong on grammar, I carefully told her that I thought both sounded grammatically correct, but that I thought the latter was a little smoother. She seemed OK with this and thanked me.


• One of the first people using the computers was a middle-aged black woman. She clearly didn't have a lot of experience using a computer, and the woman next to her was helping her with some basic stuff. Eventually, however, she needed help drafting an email replying to a job advertisement. I basically ended up rewriting her response, explaining the changes as I went. She was super-duper grateful.


• A middle-aged white woman came looking for "non-junky" educational videos on science, travel, geology, etc. for her kid. We looked over the DVDs together and I agreed that there wasn't much. She said there used to be a bunch of videotapes, but neither of us could find them. I took down her info and promised to leave a message for the branch manager to call her. As it turned out, the branch manager called in, and told me where the videos were (on a table in a back room), and so I called the patron back and told her how to find them. Hopefully she got the message and was satisfied...


• A white mother and her young son brought Dugald Steer's The Dragon's Eye: Dragonology Book 1 in and wanted to get Book 2. It took about ten minutes of poking around Amazon.com and the rest of the internet to establish that Book 2 hasn't been published yet!


• A young woman, possibly Hispanic or Middle Eastern or South Asian, was looking for Justin Marozzi's relatively new biography Tamerlane: Sword of Islam. We didn't have it in, but I was able to put a hold on it for her. This led to a general discussion of Central Asia. This went on for a while before she mentioned that she was also interested in books about society and culture in North Korea. As I suspected, we didn't really have much of anything on that -- seeing as how it's arguably the world's most closed society. However -- I just happened to have recently read two books that provide glimpses. The first is a crime novel by a former Western intelligence agent: James Church's The Corpse in the Koryo. the other is French-Canadian cartoonist Guy Delisle's Pyongyang, which is not a graphic novel, but graphic reportage of his time in the North Korean capital on business. I described them both to her and she was excited to see them, so I had them sent over from other branches.


• A middle-aged white woman came in looking for Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety, and I was able to pull it out the shelf for her!


• An elderly white man came in looking for Edith Wharton's The Reef, and I was able to find it on the shelf for him!


• A young woman came in looking for a general European travel guide. These are hugely popular, and consequently, usually out. However, most people don't know that we have older travel guides back on the shelves. So I was able to dig out a Fodor's from 2004.

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Even though I helped patrons in a bunch of different areas (grammar, writing, reader's advisory), none of them had anything to do with my MLS... You could argue (maybe) that finding the books on North Korea would, except that I knew of those books from my own personal interest.
Week: 0 for 8
Year: 4 for 57