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.