Tuesday, November 13, 2007
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.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
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!
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.
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.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Transferred!
Breaking news: The branch I work at will no longer be open Sundays, so I am being transferred! Details to come.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
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:
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
- 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:
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
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
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