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!