Once upon a time, there was a project called Library Day in the Life. Between 2008 to 2012, it was a semi-annual event coordinated by Bobbi Newman in which librarians from all kinds of libraries shared glimpses of their work life through Twitter and other platforms. And it was fun! My Library Day in the Life posts are here. Newman decided to shut down the project, but some of us still want to share what we're doing at work. I've written in this space about why I think it's important to share my work as a librarian.
Many people already participate in and follow the #saturdaylibrarian and #sundaylibrarian hashtags on Twitter, but what about the rest of the week? That's where #librarylife comes in. It's a hashtag that lets users share a little bit about what they're doing at work for the purposes of fostering community between librarians from many different kinds of libraries. As with the weekend tags, it's a good way to find out what other people are doing--and useful for finding new librarians to follow.
So, when you're on Twitter recounting your storytime success, listing some of the things that you never learned in library school, talking about the interactions you're having with patrons (good and bad), or just contemplating how much you love the sweet, sweet sound of microfilm rewinding, try tagging it with #librarylife!
Showing posts with label librarydayinthelife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label librarydayinthelife. Show all posts
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Monday, February 6, 2012
Library Day in the Life: Closed to the Public Edition
Last week, I participated in the latest round of Library Day in the Life. I posted tidbits here and there on Twitter using the hashtag (#libday8), but it took me a while to settle on what day I wanted to give an in-depth treatment. My library is closed to the public every Friday due to budget cuts, but we still report to work. What goes on at the library when there are no patrons waiting at the desk and mobbing the computers? More than the non-stop partying that you're probably imagining.
My day started a bit later than the usual 9:00 due to a dentist's appointment (loose filling, yay), but I made it into the locked building and was immersed in social media by 10:00. It's not uncommon to see people on the way in to the library--patrons who don't know we're closed, those who just want to return some items and don't know that the drop box is on the other side of the street, tourists looking for the museums, which are on the other side of the building.
When there are no desk hours to provide structure, it can be easy to fritter away a Friday. I prefer to have several projects over the course of the day, so I don't get stuck or bored with what I'm doing. Fridays are an excellent day to weed, for example, because I can work uninterrupted with my lists and my cart. I might also go through paperback donations, change a display, work on reports, and so on. However, this week I had a definite goal: purchase used video games for the young adult collection.
Over at the other blog, I recently posted a look at my library's video game collection. I mentioned that the Friends of the Library had sent me $100 so that I could fill some of the holes created by missing and billed items. I began by generating a list of all games with a missing/billed/repair status, then sorted by platform and by circulation. Several games had multiple missing copies. I highlighted a few high-circulating games for my wish list, but decided I couldn't really do much more without going to the store, since I didn't know what they would have in stock--especially in terms of Playstation 2 games. My goal was to buy as many of the games from my list as feasible given my limited budget.
I went to the nearest store, which was a GameStop. I was greeted by an outside display of relatively cheap used Playstation 2 games, several of which were on my list. I had a little more trouble finding other titles: either they were absent altogether, in a case without the original packaging, or they were priced over $15. However, eventually I was able to pull together a stack of games that rang up for about $99.
It felt a little bit like being on Trading Spaces, but I felt that nine games for $100 was a good deal, considering the cost of a new game. While I was there, I also scoped out their DS collection, since I'm planning on expanding our holdings that direction with my next order. The clerks did not win any points with me by telling another buyer that the 4GB version of a console was "for girls" (". . . or amateurs," they hastened to clarify). However, I won points with them because of my Kon wallet, and suggested that they might try the library for some of the manga and anime they were missing after the demise of Megaupload. Girls--not so stupid, after all.
After I got back to work, I was all fired up to work on my video game order, but the site was down (naturally), so I contented myself with making an Excel spreadsheet with all the titles I wanted, cross-checking holdings in the Western Mass system and the number of holds on certain items. Some games, such as Call of Duty, didn't make my list because of their M rating, but at least there are some libraries out there willing to venture into that murky territory. I passed off the used games to tech services and spent the rest of the day fiddling with numbers, checking the library's email, and checking The AV Cafe to see if it was up again (it wasn't).
And danced in my cubicle.
Links to my other Library Day in the Life posts:
A Day in the Life of a Reference Librarian
Weekend Edition
Late Shift Edition
Collection Development Edition
Libday7
My day started a bit later than the usual 9:00 due to a dentist's appointment (loose filling, yay), but I made it into the locked building and was immersed in social media by 10:00. It's not uncommon to see people on the way in to the library--patrons who don't know we're closed, those who just want to return some items and don't know that the drop box is on the other side of the street, tourists looking for the museums, which are on the other side of the building.
When there are no desk hours to provide structure, it can be easy to fritter away a Friday. I prefer to have several projects over the course of the day, so I don't get stuck or bored with what I'm doing. Fridays are an excellent day to weed, for example, because I can work uninterrupted with my lists and my cart. I might also go through paperback donations, change a display, work on reports, and so on. However, this week I had a definite goal: purchase used video games for the young adult collection.
Over at the other blog, I recently posted a look at my library's video game collection. I mentioned that the Friends of the Library had sent me $100 so that I could fill some of the holes created by missing and billed items. I began by generating a list of all games with a missing/billed/repair status, then sorted by platform and by circulation. Several games had multiple missing copies. I highlighted a few high-circulating games for my wish list, but decided I couldn't really do much more without going to the store, since I didn't know what they would have in stock--especially in terms of Playstation 2 games. My goal was to buy as many of the games from my list as feasible given my limited budget.
I went to the nearest store, which was a GameStop. I was greeted by an outside display of relatively cheap used Playstation 2 games, several of which were on my list. I had a little more trouble finding other titles: either they were absent altogether, in a case without the original packaging, or they were priced over $15. However, eventually I was able to pull together a stack of games that rang up for about $99.
It felt a little bit like being on Trading Spaces, but I felt that nine games for $100 was a good deal, considering the cost of a new game. While I was there, I also scoped out their DS collection, since I'm planning on expanding our holdings that direction with my next order. The clerks did not win any points with me by telling another buyer that the 4GB version of a console was "for girls" (". . . or amateurs," they hastened to clarify). However, I won points with them because of my Kon wallet, and suggested that they might try the library for some of the manga and anime they were missing after the demise of Megaupload. Girls--not so stupid, after all.
After I got back to work, I was all fired up to work on my video game order, but the site was down (naturally), so I contented myself with making an Excel spreadsheet with all the titles I wanted, cross-checking holdings in the Western Mass system and the number of holds on certain items. Some games, such as Call of Duty, didn't make my list because of their M rating, but at least there are some libraries out there willing to venture into that murky territory. I passed off the used games to tech services and spent the rest of the day fiddling with numbers, checking the library's email, and checking The AV Cafe to see if it was up again (it wasn't).
And danced in my cubicle.
Links to my other Library Day in the Life posts:
A Day in the Life of a Reference Librarian
Weekend Edition
Late Shift Edition
Collection Development Edition
Libday7
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Library Day in the Life
This post is part of the semi-annual Library Day in the Life project, in which I have been participating on Twitter by using the #libday7 hashtag. This post is an excruciatingly detailed description of the thrilling life of a reference librarian at a large-ish public library. On a Saturday.
8:30 Get to work and immediately make tea. Check email, Twitter, and attempt to wake up.
9:00 On desk in the nonfiction/young adult area. This part of the library is not air-conditioned and is therefore already quite warm, since we are not allowed to keep the windows open overnight. The person on desk first is responsible for opening the windows and starting the fans. While I'm out and about doing that, I pick up books left lying around and stick them on the book truck for counting and reshelving.
9:05 "Fluff" the new YA fiction display by filling the holes left from the previous day.
9:10 Explain to patron why the fan is positioned the way it is, since he seems to think that he should be able to angle it in whatever direction he likes.
9:15 Patron comes up looking for "self-help" books but is unwilling to explain much beyond that, then is disappointed with our selection (shockingly, we don't have a c. 1959 "great" book that he thinks we should have) when we get to the 158s. He is one of those patrons that knows he's looking for a specific book, but doesn't tell you that until you get to the shelves and are able to look down at your helpful computer from the floor above. This is one of those times when an iPad would come in handy, I'm thinking. He leaves to search the internet for the books he really wants.
9:23 The elevator doors open and a patron says "there you are!" I know who this is without looking, because I see him almost every day. He asks about holding a movie--released July 19, so no library has it in their collection as yet--and puts a much more easily found movie on hold. I make a note of the first movie as a suggestion for purchase for my DVD-purchasing colleague.
9:39 My high-maintenance video patron returns to ask whether Fast Five is out on DVD yet (no, not until my birthday) and whether Breakout Kings has a scheduled DVD release.
9:40 A girl comes to me with a Scholastic circular, looking for all the books in the Chronicles of Icemark. The first one is on the shelf in paperback, I have to go back to the closed stacks for the second one, and the third one is not on the shelf (hardback YA fiction) where it's supposed to be. I check the new YA fiction and the large print YA fiction just in case it's been misplaced, as well as the overflow book truck, and finally tell her that I'm going to have to place a hold on some other library's copy. However, before I mark the book missing I note that it was last checked in on 7/27, so I run back to circulation and check the put-away shelf, where it sits complacently. She leaves happy.
10:00 Switching desks to the main reference desk, located near the public computers. Immediately, I have one person wanting an extension on computer time, one person wanting to print, and one person raising his hand and saying "Miss?" while looking at me expectantly. At the risk of appearing to be a grumpy librarian, I wish people would come up to the desk when they needed help. The patron was getting IE error messages, so I happily switched him to Firefox.
10:09 A patron wants more time on the computer to finish a project but comes up with only two minutes left, which (PSA) is way too late to ask for an extension. However, the reservation system isn't running as slow as usual, so I manage to squeak it through.
10:10 A patron wants to get on a computer, and I run him through how to use the reservation system. We've been open an hour, and all of our 30+ public computers are in use. As I take one step away from him, another woman comes up and asks for help. On my way to her computer, a HMP complains that the fan is blowing her papers as she's trying to work, and could I move it? I explain that the fan is positioned this way in a (probably vain) attempt to cool everyone in the computer area, and that it's going to stay right where it is, sorry. The first woman is interested in finding the registered sex offenders in her neighborhood, which is a more common reference question than you'd think or hope for. The information on level 3 sex offenders is easy enough to find through the mass.gov website.
10:15 A woman comes up to complain that her computer has suddenly shut off. In fact, three computers in a row have suddenly shut off, because the person at Computer 20 hit the power strip with his foot and cut off the power to all of them. This means that I need to flip the switch, ask them to wait, make reservations for each of them (because there are people coming in all the time and it's less awkward than restarting and having two people claiming one computer). To make matters more annoying, when the computers are shut off improperly, the sessions go "on hold" and I have to go around the reservation software to get them back on. Each and every time, I am caught by the "no num
10:25 A patron, staring at the golf pencils and scrap paper, asks me if we might have a pen or pencil and if he could maybe use that paper. Debating the advisability of a FREE, NO REALLY THIS IS FOR YOU sign.
10:27 The sex offender registry patron leaves, saying: "Thank you. We might need you again later."
10:29 I notice the patron at Computer A keeps looking over his shoulder at me in a shifty way, but I can see his screen and it's clearly not porn. He is also wearing a T-shirt that says "SHHH! That's the sound of nobody caring what you think!"
10:34 The phone rings. "Hi, I was just calling to see if the computer room was open today?" Me: "Yes, we're always open when the library is open..." After I hang up, I realize he might be talking about the computer lab, which has been closed to the public for almost two years for lack of staffing. But surely not?
10:37 The phone rings again. I explain that we don't have a public fax machine and direct the patron to the nearest place that does. The fan decides that it's cooled off enough to start working again.
10:40 A flood of patrons came all at once with their issues, which I addressed one by one but can hardly remember.
10:43 A woman approached the desk, wanting to know as much as possible about tanning and tanning beds for a research paper she was doing. As it happens, most of the books on tanning that we have in the collection require animal hides, but we did have an Opposing Viewpoints book that included a pro/con for tanning. I also found information at the FDA and various articles and studies about tanning bed use and potential health risks. And then there's the Indoor Tanning Association. They endeared themselves to me right away by having a section entitled "Member's Only"...
10:55 In the midst of working on the real reference question, I answer a bunch of printing related questions, transfer a phone call, deny people extra time on the computer, and print several things out for the patron I'm trying to help. The HMP is worried that she'll lose the email she's working on if she runs out of time, so I show her how to save a draft in Gmail. I end up working past when my shift ends to try and get a patron's final exam questions to print out instead of a blank page. I can't find the tanning bed woman, who I told to come back after picking up the one book we had that might be useful. Hopefully the printouts weren't in vain.
11:05 Oh, the sweet, air-conditioned haven of the staff area. Time for lunch and a book and some collection development.
12:00 Back on desk in the nonfiction/YA area. I check in with my co-worker about the tanning bed patron, who seems to have found what she needed. A patron asks me where the best place to plug in and work on a laptop would be. It's quiet, so I work on some collection development.
12:25 A woman comes over to ask for help finding books. They are by Patterson and Evanovich, but I know right where those are (and it's air-conditioned downstairs), so I take her down to find them, without much luck. We go two for four.
12:36 A patron walks by and tells me to "stop working hard."
12:42 People come up to the desk to try to check out books. I direct them around the corner. This happens fairly often when I'm sitting at this desk.
12:47 A patron has been standing over at the catalog for a while, so I ramble over to ask her if she needs any help. She says she's all set, so I return to my post.
12:50 A pair of kids are wandering around the mezzanine and looking in general like they were about to start running and playing hide-and-seek, which indeed they did. They ended up being chased down the stairs, with three other friends, by the security guard.
12:52 A man came up looking for the "music section." In the interests of conducting a proper reference interview, I asked a few follow-up questions and ended up taking him to books on the Blues. When I got back, a woman was waiting to ask me why Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture had been cataloged as 004.092 PAUSCH and not as a biography or memoir or even, as some libraries had it, as 158.1. She was looking at the Library of Congress material in the front matter as I walked up, so I assume she was a librarian or some sort of book person. After I looked to see how other libraries in our consortium had cataloged it, I responded honestly that I wasn't sure why Tech Services had put it in the 000s, but that I was glad it was actually on the shelf.
1:00 Off desk time! Better wrap up that nonfiction order.
2:00 Back on desk, this time at the slightly air-conditioned Fiction & Media desk. I check in with my co-worker about the rowdy children, who apparently have been running around and playing with the elevator for the last hour, despite the efforts of security.
2:10 A woman asks me for Chicken Soup for the Heart, which I diligently look for--my computer down here is so slow that an eternity passes between a click and a page loading--before gently asking her if maybe she would be interested in one of the hundreds of Chicken Soup for the Soul books instead. She departs for nonfiction.
2:22 A patron holding her toddler's hand asks if we have public computers where people can print things out. I direct her upstairs, and let her know that it's going to be 15 cents a page, except for resumes and cover letters, which are free.
2:30 A patron comes up looking for Kiss CDs but has been baffled by our system of organization, the ANSCR classification system for audio recordings. For some reason, he was having trouble with the concept of M Rock. In addition to being user-unfriendly, our CD collection is completely out of order. While trying to help this patron find music by an artist named Eva Cassidy, I find in the Cs: Duffy, Lady Gaga, Emilia, Levi Kreis, Jimmy Buffett, The Dave Matthews Band, Selena Gomez, Ann Wilson, and Paul Simon. Needless to say, I pull these out as I come across them and take them back to my desk to check them in. Four are marked Missing in the catalog, one has a hold, and I end up taking Duffy home with me. I could spend days and days organizing the DVDs and the CDs, but I'm afraid that they'd be out of order again within hours.
3:00 I realize how quiet it's been this afternoon. It's kind of spooky, actually. There should be more people here picking out DVDs for the weekend or something. Instead, all I've got is the regular from the 9:00 hour, who is considering the contents of our DVD collection for the nth time and wants to give me a job listing to pass on to anyone who might be looking. I think about ordering paperbacks.
3:10 Helping a woman who came in looking for a book that is checked out across western MA, which is a warning flag that has Summer Reading List written all over it. I request a copy from central MA, where it is not as in demand, and find her the call numbers for Angela's Ashes and 1984 as well. They, at least, appear to be in the library for her to take home. I do a fruitless online search for the rest of the Ludlow High reading list.
3:22 From the desk, I can clearly see a sleeping patron. I ponder the idea of waking him up, but he must sense something, because he stirs and checks his watch.
3:30 A couple walks up the stairs, saying "circulation" over and over again to each other. Um...okay?
3:34 I overcome difficulties understanding a woman with a heavy Russian accent and direct her to the author she's looking for.
3:37 My girlfriend posts a notice that Connie Willis has a new novelette coming out in December. I am completely derailed by this and must pre-order it right away. I am considering it my birthday present to myself.
3:40 A child is dragged from the library, screaming at the top of his/her lungs.
3:44 A patron asks me where I keep the new paperbacks. I tell him that I have a small display (and show him where it is), but otherwise they're with the rest of the paperbacks. He doesn't have anything particular that he's looking for, which makes him one of the frustrating kinds of patrons.
3:47 Time has ground to a complete halt, as far as I can tell.
3:50 This sometimes happens on Saturdays.
4:00 Before heading upstairs to my cubicle for off-desk time, I gather the latest registration forms and book reviews from the Adult Summer Reading Program, which I volunteered to lead at the main library. There are quite a few book reviews, so I will have plenty to share about what our patrons are enjoying via the library's Twitter feed.
4:30 Done for the day after tidying up a few odds and ends!
Links to my other Library Day in the Life posts:
A Day in the Life of a Reference Librarian
Weekend Edition
Late Shift Edition
Collection Development Edition
8:30 Get to work and immediately make tea. Check email, Twitter, and attempt to wake up.
9:00 On desk in the nonfiction/young adult area. This part of the library is not air-conditioned and is therefore already quite warm, since we are not allowed to keep the windows open overnight. The person on desk first is responsible for opening the windows and starting the fans. While I'm out and about doing that, I pick up books left lying around and stick them on the book truck for counting and reshelving.
9:05 "Fluff" the new YA fiction display by filling the holes left from the previous day.
9:10 Explain to patron why the fan is positioned the way it is, since he seems to think that he should be able to angle it in whatever direction he likes.
9:15 Patron comes up looking for "self-help" books but is unwilling to explain much beyond that, then is disappointed with our selection (shockingly, we don't have a c. 1959 "great" book that he thinks we should have) when we get to the 158s. He is one of those patrons that knows he's looking for a specific book, but doesn't tell you that until you get to the shelves and are able to look down at your helpful computer from the floor above. This is one of those times when an iPad would come in handy, I'm thinking. He leaves to search the internet for the books he really wants.
9:23 The elevator doors open and a patron says "there you are!" I know who this is without looking, because I see him almost every day. He asks about holding a movie--released July 19, so no library has it in their collection as yet--and puts a much more easily found movie on hold. I make a note of the first movie as a suggestion for purchase for my DVD-purchasing colleague.
9:39 My high-maintenance video patron returns to ask whether Fast Five is out on DVD yet (no, not until my birthday) and whether Breakout Kings has a scheduled DVD release.
9:40 A girl comes to me with a Scholastic circular, looking for all the books in the Chronicles of Icemark. The first one is on the shelf in paperback, I have to go back to the closed stacks for the second one, and the third one is not on the shelf (hardback YA fiction) where it's supposed to be. I check the new YA fiction and the large print YA fiction just in case it's been misplaced, as well as the overflow book truck, and finally tell her that I'm going to have to place a hold on some other library's copy. However, before I mark the book missing I note that it was last checked in on 7/27, so I run back to circulation and check the put-away shelf, where it sits complacently. She leaves happy.
10:00 Switching desks to the main reference desk, located near the public computers. Immediately, I have one person wanting an extension on computer time, one person wanting to print, and one person raising his hand and saying "Miss?" while looking at me expectantly. At the risk of appearing to be a grumpy librarian, I wish people would come up to the desk when they needed help. The patron was getting IE error messages, so I happily switched him to Firefox.
10:09 A patron wants more time on the computer to finish a project but comes up with only two minutes left, which (PSA) is way too late to ask for an extension. However, the reservation system isn't running as slow as usual, so I manage to squeak it through.
10:10 A patron wants to get on a computer, and I run him through how to use the reservation system. We've been open an hour, and all of our 30+ public computers are in use. As I take one step away from him, another woman comes up and asks for help. On my way to her computer, a HMP complains that the fan is blowing her papers as she's trying to work, and could I move it? I explain that the fan is positioned this way in a (probably vain) attempt to cool everyone in the computer area, and that it's going to stay right where it is, sorry. The first woman is interested in finding the registered sex offenders in her neighborhood, which is a more common reference question than you'd think or hope for. The information on level 3 sex offenders is easy enough to find through the mass.gov website.
10:15 A woman comes up to complain that her computer has suddenly shut off. In fact, three computers in a row have suddenly shut off, because the person at Computer 20 hit the power strip with his foot and cut off the power to all of them. This means that I need to flip the switch, ask them to wait, make reservations for each of them (because there are people coming in all the time and it's less awkward than restarting and having two people claiming one computer). To make matters more annoying, when the computers are shut off improperly, the sessions go "on hold" and I have to go around the reservation software to get them back on. Each and every time, I am caught by the "no num
10:25 A patron, staring at the golf pencils and scrap paper, asks me if we might have a pen or pencil and if he could maybe use that paper. Debating the advisability of a FREE, NO REALLY THIS IS FOR YOU sign.
10:27 The sex offender registry patron leaves, saying: "Thank you. We might need you again later."
10:29 I notice the patron at Computer A keeps looking over his shoulder at me in a shifty way, but I can see his screen and it's clearly not porn. He is also wearing a T-shirt that says "SHHH! That's the sound of nobody caring what you think!"
10:34 The phone rings. "Hi, I was just calling to see if the computer room was open today?" Me: "Yes, we're always open when the library is open..." After I hang up, I realize he might be talking about the computer lab, which has been closed to the public for almost two years for lack of staffing. But surely not?
10:37 The phone rings again. I explain that we don't have a public fax machine and direct the patron to the nearest place that does. The fan decides that it's cooled off enough to start working again.
10:40 A flood of patrons came all at once with their issues, which I addressed one by one but can hardly remember.
10:43 A woman approached the desk, wanting to know as much as possible about tanning and tanning beds for a research paper she was doing. As it happens, most of the books on tanning that we have in the collection require animal hides, but we did have an Opposing Viewpoints book that included a pro/con for tanning. I also found information at the FDA and various articles and studies about tanning bed use and potential health risks. And then there's the Indoor Tanning Association. They endeared themselves to me right away by having a section entitled "Member's Only"...
10:55 In the midst of working on the real reference question, I answer a bunch of printing related questions, transfer a phone call, deny people extra time on the computer, and print several things out for the patron I'm trying to help. The HMP is worried that she'll lose the email she's working on if she runs out of time, so I show her how to save a draft in Gmail. I end up working past when my shift ends to try and get a patron's final exam questions to print out instead of a blank page. I can't find the tanning bed woman, who I told to come back after picking up the one book we had that might be useful. Hopefully the printouts weren't in vain.
11:05 Oh, the sweet, air-conditioned haven of the staff area. Time for lunch and a book and some collection development.
12:00 Back on desk in the nonfiction/YA area. I check in with my co-worker about the tanning bed patron, who seems to have found what she needed. A patron asks me where the best place to plug in and work on a laptop would be. It's quiet, so I work on some collection development.
12:25 A woman comes over to ask for help finding books. They are by Patterson and Evanovich, but I know right where those are (and it's air-conditioned downstairs), so I take her down to find them, without much luck. We go two for four.
12:36 A patron walks by and tells me to "stop working hard."
12:42 People come up to the desk to try to check out books. I direct them around the corner. This happens fairly often when I'm sitting at this desk.
12:47 A patron has been standing over at the catalog for a while, so I ramble over to ask her if she needs any help. She says she's all set, so I return to my post.
12:50 A pair of kids are wandering around the mezzanine and looking in general like they were about to start running and playing hide-and-seek, which indeed they did. They ended up being chased down the stairs, with three other friends, by the security guard.
12:52 A man came up looking for the "music section." In the interests of conducting a proper reference interview, I asked a few follow-up questions and ended up taking him to books on the Blues. When I got back, a woman was waiting to ask me why Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture had been cataloged as 004.092 PAUSCH and not as a biography or memoir or even, as some libraries had it, as 158.1. She was looking at the Library of Congress material in the front matter as I walked up, so I assume she was a librarian or some sort of book person. After I looked to see how other libraries in our consortium had cataloged it, I responded honestly that I wasn't sure why Tech Services had put it in the 000s, but that I was glad it was actually on the shelf.
1:00 Off desk time! Better wrap up that nonfiction order.
2:00 Back on desk, this time at the slightly air-conditioned Fiction & Media desk. I check in with my co-worker about the rowdy children, who apparently have been running around and playing with the elevator for the last hour, despite the efforts of security.
2:10 A woman asks me for Chicken Soup for the Heart, which I diligently look for--my computer down here is so slow that an eternity passes between a click and a page loading--before gently asking her if maybe she would be interested in one of the hundreds of Chicken Soup for the Soul books instead. She departs for nonfiction.
2:22 A patron holding her toddler's hand asks if we have public computers where people can print things out. I direct her upstairs, and let her know that it's going to be 15 cents a page, except for resumes and cover letters, which are free.
2:30 A patron comes up looking for Kiss CDs but has been baffled by our system of organization, the ANSCR classification system for audio recordings. For some reason, he was having trouble with the concept of M Rock. In addition to being user-unfriendly, our CD collection is completely out of order. While trying to help this patron find music by an artist named Eva Cassidy, I find in the Cs: Duffy, Lady Gaga, Emilia, Levi Kreis, Jimmy Buffett, The Dave Matthews Band, Selena Gomez, Ann Wilson, and Paul Simon. Needless to say, I pull these out as I come across them and take them back to my desk to check them in. Four are marked Missing in the catalog, one has a hold, and I end up taking Duffy home with me. I could spend days and days organizing the DVDs and the CDs, but I'm afraid that they'd be out of order again within hours.
3:00 I realize how quiet it's been this afternoon. It's kind of spooky, actually. There should be more people here picking out DVDs for the weekend or something. Instead, all I've got is the regular from the 9:00 hour, who is considering the contents of our DVD collection for the nth time and wants to give me a job listing to pass on to anyone who might be looking. I think about ordering paperbacks.
3:10 Helping a woman who came in looking for a book that is checked out across western MA, which is a warning flag that has Summer Reading List written all over it. I request a copy from central MA, where it is not as in demand, and find her the call numbers for Angela's Ashes and 1984 as well. They, at least, appear to be in the library for her to take home. I do a fruitless online search for the rest of the Ludlow High reading list.
3:22 From the desk, I can clearly see a sleeping patron. I ponder the idea of waking him up, but he must sense something, because he stirs and checks his watch.
3:30 A couple walks up the stairs, saying "circulation" over and over again to each other. Um...okay?
3:34 I overcome difficulties understanding a woman with a heavy Russian accent and direct her to the author she's looking for.
3:37 My girlfriend posts a notice that Connie Willis has a new novelette coming out in December. I am completely derailed by this and must pre-order it right away. I am considering it my birthday present to myself.
3:40 A child is dragged from the library, screaming at the top of his/her lungs.
3:44 A patron asks me where I keep the new paperbacks. I tell him that I have a small display (and show him where it is), but otherwise they're with the rest of the paperbacks. He doesn't have anything particular that he's looking for, which makes him one of the frustrating kinds of patrons.
3:47 Time has ground to a complete halt, as far as I can tell.
3:50 This sometimes happens on Saturdays.
4:00 Before heading upstairs to my cubicle for off-desk time, I gather the latest registration forms and book reviews from the Adult Summer Reading Program, which I volunteered to lead at the main library. There are quite a few book reviews, so I will have plenty to share about what our patrons are enjoying via the library's Twitter feed.
4:30 Done for the day after tidying up a few odds and ends!
Links to my other Library Day in the Life posts:
A Day in the Life of a Reference Librarian
Weekend Edition
Late Shift Edition
Collection Development Edition
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Library Day in the Life: Late Shift Edition
Whereas for past Library Day in the Life postings I have divulged the thrilling secrets of a normal nine-to-five day and an exciting Saturday shift, this round it is time to discuss the wonders of working the night shift. Every Monday and Wednesday, I alleviate the tedium of working normal hours by coming in at noon and leaving at eight. Those are actually the hours we are open to the public for those days, although some of my co-workers come in for 9-5 and get additional off-desk work done, such as collection development and email reference. I, on the other hand, usually spend those morning hours wrangling a baby and occasionally attempting to run errands. This Monday morning, rather than be productive, I took a nap.
11:00 Leave the house for day care. I am listening to His Majesty's Dragon in the car at the moment, and completely do not mind the hour long commute, because then I get to hear more scenes of man-dragon bonding.
12:00 I clock in to work on time, YAY! Luckily, I am rarely on desk the first hour of the day, so I have time to put my things down, boot up my ancient Windows 2000 computer, and check my email(s), Google Reader, and Twitter for news and exciting developments. If there are no exciting developments, I will hope to create some.
This morning I had the pleasure of coming in to find a Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) waiting for me on my desk. Apparently, the purpose of this study is to "continue our on-going efforts to ensure that we can attract and retain qualified employees." It comes with a FAQ and a glossary. It requires me to describe my basic purpose as an employee, primary responsibilities (which have to be divided into the percentage of time spent "accomplishing each responsibility"), education, communication, work experience, decision making, problem-solving, supervisory responsibility, budget management, and physical and mental demands of the job. Some of the items on the latter list are nonsensical and unintentionally hilarious (to me), such as how often employees:
Eventually, after puzzling out the form for quite a while, I get ready to go on desk and help actual patrons. I leave my cozy cubicle with my name badge and flash drive (my "portable brain") and find that it is, for once this summer, not oppressively hot in our un-air-conditioned public areas.
2:00 My two-hour shift this afternoon is on the main reference desk, which is adjacent to our 33 public computers, several large library tables, the microfilm and microfilm readers, and the reference collection. Once in a while, I go through the room and count people to see how many are in my realm of responsibility (which I share with one other reference librarian when staffing that desk). I have counted over seventy on occasion, but today it was closer to forty, even though they seemed to be the most high-maintenance forty people one could possibly imagine, including:
5:00 Back on desk, this time in the Fiction and Media area, which is in the air-conditioned part of the library. Evening patrons are a little different than those that come in on days we are open from 9-5. There are definitely more parents with their children (toting summer reading lists, especially this time of year). There is a different set of people that comes solely for the computers and will stay the whole two hours allotted. A group of raucous teens usually haunts the YA section for most of the night. The pace is a little slower, and there are fewer opportunities to call other libraries with questions or for shelf checks. My three hours on desk were much quieter than the two in the afternoon, allowing me to contemplate deep, deep questions such as which hour to put my statistics in if the reference transaction occurred at the turn of the hour and whether there was a patron-friendly way to describe "fiction" and "non-fiction" so they would actually understand it. I had fewer and fewer patrons as the night wore on, and therefore the opportunity to order some paperbacks and perform other collection development tasks, in addition to considering the topic of my upcoming display, the new self-checkout machines, and whether or not it would be advisable to divide the popular movies by genre. Another moderately productive day!
11:00 Leave the house for day care. I am listening to His Majesty's Dragon in the car at the moment, and completely do not mind the hour long commute, because then I get to hear more scenes of man-dragon bonding.
12:00 I clock in to work on time, YAY! Luckily, I am rarely on desk the first hour of the day, so I have time to put my things down, boot up my ancient Windows 2000 computer, and check my email(s), Google Reader, and Twitter for news and exciting developments. If there are no exciting developments, I will hope to create some.
This morning I had the pleasure of coming in to find a Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) waiting for me on my desk. Apparently, the purpose of this study is to "continue our on-going efforts to ensure that we can attract and retain qualified employees." It comes with a FAQ and a glossary. It requires me to describe my basic purpose as an employee, primary responsibilities (which have to be divided into the percentage of time spent "accomplishing each responsibility"), education, communication, work experience, decision making, problem-solving, supervisory responsibility, budget management, and physical and mental demands of the job. Some of the items on the latter list are nonsensical and unintentionally hilarious (to me), such as how often employees:
- Use hands to "finger, handle or feel"
- Use hands, arms, feet and legs sequentially or simultaneously
- Are able to identify and distinguish colors
Eventually, after puzzling out the form for quite a while, I get ready to go on desk and help actual patrons. I leave my cozy cubicle with my name badge and flash drive (my "portable brain") and find that it is, for once this summer, not oppressively hot in our un-air-conditioned public areas.
2:00 My two-hour shift this afternoon is on the main reference desk, which is adjacent to our 33 public computers, several large library tables, the microfilm and microfilm readers, and the reference collection. Once in a while, I go through the room and count people to see how many are in my realm of responsibility (which I share with one other reference librarian when staffing that desk). I have counted over seventy on occasion, but today it was closer to forty, even though they seemed to be the most high-maintenance forty people one could possibly imagine, including:
- The guy who wouldn't believe us that someone could have locked the bathroom from the inside because they were using it.
- Numerous people with computer issues, including: can't get on (typing in card numbers incorrectly or expired cards); can't get to the internet; can't close browser windows; need to print; having trouble filling out complex online job applications; need more time; and just want the computer for "like five minutes!" and are frustrated at the wait and reservation system.
- The most troublesome computer issue was a deaf patron's inability to load [unnamed evil browser] on her laptop, considering that her computer was showing as connected through her wireless card. After wrestling with it myself, I chose to call the IT department, which is a luxury I have working at a large library. They eventually got the problem sorted out, with a few more difficulties than usual due to the communication barrier. We have a TTY phone that is infrequently used, none of the librarians here (that I know of) are proficient with sign language, so most of our communication with hearing-impaired patrons is done through gestures and writing on small pieces of paper. This interaction was a good reminder to 1) not assume that everyone can hear and 2) slow down and enunciate for the purposes of lip-reading.
- I also ended up having two reference questions that required longer contemplation. The first was a woman who started out saying she wanted one thing, but upon further application of reference interview tactics turned out to probably need a lawyer. I gave her the numbers for the Hampden County Bar Association's Lawyer Referral Service, the Legal Advocacy and Resource Center, and the name of a local lawyer with free consultations. The other question came from another library looking for assistance from us as the largest public library in the region. However, despite researching it on and off for the rest of the day, I couldn't find a concrete answer for the number of Palestinian deaths (related to the conflict) since 1948. On the advice of @shinyinfo, I tried the UNreference form as well as some websites that seemed to at least cite their sources. It was not a very satisfying conclusion, but that happens sometimes. If anyone reading this post has a better idea for a reliable source, please send me an email!
5:00 Back on desk, this time in the Fiction and Media area, which is in the air-conditioned part of the library. Evening patrons are a little different than those that come in on days we are open from 9-5. There are definitely more parents with their children (toting summer reading lists, especially this time of year). There is a different set of people that comes solely for the computers and will stay the whole two hours allotted. A group of raucous teens usually haunts the YA section for most of the night. The pace is a little slower, and there are fewer opportunities to call other libraries with questions or for shelf checks. My three hours on desk were much quieter than the two in the afternoon, allowing me to contemplate deep, deep questions such as which hour to put my statistics in if the reference transaction occurred at the turn of the hour and whether there was a patron-friendly way to describe "fiction" and "non-fiction" so they would actually understand it. I had fewer and fewer patrons as the night wore on, and therefore the opportunity to order some paperbacks and perform other collection development tasks, in addition to considering the topic of my upcoming display, the new self-checkout machines, and whether or not it would be advisable to divide the popular movies by genre. Another moderately productive day!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Library Day in the Life: Weekend Edition
One of the things I didn't necessarily realize when I made the decision to go to library school was that my concept of "weekend" was about to suffer a radical change. I know there are special libraries that are only open Monday-Friday, and that there are academic and small public librarians who may not work weekends. Heck, if I was a school librarian, I'd (presumably) not have to show up to school on a Saturday or Sunday (at least not that often). However, as a reference librarian at a large public library, I work Saturdays. Every other Saturday, to be precise. Sometimes I even work on Sunday after working a Saturday, which makes for a very long week when I have to show up Monday-Friday, let me tell you. So, with this in mind, I chose a Saturday to record my activities (in excruciating detail!) for Library Day in the Life.
It is really hard for me to get up and leave the house on a Saturday morning at 8:00, especially when the weather outside is disgusting. Thank goodness I had Wham! to listen to on the radio. At 8:30 I arrive at work and clock in, discovering that I have to complete a two-hour, mandatory ethics training sometime in the next month. Awesome. Saturdays here can either be a little quieter than a weekday, or completely hectic, depending on the mood of the public. I'm not on desk until 10:00, which gives me a little time to figure out what I'm going to try to accomplish today. I catch up on my Google Reader and, of course, Twitter, and realize that my nonfiction book order is due by the end of the month. Since it is January 30th, that gives me a definite goal for the day. I know that I should also spend some time preparing for the Excel class I have to teach next week, but it's still not quite late enough in the game for me to be really worried.
My library has three different reference desks, which are staffed in rotation by my department in one-, two-, or three-hour shifts whenever we are open to the public. I really enjoy this arrangement, because it offers variety and allows for scheduled off-desk time, something that wasn't really a priority at my last library (which was also much smaller). This day I am actually scheduled to work all three desks before I leave, which makes it even more imperative that I have my flash drive so I can take my work with me wherever I am assigned. Luckily, it's currently hooked to my name tag, where it belongs.
At 10:00 I face the public at the desk in the nonfiction/young adult area, answering a few questions while reading my pile of Library Journal and Publisher's Weekly magazines. Usually I read these in a big chunk and make my collection development decisions based on reviews as well as what I am hearing about through the various blogs and newspapers I follow. I keep track of all this in a handy Excel spreadsheet. Some of the collection areas I am responsible for, such as the 400s or the 840s, aren't often reviewed, so I order based on usage, patron requests, or to fill holes in the collection. All of this "deep librarian thinking" is going on while I'm helping patrons find books on the history of Antwerp, telling them what time it is and where the bathroom is, hoping the twelve-year old girl rooted to the spot in front of the tax forms isn't really going to need them, and so on. Reading Publisher's Weekly often ends up with me putting things on hold for myself, and today was no exception. On this desk, I am wearing a scarf because the room is frigid, and I also make a circuit of the room and pick up stacks of books for internal statistics, because it helps keep me warm.
At 11:00, I switch desks and head to our main reference area, where the 32 public computers, reference material, and microfilm are located. At times I have counted over 70 people packed in here, but today the weather is so crappy that only half of the computers are occupied, which is almost unheard of. I check the Reference Department's email and send off a message letting a patron in California know that our volunteer was unable to find the obituary that she had asked us to look for in the Springfield newspapers. This process involves tedious and sometimes dizzying microfilm searches, and it's always disappointing when I have to report "no luck." Since it is so quiet, I continue catching up on Google Reader and working with Baker & Taylor and Ingram. Baker & Taylor for the nonfiction order, and Ingram for the paperbacks I come across in my review sources, and sometimes both at the same time. Patrons are always asking for paper, and pencils, and staplers, and kleenex, but in this case the young man who asked for paper returned to the desk to show me the cool paper sword he had constructed.
I spend my lunch eating and writing up my review of Feed, which I had finished a few days previously. After lunch, I spend two productive (but very quiet, in terms of patrons) hours on the Fiction & Media desk. The only noteworthy occurrence was that two people came in looking for Robert Jordan's The Great Hunt within about one minute of each other. They were both disappointed, as the book said "Check Shelves" but was not in evidence. This usually happens more often at my library with CDs and DVDs, which tend to "walk out" under their own power, but #shelfcheckfail with paperbacks is, sadly, not uncommon. It is up in the air as to whether the computer at this desk is slower than the one in the YA area, but they are both running Windows 2000 . . . While on this desk I also have one frequent flier, a woman who without fail will ask you to print something for her (in this case listings from craigslist, even though she doesn't really have a concept of what craigslist is). I hold her to a strict three-page minimum.
After an hour off desk in my cozy cubicle, I return for my final hour of work with the public, back in the YA area. I wrap up my nonfiction order, knowing that I probably have a little wiggle room if I see something next week that I simply must have. I check Google Reader, enjoy my next encounter with Always Wants Something Printed Lady (she knows I am not going to budge, so quickly moves on to her next victim), and pick up my audio book (An Abundance of Katherines) for the ride home. I stuff my Excel class handouts in my bag, in case I want to think about preparing for my class over the one day of my weekend that remains. Or not.
See my previous Day in the Life post here.
It is really hard for me to get up and leave the house on a Saturday morning at 8:00, especially when the weather outside is disgusting. Thank goodness I had Wham! to listen to on the radio. At 8:30 I arrive at work and clock in, discovering that I have to complete a two-hour, mandatory ethics training sometime in the next month. Awesome. Saturdays here can either be a little quieter than a weekday, or completely hectic, depending on the mood of the public. I'm not on desk until 10:00, which gives me a little time to figure out what I'm going to try to accomplish today. I catch up on my Google Reader and, of course, Twitter, and realize that my nonfiction book order is due by the end of the month. Since it is January 30th, that gives me a definite goal for the day. I know that I should also spend some time preparing for the Excel class I have to teach next week, but it's still not quite late enough in the game for me to be really worried.
My library has three different reference desks, which are staffed in rotation by my department in one-, two-, or three-hour shifts whenever we are open to the public. I really enjoy this arrangement, because it offers variety and allows for scheduled off-desk time, something that wasn't really a priority at my last library (which was also much smaller). This day I am actually scheduled to work all three desks before I leave, which makes it even more imperative that I have my flash drive so I can take my work with me wherever I am assigned. Luckily, it's currently hooked to my name tag, where it belongs.
At 10:00 I face the public at the desk in the nonfiction/young adult area, answering a few questions while reading my pile of Library Journal and Publisher's Weekly magazines. Usually I read these in a big chunk and make my collection development decisions based on reviews as well as what I am hearing about through the various blogs and newspapers I follow. I keep track of all this in a handy Excel spreadsheet. Some of the collection areas I am responsible for, such as the 400s or the 840s, aren't often reviewed, so I order based on usage, patron requests, or to fill holes in the collection. All of this "deep librarian thinking" is going on while I'm helping patrons find books on the history of Antwerp, telling them what time it is and where the bathroom is, hoping the twelve-year old girl rooted to the spot in front of the tax forms isn't really going to need them, and so on. Reading Publisher's Weekly often ends up with me putting things on hold for myself, and today was no exception. On this desk, I am wearing a scarf because the room is frigid, and I also make a circuit of the room and pick up stacks of books for internal statistics, because it helps keep me warm.
At 11:00, I switch desks and head to our main reference area, where the 32 public computers, reference material, and microfilm are located. At times I have counted over 70 people packed in here, but today the weather is so crappy that only half of the computers are occupied, which is almost unheard of. I check the Reference Department's email and send off a message letting a patron in California know that our volunteer was unable to find the obituary that she had asked us to look for in the Springfield newspapers. This process involves tedious and sometimes dizzying microfilm searches, and it's always disappointing when I have to report "no luck." Since it is so quiet, I continue catching up on Google Reader and working with Baker & Taylor and Ingram. Baker & Taylor for the nonfiction order, and Ingram for the paperbacks I come across in my review sources, and sometimes both at the same time. Patrons are always asking for paper, and pencils, and staplers, and kleenex, but in this case the young man who asked for paper returned to the desk to show me the cool paper sword he had constructed.
I spend my lunch eating and writing up my review of Feed, which I had finished a few days previously. After lunch, I spend two productive (but very quiet, in terms of patrons) hours on the Fiction & Media desk. The only noteworthy occurrence was that two people came in looking for Robert Jordan's The Great Hunt within about one minute of each other. They were both disappointed, as the book said "Check Shelves" but was not in evidence. This usually happens more often at my library with CDs and DVDs, which tend to "walk out" under their own power, but #shelfcheckfail with paperbacks is, sadly, not uncommon. It is up in the air as to whether the computer at this desk is slower than the one in the YA area, but they are both running Windows 2000 . . . While on this desk I also have one frequent flier, a woman who without fail will ask you to print something for her (in this case listings from craigslist, even though she doesn't really have a concept of what craigslist is). I hold her to a strict three-page minimum.
After an hour off desk in my cozy cubicle, I return for my final hour of work with the public, back in the YA area. I wrap up my nonfiction order, knowing that I probably have a little wiggle room if I see something next week that I simply must have. I check Google Reader, enjoy my next encounter with Always Wants Something Printed Lady (she knows I am not going to budge, so quickly moves on to her next victim), and pick up my audio book (An Abundance of Katherines) for the ride home. I stuff my Excel class handouts in my bag, in case I want to think about preparing for my class over the one day of my weekend that remains. Or not.
See my previous Day in the Life post here.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A Day in the Life of a Reference Librarian
8:40 Arrive at work.
8:45 Go to computer lab, turn on computers for 10 AM Computer Basics class. Bypass reservation system, set out handouts, realize there aren't enough evaluation forms.
9:00 Go upstairs for evaluation forms. Turn on computer. Attempt to wake up.
9:12 Eat breakfast.
9:15 Back downstairs with evaluation forms. Someone is very, early for the class. Start her on Mousercise.
9:45 Wow, people are super-early today! Almost everyone signed up is here ahead of time. Reading Publisher's Weekly to pass the time.
10:00 It's a full class at 14 people. Only two of them own a computer, so they're probably in the right class.
11:40 Class runs over due to "cut and paste" question with ten minutes left. Oh well, it gave us a chance to review everything we covered again at lightning speed.
11:45 Lunch.
12:00 Chat reference. Help a UK resident find numbers for French B&Bs. Help someone figure out how to get books from other libraries. Help someone figure out that they really should just call their library directly instead of bothering with chat reference. Review 1988 staff Facebook, just for fun.
1:00 Staffing a public desk. Not as hot today, but fans still making it hard to hear patrons and vice versa, especially since my voice is hoarse from class this morning. Helping people find information on worker's comp, car repair, and tracking down lots of summer reading. Marks are piling up fast and furious on my stat sheet. Why is this summer reading prize system so complicated? Decide to call for help.
2:00 Patron lull. Check in on Twitter. Check work email.
2:12 Help lady with a series question by using Fantastic Fiction.
2:13 Check Google Reader for first time all day. Usually I would do this when I first got in the building, but was prepping for class instead.
2:14 Or not. More patrons.
2:17 I've lost track of the times someone has said "I'm looking for a book." And then looked at me expectantly.
2:22 Someday I will have to read "A Child Called It" and see what the fuss is about.
2:31 It's too bad I don't have my pedometer on today, because I have been running up to the mezzanine and back quite frequently.
2:32 Putting holds on things we don't have here. I would call a branch to expedite, but the one that has the item is closed today--hazards of branch system.
2:34 Patrons want address and phone for Chicopee Library. I actually know what street it's on, but have never been.
2:40 Apparently there is something gross in the public restroom.
2:42 Give scrap paper to patron teaching herself how to draw.
3:00 Break!
3:15 Go to branch to weed 800s. First, shelf reading. Found several missing items.
5:00 Done until Saturday!
11:00 Search for "This American Life" episode with Nubbins the doll.
11:15 Search for "This American Life" episode with rabid raccoon.
11:30 Search for "Car Talk" episode with black widow spiders.
11:45 Time for bed.
8:45 Go to computer lab, turn on computers for 10 AM Computer Basics class. Bypass reservation system, set out handouts, realize there aren't enough evaluation forms.
9:00 Go upstairs for evaluation forms. Turn on computer. Attempt to wake up.
9:12 Eat breakfast.
9:15 Back downstairs with evaluation forms. Someone is very, early for the class. Start her on Mousercise.
9:45 Wow, people are super-early today! Almost everyone signed up is here ahead of time. Reading Publisher's Weekly to pass the time.
10:00 It's a full class at 14 people. Only two of them own a computer, so they're probably in the right class.
11:40 Class runs over due to "cut and paste" question with ten minutes left. Oh well, it gave us a chance to review everything we covered again at lightning speed.
11:45 Lunch.
12:00 Chat reference. Help a UK resident find numbers for French B&Bs. Help someone figure out how to get books from other libraries. Help someone figure out that they really should just call their library directly instead of bothering with chat reference. Review 1988 staff Facebook, just for fun.
1:00 Staffing a public desk. Not as hot today, but fans still making it hard to hear patrons and vice versa, especially since my voice is hoarse from class this morning. Helping people find information on worker's comp, car repair, and tracking down lots of summer reading. Marks are piling up fast and furious on my stat sheet. Why is this summer reading prize system so complicated? Decide to call for help.
2:00 Patron lull. Check in on Twitter. Check work email.
2:12 Help lady with a series question by using Fantastic Fiction.
2:13 Check Google Reader for first time all day. Usually I would do this when I first got in the building, but was prepping for class instead.
2:14 Or not. More patrons.
2:17 I've lost track of the times someone has said "I'm looking for a book." And then looked at me expectantly.
2:22 Someday I will have to read "A Child Called It" and see what the fuss is about.
2:31 It's too bad I don't have my pedometer on today, because I have been running up to the mezzanine and back quite frequently.
2:32 Putting holds on things we don't have here. I would call a branch to expedite, but the one that has the item is closed today--hazards of branch system.
2:34 Patrons want address and phone for Chicopee Library. I actually know what street it's on, but have never been.
2:40 Apparently there is something gross in the public restroom.
2:42 Give scrap paper to patron teaching herself how to draw.
3:00 Break!
3:15 Go to branch to weed 800s. First, shelf reading. Found several missing items.
5:00 Done until Saturday!
11:00 Search for "This American Life" episode with Nubbins the doll.
11:15 Search for "This American Life" episode with rabid raccoon.
11:30 Search for "Car Talk" episode with black widow spiders.
11:45 Time for bed.
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