This is my life... but with computers.

Did you know that...

research can provide awesome pictures like this?!!!

On a positive note...

Our frogs broke the "no having sex" rule in the library.

We're classy. Super classy.

Also! I found a 1970's People magazine in the library. The back cover had a cigarette ad with Tom Selleck. I love me some Tom Selleck. I put it in a plastic cover and hung it by my desk. My collection of men grew though. It now consists of not only Tom but Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Alan Rickman, Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz. I'm thinking of adding Mark Ruffalo but I'm not sure he would meet the minimum age requirement...

Sshhhh don't judge my man collection. It makes the library more happy.

Not funny crazy

Dealing with the crazies is a part of the job description that is never mentioned. I think this mostly refers to public libraries but I'm sure academic and other libraries get their fair share as well.

Today was a BIG TIME CRAZY PEOPLE day. Now while most of the time I write blog entries to make light of the situations that I witness and the crazy weird people I encounter, I try not to make fun of them too much. This crazy person was a little too crazy for my liking... it was kind of sad and I almost feel bad for writing about it.

There is a lady that we call Babushka Lady. She has been in a few times before. I can specifically remember helping her, but I don't remember what I was helping her with. I do remember that she was very disoriented and did not seem to be "all there" when I was helping her. Anyway, she came into the library today and sat down in the picture book room with all of her papers and suitcase and everything spread out. She was blocking access to the shelves and was harassing a teen volunteer. She was informed that she would need to move to a table so that patrons and staff could access the books and she became very upset. I believe she was even name calling out ASL (Adult Services Libarian). Now after she moved to a table she started saying that she was missing her cell phone. Then she said that someone stole her keys and ID and that she had no way to get home. ASL called the county mental services and was referred to an older adult services entity. She started getting more outrageous and yelling so ASL called our local police office.

Now, normally when we call the police we kind of get a brush off. The only time I had ever had the police interested in what I had to say was when I was sitting outside on my break and some guy walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy drugs. (Super classy right?). But this time when we called the police they were very very very helpful. Officer KO came and talked with her and listened to her stories and complaints. He then made the effort to find out her living situation, call county services and request that a mental health professional come down to evaluate her. AND he stayed for 1.5 hours until said mental health professional made it to the library. Above and beyond in my book.. but probably just his job. Anyways Babushka Lady's family friend came and picked her up. She has a history of mental illness as well as a history of outbursts at different libraries in our system. She apparently had an outburst in a local library about 2 weeks ago and refused to leave and when she finally did continued to yell and scream at the library staff and spit on another person who tried to calm her down.

Now for the story's sake it would have been fun to say that she was carried out of her dragging and screaming and in handcuffs. But she wasn't. She was really calm. She was really apologetic. Her friend came to pick her up right about the time that the mental health professional arrived but the mental health service is going to follow up with her so that's good.

Most of the crazies I deal with are funny crazy. Babushka Lady is sad crazy and sometimes it's hard to deal with the sad crazy.

The Day of Weirdness

I love my job, I do. But sometimes the crazy and weird all converge on one day and it gets a little hectic!

I had a gentlemen come in who wanted to find an article about this man who was a veteran and drew comics about WWII. I honestly had no idea who he was talking about and he didn't have a name or anything, but I figured that I would be able to find out who he was looking for (Bill Maulden). Once I found the article that he was looking for, he began to tell me about Jesus. About how Jesus had told him to go visit Mr. Maulden in the hospital. And then he began to ask me about my beliefs and handing me tracts. "Do you know where you will spend eternity?" Now. I am all about people having the right to believe in whatever they want...but that's not an appropriate question for your lovely, local Library Assistant.

We also had one of our regular paranoid guys who is completely convinced that we are spying on him through the computer. That's why his e-mail never works and his print jobs never come out. Ugh.

Homeless lady who had a VERY animated yet quiet conversation with herself.

The man who called asking if we subscribed to a particular journal, which we did. But did not have access to the particular volume and edition that he wanted. When I asked if there was specific article or something that he was looking for, he said no and that he wanted the whole thing because he didn't know how long a journal was.. and why didn't we keep back issues of EVERY JOURNAL PUBLISHED!??!

The regular who was now harassing our patrons into signing petitions or registering to vote. When he was informed that he wouldn't be able to do that in the library, he contacted a lawyer who told him he could and he wanted to bring that to our attention that our policy was incorrect..

I think it all has to do with the full moon...

Fun Questions From This Past Week

Do you know where you will spend eternity?

The computer is stuck. Can you unstick it?

Does the printer need more paper when the paper light is flashing?

Do you have to whisper all day?

What's a journal?

Dear Boy who just walked up to the Reference Desk,

You are very, very tall. I am sitting down. That means when you decide to scratch your balls in front of me. It's at my eye level.

Fail.

<3

TL

Too bad I'm already corrupted.

The other day I was working on the reference desk, you know, doing my thing. Answering questions, processing DVDs, watching the cute Kindergarten class tour the library. They were so cute, it was a local Christian school and they just look adorable with there little uniforms and everything. LOVE IT!

Anyways, the phone rings and I answer it and the caller is a gentleman who sounds either really nervous or really sketchy. I'm going to say nervous because...well.. it makes me feel better about the conversation if I think that he was honestly looking for information but was embarrassed/nervous about asking about it instead of getting his jollies asking about stuff.

So lets refer to him as Nervous Patron... or NP

NP: Uh Yea.. Uh hi.. I have a question.. and it's uhh well.. uhhh it's going to be pretty weird.. well uhh.... I'm looking for some books on this topic.. and it's kind of an old topic.. and I'm not sure you would have anything on it.. and um yea..

Teenage Librarian: Okay.. Well what are you looking for?

NP: It's kind of weird.. I mean..

Teenage Librarian: Don't worry, I've had requests for anything and everything before..

NP: Really? What was the weirdest thing?

Now.. I'm thinking we're getting a little off topic.. just spit it out!!!

Teenage Librarian: Um... people asking me for books on bicycles! (I don't know.. I get weird stuff all the time.. let's get on with it!!)

NP: Well.. it's kind of an old term, I mean it might not be in the catalog as this... it's umm it's um.... well.. cuckold.

Teenage Librarian: *blink blink* Okay.

Now.. here's the thing. I know what cuckolding is.. I do. But he was right, nothing came up in our library catalog under that term. Normally when that happens I google the term, find some other ways of putting it and then use those as search term. Minor problem with cuckold.. is that I'm pretty sure some not work apro-pro stuff would come up. So.. you see my problem.

Teenage Librarian: I'm not finding anything under that search term...

NP: Well, maybe search under polyamory? And maybe specifically interracial?

Teenage Librarian: Um. Ok.

NP: Yea... my wife starting working on the base and she's come home and is interested in this.. and I just want to understand the dynamics of it..

Teenage Librarian: Um. Ok.

NP: You just sound so young...

Teenage Librarian: Um. Ok.

Teenage Librarian: Yea, well I've found a book that has a bunch of different essays about different types of relationships including polyamory. Would you like me to hold it for you?

NP: Well, I don't want it under my name....

Teenage Librarian: Well I need A NAME to hold it under... so just give me a name...

NP: John Smith.

Teenage Librarian: Fine..

NP: Are you sure that this wasn't too weird.??

Teenage Librarian: No no.. is there anything else I can help you with?

NP: No.. I don't think so..

Teenage Librarian: Okay, thanks. Have a good day *click*


Oh the joys of the library!

Oh the joys of my job

My poor blog! I just can't seem to keep up to date with it. That isn't to say that I don't have a lot of stories for it, I'm just extremely busy with life. I started working a second job which has nothing to do with libraries (although the customers could require their own blog) and it has left me with little to no time to do anything else besides work, work, and school. Speaking of school!! I will be graduating with my BA in Liberal Studies on May 15. I'm very excited because that means I can start my MLIS in September woot woot! :) But alas, for now I have 38 days filled with lame undergrad classes and my other job and dealing with the crazy patrons that we all know and love.

Today we had a lovely patron angrily inform us that there was no X button on our keyboards. Yes, we've systematically pried off the X key because we want to mess with you. (Actually not a bad idea hmmm).

I was also welcomed onto the reference desk with a smelly lady, a smelly old lady who was wanting my co-worker to look up recipes and TV show times. This was the same lady that asked me to look up all of the times that ice skating, snowboarding and the luge were being shown on TV for the Olympics. She kept telling me they were on channel 4. Not really understanding that my channel 4 is different that her channel 4 because shockingly there is different providers for cable. Weird. Anyways, she wanted the times for such high quality shows as Millionaire Matchmaker and Tough Love. She loves the hosts on those shows and just sung their praises. It's all very interesting. and smelly.

I also had the pleasure of dealing with our most demanding patron today. She came in and sat down in front of me, handed me a list and asked me if we had this one book. I looked it up and told her that we did have it in our fiction section under the author's last name. There was another title on her list and before I even had the chance to ask her if she'd like me to look up the other title as well, she snottily said "Well, are you going to go get it for me?" Now. I will go and get books for people all the time. I will go with people and show them around the stacks and take them to whatever section they are looking for. But I am not someones maid and I don't appreciate being treated as one. Especially with her holier than thou attitude. Grrr this is the same lady that was microwaving books and telling all of her friends to microwave books to kill the germs on them. Apparently Dr. Oz told them to do this. Well, maybe you haven't been to your local library in some time, but most libraries cover their dust jackets with nice PLASTIC covers. Guess what happens when you stick a PLASTIC COVERED book into the microwave? Yea. It totally happened. And the thing is, is the lady had checked out the book and loaned it to her friend and her friend returned it like that. She assumed responsibility for it, paid for it because it was checked out under her card, and then 2 days later called to complain and say that she wanted her money back because she didn't do the damage. UGH!

We also had crazy dog walker lady in today who even though she comes in every day and knows the rules, wanted to get back on to the computer. Apparently she was told earlier that she could and when she came to me I told her no (as per policy). So she then went shopping around to other people and finally got the ASL to let her on (most likely just to shut her up). So she was given a new reservation but then she complained about which computer it was!!!! Why you ask? It wasn't the one on end where the plug was. You see, she needed to plug in her motorized wheelchair (btw I REALLY don't think she needs it but that's a different story). "I don't even need to get on the computer, I would sit in the back and plug in my chair but someone is by the plug and now I need to sit here where there is a plug". WAIT A MINUTE, you just bitched your way into getting a computer, we finally give you one and now your BITCHING about what computer we give you. And then you tell us that you don't even WANT to be on the computer. You, my dear, suck. Hard.

As I was typing these out I was looking at another draft of a story that I started in February. Oh man is it a doozy! Can't wait to finish it and post it :)

Why I'm the mean one?

We have a really obnoxious patron who thinks that we are constantly spying on his computer doings. Or that we're controlling the computer from a remote location. Or that basically we just want him to fail. Anyways, one day he came back into the library in a tizzy because he had had a letter that he had typed up "stolen". He had only gone from the library to the Kinkos across the street and he was pretty sure that another patron had "stolen" his letter. But since he had already used his logon to the computer he was not able to get back on.

The policy is that people one get one logon to the computer for up to an hour a day. So I told him this (he knows the policy, but because he always has a "problem" he always needs to get back on, so he was expecting me to let him back on.) and when he realized that I wasn't going to put him back on (mostly because I felt like ticking him off because if I wanted to I could put him back on) he became very upset and asked for the manager. Now the manager wasn't there that day and the person in charge was another LA who has been here longer than I have and she was at lunch. When I told him such he said he would wait. For 45 minutes. In front of my desk. Glaring at me the entire time.

So off I went to go "ask" the person in charge what to do, in reality I went to the break room to have a cookie. And told me coworkers how my plan was backfiring because while I do enjoy upsetting the guy, I did not want him sitting here for 45 minutes. He won. :(

I came back and sweet as pie told him that I was now authorized to put him back on the computer, so I put him back on and then I set about discussing what to do about his "stolen" material. I told him that we would be more than happy to help him file a report for this "theft". His eyes lit up! (I'm assuming that he was very excited that someone was playing in to his paranoia) So I told him, "Great! I'll call the sheriff's station and have someone come down and meet you". You know in movies when they have music playing and then something happens and it's suddenly cut and there is the sound of the record being stopped and the needle scratching sound? It was like that. "Oh no.. I don't think that we should get the sheriff involved I just want to file a report with you at the library" annnnnnnnd the backtracking begins! :) "Well," I said "we don't file theft reports so if you'd like to file a report I'm going to have to call the sheriff..." "Oh.. well.. um I don't want to accuse someone wrongly..." Now in my head I'm thinking "YOU ALREADY DID! Why? Because you're nuts!!!" "Okay! Just let me know if I can help you any more"

And of course he messed up what he was doing, he didn't follow all the prompts for printing and thought he sent his material to the print station and he didn't but he had already logged off so I had to log him back on again. And of course he thinks that this is us deleting his material because we spy on him. Oh did I mention he wrote a book? It's pretty horrible and he bullied us into adding it to the system. I don't think it's been checked out once, except for when he checks it out himself or meets someone at the branch and tells them about it and basically forces them to check it out. I've seen it happen! Usually about halfway through the conversation with him the unsuspecting patron realizes that he may be a little nuts but they don't really have a good escape from him. So they check out the book and then return it either the next day or as soon as he leaves.

Did I also mention that he has to come in and sharper 20 billion pencils on our pencil sharpener every single day? And that he then has the audacity to tell us that our pencil sharpener is not sharpening as sharp as it used to. HMMMM I wonder why? Perhaps because you sharpen a billion pencils at once, and do it every single day??! We usually respond to his complaints with "Oh.. well that's unfortunate. We would have to have a new one donated to us.." HAH!

Oh bloggy blog blog!

Dear blogger.. it's been 4 months since my last post. Not that there has been a lack of instances to blog about, but real life got in the way. As it tends to do.

But I'm back. With lots of stories to tell and patrons to rag on, WOOO!

But I think the most important thing that has happened in the past 4 months is that I have been accepted into graduate school. This means I am officially on my way to becoming a librarian. It's very exciting and I'm very much looking forward to starting my studies, I just have to finish my coursework at the undergrad level and graduate in May and I'll be all set to start in the Fall :)

Since today is Valentine's Day I think I'll regale you with a story that has a romantic theme to it. The other night my lovely ASL and I were counting down the minutes until closing. Our announcment system goes on at 15 minutes to closing and I was helping out over at the checkout desk when it went off. I didn't notice the woman that my ASL was helping but when I went back over to the reference desk I noticed ASL had made herself scarce and the woman, let's call her Janet*, was looking at books in the 616 area. I was shutting off the reference computers and compiling some stats for the day when she came over to ask a question.

Janet: in a very soft voice "Excuse me, where are the relationship books?

Teenage Librarian: Well, they are right in the area that you were looking at.. did you not find what you needed?

Janet: Well no. I'm looking for something... more personal. More about women...

Teenage Librarian: Um. Okay.. well... here are books like "Sex for Women" and "Getting in Touch With your Feminine Side" are these not what your looking for?

Janet: No.. I'm looking for books on, what's the term that they use nowadays? Masturbation? Masturbating?

PAUSE!!! Now let me explain. I'm pretty good at my job. And I'm pretty good at dealing with patrons who ask weird questions and I'm VERY GOOD at keeping my cool and not laughing and all of that stuff. I've been asked a lot of weird questions.. but never for books on masturbation.. I would think that most people wouldn't need books on that.. but hey? whatever..

Teenage Librarian: Well.. let me go look in the computer and see if we can find you anything.. (See how nice I am? I really am good with the patrons).

Janet: I'm so surprised you don't have anything here in this section. I would think that a lot of people would need books like these.. I'm newly single and by myself and I'm wanting to learn how satisfy myself.. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH (at this point I'm furiously typing and focusing on my computer thinking TMI TMI TMITMITMITMITMITMIT!!!)

Teenage Librarian: I'm not seeing anything in particular just on that subject, we have the books that you were looking at that I'm sure will mention IT but nothing just on that subject.

Janet: Well do you think that Neighboring Library might have some?

Teenage Librarian: Let me check. Why yes. I think they do! They are going to be closed tomorrow due to the holiday, but why don't you go over there and look at there selection.

Janet: What are the titles?

Teenage Librarian: UHH Well you know they are going to be at the same call numbers I've already given you.. and there are quite a few titles. I'm sure you'll be able to find some, and if you can't you can ask the reference librarians there.

Janet: OOOOOOOOOH okay.. well thank you so much. It's just been so hard being alone...

Teenage Librarian: ARGGG TMI TMI TMI... actual response: Yes...is there anything else I can help you find tonight?

Janet: No..thank you..

I gave ASL the stink eye at the end of the night for running away from Janet and leaving me to deal with her. But we did have fun making up titles of Masturbation books on the way out that night.. "The Power of One" "Me, myself and I"... fun times. :)

* Janet is a reference to Rocky Horror Picture Show. The character Janet sings this song called "Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me" which is about.. well touching! I thought it was appropriate.

We're in the business of banning...

Tuesday, our Regional Manager called to forward a complaint about the Banned Books Week Display. Banned Books Week is a week celebrated by the American Library Association. It celebrates the freedom to read by highlighting books that have been banned or challenged across the country at some point. To illustrate the lameness of banning books I created a display that said “These Books Have Been Banned” on black paper with white words and surrounded it with caution tape. It was a pretty eye catching display if I do say so myself!

I put books like Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, Are you There God? It’s Me Margaret, In the Night Kitchen, The Stupids, Where the Sidewalk Ends…, The Lorax and the list goes on and on. Really. It does! Even the dictionary was on the list!

A former teacher came into the library and saw the display and felt that it was so outrageous that we were banning books that she called our headquarters to complain. She apparently asked at the circulation desk what the deal was with the display and was told it was a “joke’. Which it really isn’t…maybe the caution tape was a joke, but the fact of the matter is that someone somewhere tried to control other people’s access to those books. And that is not right!

Anyways, on the other hand, a lot of people asked questions about the display. Many people wanted to know why the books were banned, if we banned books, and many people when they found out that certain titles were considered banned made an effort to check those books out! It created a lot of conversation which was my point, and I think that it was a very effective display overall!

Yay me! J

In other fun patron run-ins. I love the people who when I answer the phone “Reference Desk, how can I help you?” don’t even say hello, just launch into some random question like….

“Ben Franklin made magic squares and he had two 8x8 squares. I’ve found one of them but can’t find the other one. You’ll probably have to go onto google.com and search ‘Ben Franklin’ and ‘magic squares’”.

To people like that I say: 1. I am not your secretary. 2. It always helps to be polite to the person you are asking to find you something. 3. If you are so computer savvy, why aren’t you looking it up yourself? Or coming down to the library to get on our computers to do it yourself? HMPH!

If you ever want to really upset me at work, just start moving furniture. I hate it when people come in and think that they can move the chairs around, move tables, move the big seats. I just hate it hate it hate it. They never put them back and it frustrates me to no end. I can’t believe that people think they can come into a public place and move everything around. Would you go to your friend’s house and move their furniture? What about a department store? NO you would NOT! GRRRR

As its pajama story time night I’ve been listening to the screeching of the woman who directs pajama story time for the last hour and a half. She is a former soap star who now dresses up in her pajamas and acts out stories with a junior charity group. She is annoying as hell and I can’t stand the group. I basically want to stab myself repeatedly in the eye with a dull pencil whenever they are here and for some reason tonight they are here an hour longer than normal. GRRRR

And last but not least. A patron came up to our Children’s Librarian tonight and said “I’m off!” Pam looked at her “….. Um okay!” She overheard a conversation with another patron and thought that she was being helpful by telling Pam that she had gotten off her computer and was leaving the library. But of course from the initial “I’m off!” Pam had no idea what she was talking about. And as a side note, the patron’s conversation that she was listening to had nothing to do with the computers that the public uses. A man was unable to get his laptop to connect with our wireless network.

Questions I want to say NO to

Do you have a stapler?

Do you have a paperclip?

Do you have a pen/pencil?

Do you have lined paper?

Do you have this book?

Do you know where the bathroom is?

I need a book over 150 pages, about anything, got a suggestion?

Attack of the Annoying Patrons

I don't know what the deal is today but it's been a major attack of weird, annoying, crazy patrons!

Dog is a patron who constantly has issues with the computer. She is always asking for help with her resume which basically is asking me to help her search on Monster.com. It's annoying and frustrating becasue while I feel like my job is to help people naviagate the web, I feel like it is NOT my job to read words on a website to a person.

Anyways Dog is here tonight and apparently has a typing job that she is working on. She was working on it last night and didn't save her work and lost 8 pages of it. Frustrating I know, but now she is doing a dance around our computers, looking for people who have closed their computer session early, instead of waiting the 20 minutes to log on to her assigned computer.

Unfortunately, the way that our computer system works is that you get assigned to the next available computer at the time you make your reservation. So potentially someone could end their session while you are waiting and a new person could come up and make a reservation and get onto a computer before you.

So she is walking around looking for a computer to get onto, doesn't really find one and finally logs onto the computer that she is assigned to. She drives me crazy!!!!

Going on concurrently to this situation is this new lady. TankTop. TankTop has been coming to the library recently and utilizing as much internet time as she can! Which is fine, but even though our system allows you to log onto the computer for 60 minutes, with two 45 minute extentions (as long as there is nobody waiting) she still wants more. MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE!

She doesn't understand the word "No" or the reasoning behind why we can't give her more time (that there are people waiting to get onto the computer and they have every right to get onto them).

Finally ASL let her on, but she has to wait an hour. HAH!

The old guy that looks at old guy porn is here. EW

In other news, I've made my first real step to becoming a real librarian as I've applied to library school. It's very exciting!

Why I don't like people....

because they come into the library, ask to get BACK on the computer after already using there 2 1/2 hours, and then systematically take off their shoes... and then their socks... and then rock back in the chairs. Ggrrrrr

because they want me to find out why Consumer Reports doesn't review Thermador Refrigerators...and continue to talk to me about why why why they don't even though I've told them that I don't know

because they tell me how much they hate California, and how much better Missouri is and how it's just horrible here... thanks. I'm California born and raised, jerkface.

because they don't know that they are being creepy when they call me "girl".

because maybe they do know they are being creepy when they call me "girl".

because they call me "honey" on the phone and think that I don't know what I'm doing when I tell them that I need them to hold so I can look up the transfer extension to the Friends of the Library, and then they tell me "It's 6, HONEY", and then get huffy when I tell them that it is a different transfer extension when we do it in house, bitch (didn't say it...but thought it).

because the friends of the library member who picked up the phone, wanted me to just send the patron over there and acted like I was inconveniencing them by directing a phone call their way. If they don't want to deal with patron questions regarding donations, then why are you in the friends of the library?

because they smell.