Another funny conversation with a patron

Had a regular come in today, a very old lady who never brings her library card because she expects us to know who she is. Because it was slow and I was tired of hearing her complain about how heavy her book bag would be, I offered to carry it out to her car for her. She was grateful, at least, and asked me what my name was. I told her.
"Vicki?"
"No, Whitney."
"Ricky?"
"No." She asked me to spell it out for her, and I did.
"Wicky?" (What the hell is that? It's not even a name!)
"Nope, WHIT-NEY. Like Whitney Houston." That must have done it.
"Oh, Whitney! Well thank you very much, Whitney."
I was trying very hard not to laugh. But even though she was old, it's not just her. For some reason people have a hard time understanding my name when I say it. Usually, though, the most popular substitute is "Wendy."

Librarian Games

These librarian or library-themed games are great time-wasters:

Lightning Librarian

Robo Librarian
(I love how you can mow over patrons with your robot body!)

Stack Attack
(I couldn't quite get the hang of this one.)

I'll Get It! and Within Range

No, I'm not Jewish

Still bored! I just thought of a funny library story (only barely library related, because it took place in one). I was reminded by a lady who just complimented my snowflake necklace.

One day a man walked up to me and said randomly, "You're Jewish?" He acted like it was a bad thing. I was confused and obviously looked confused as well. I told him no, I wasn't Jewish. Why do you ask?
He said, "You're wearing a Jewish thing on your neck." It took me a moment to realize that he meant my necklace, but I still didn't understand.
"It's a snowflake," I replied.
"No, it's a Jewish symbol!" I pondered a moment more. "You mean the Star of David?" He nodded.
"No, it's a snowflake."
"Well, it looks like the Star of David!"
I contemplated my necklace. "Well, maybe if you turn it on its side, but I promise you, it's a snowflake."
This transaction took about 5 minutes, and at the end he still didn't look entirely convinced that I wasn't Jewish.

Totally ripped off from a book

I guess I'm in a blogging mood lately! Today I started reading Reference Librarianship: Notes from the Trenches by Charles Anderson and Peter Sprenkle. It was recommended to me by a librarian as a funny book. Well, so far it isn't laugh-out-loud funny, but it is witty and amusing. The concept is this: for one year, the reference librarian at a public library kept a log of all her transactions with patrons. The log is interspersed with relevant essays. The log entries range from typical (requests for dictionaries, pencils, and directions) to bizarre ("Do [you] deliver books to inmates?" or "My boyfriend's brother is in jail, and I want to find out why"). Most of the interactions involved computers and/or the Internet. To me, none of it is surprising, but it's fun to read about. Although my current job mostly involves circulation, not just pure reference, I decided to steal the idea from this book and write down all my library transactions for an hour. NB: Normally we aren't this busy during any given hour, but it was lunchtime, and I was alone at the desk.

-A gentleman asked where our tax forms were.

-A woman didn't remember ordering The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, but she checked it out anyway, asking if it was interesting (I haven't read it, but I told her I saw the author at ALA).

-The same gentleman came back and said we didn't have the right tax forms. I said that what we have is all we're getting.

-A woman needing help deleting her Word document.

-An old lady - a regular - left me a long list of about 15 books to put on hold, and then disappeared. The list was very specific about requesting either Large Print or cassette tapes. When I had a question about one of her holds, I couldn't find her.

-Made a new card for someone.

-The security guard came in for the day, almost an hour early (as usual).

-An old man couldn't find his books on the holdshelf (even though I told him they were in alphabetical order by patron's name).

-"Do you guys have self-checkout?"

-"Do you have titles instead of authors?" He meant he couldn't remember the author of a book, and wanted me to look up the title.

-Guy asked where the drinking fountain was.

-Man wanted to check out his wife's holds on his card. Usually we don't do this, but I made an exception because he was nice (I do that a lot here. Nice people are so few and far between, I feel they should be rewarded).

-"Can I use your phone?"

-Guest pass for the computer.

-A girl wanted horse books. I showed her where they were, but we only had 2. Turns out, she was doing a research paper, specifically on horse obesity and diseases with names I can't pronounce. I found a few books outside our system, but she needed them sooner (of course). She also needed a library card.

Again, not a lot of reference questions, but many computer and Internet questions I didn't include. It seems like in any given library that this is more of the trend. Even when I worked at the main branch at the reference desk, most of the questions I got were computer-related (perhaps because the reference desk is in such close proximity to all of the computers).

ALA Midwinter Book Bonanza!

This year, ALA Midwinter was held in Denver. I have always wanted to attend an ALA conference, but I hadn't planned on going this year. Mostly because my library couldn't send me, and to go on your own costs about $300, which I didn't have to spare. I had even almost forgotten about it until the weekend of, and I told John about it. It was he who sparked my interest in it again, as he said "How many times does ALA come to Denver?" I still didn't have enough money to go to the whole conference (nor the time), but the exhibits were running all weekend, and so I decided I should tow John along on Saturday. The exhibits-only cost was $25 per person, but a librarian friend directed me towards free passes online. And so we left around 11:30 (although we got lost in Denver and didn't get to the Colorado Convention Center until an hour later). And although the exhibits were now free, I ended up having to pay $25 for parking.

I think most librarians can agree that the exhibits are the best part of ALA. Walking around, playing with new technologies, and most importantly, gleaning loads of free stuff from the booths and vendors. It was all a bit overwhelming at first, with aisles upon aisles of booths and a veritable ocean of people. I grabbed a free bookbag at the first available opportunity, and I advised John to do the same, in order to hold all our schwag. And at first, it was actually a bit disappointing. Free pens are great and all, but once you get 20 or 30 you start to get a little bored. Then there were the squishy stress balls, the keychains, the rulers, the candy. The hard part was not getting drawn into the vendor's spiel. More than anyone else, I was simply present for the goodies, and since I have absolutely no decision-making power whatsoever in my library, I could have cared less what the vendors had to say or offer.

It got much better when one booth was giving away huge cookies and slices of cake. And then we hit the comic booths, Marvel and Dark Horse, which were both giving out free issues of comics (and pretty famous ones, like Buffy season 8 and Umbrella Academy!). We stood there drooling for awhile before moving on.

But this was nothing compared to what came next. Starting at 2 pm, the publishers' booths were giving away...free books. Seeing those two words together is enough to make me start to tingle. But at first even I had slightly low expectations. They would probably be unpopular or locally written books, given out by local publishers (no offense to local writers). But these were major publishers' booths, like HarperCollins and Random House. And major books, mostly advanced readers copies, from major authors. We made our first rounds and filled up two bookbags apiece, until they could hold no more. I was giddy with excitement (my librarian friend told me I need to get out more!). They were even giving out free hardcover copies of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle...a book I really have no interest in, but it's a national bestseller, and the author was there signing it! I couldn't resist. It was when I was standing in line that the excitement (and, I suppose, lack of food and water) got to be too much, and I got light-headed and nearly fainted. John brought me a bottle of water and took my place in line while I recovered. I tried to slow down a little after that, but it was hard. We had to run to the car to pile our books in the trunk, and then we rushed back inside for round 2. There were more books to grab, and the booths we'd already visited were putting out new ones. It became clear that we could just hang around the same spots all afternoon and still get different books. Another trip to the car and a final purge of the area later, and we were exhausted. As we looked at the ridiculous pile in the trunk afterwards, John remarked that it looked like we'd robbed a bookstore. I counted them later, and there were 136 books in all, not including the comics. I didn't even have room for all of them. I gave some to John, some to John's mom, I'm going to send some to my mom, and I took some to work for my co-workers. But the books are still double-stacked on my shelves.

I'm in heaven.

The pile of books in the trunk, and the subsequent pile of books on my bed:

Pueblo Interview

So, I thought I'd share my latest experience with a library interview. A couple of months ago, I received a call from the Pueblo City-County Library, wanting to interview me. I had only applied for the job because I was desperate, as Pueblo is a good 2 hours away from Westminster. I didn't want to move, of course, but I thought the time had come to start looking outside the Denver Metro area.

Shortly after that, I also applied for the full-time library assistant position at my current library. It's the same exact thing I had been doing, only 40 hours instead of 20. More than anything, I desperately needed a full-time job so that John and I could get our own place and I'd have some actual money coming in (and possibly free insurance). After Christmas vacation (or maybe before, I can't honestly remember now) I had my Aurora interview. It was straight-forward and less nervewracking than any previous interview, because I already knew my interviewers and I knew exactly what to expect of the job. I received word that I got the job shortly before my Pueblo interview, but I decided to go ahead and keep that interview because it would be good experience, and they were putting me up at a nice-looking Bed and Breakfast for free. I had no idea what I would have done had I actually got the job.

So, on January 7, John and I drove down to Pueblo, making a few stops on the way to the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center (or its gift shop, anyway) and the Florissant Fossil Beds, both near CO Springs. We got into Pueblo later that evening. It was still light enough to see that Pueblo was probably not my kind of town. First off, the scenery wasn't very pretty to me. It was more desert-y and shrubby than I prefer, and obviously drier and warmer. When we got into the downtown area, it appeared junky and industrial. Smokestacks spouted filthy air off in the distance. Even the Riverwalk and the old historic Union street just seemed, well, worn-out, rather than quaint. At least the Abriendo Inn, where we were staying, was nice. We enjoyed the amenities at the B&B before going out to dinner and checking out the library. The library was new, big, and modern, but as John put it, it just didn't feel cozy. Definitely nice, but not what I picture my ideal library to look like.

We got up early the next morning to enjoy a delicious, multi-course breakfast made by the innkeepers, the highlights of which being the fruit/yogurt/granola parfait and the olive tapenade topping the poached eggs. My interview was at 11 am, so I had a little time to rest, prepare as much as I could, and play Zelda on my DS. Luckily, the library was only a minute away from the Inn. My interview was...less than spectacular in my opinion. There were many questions on which I completely blanked, and when I did speak, it came out as babbling. But the interviewers were very nice, helping me along when I couldn't think of anything to say. The second part of the interview was giving a mock pre-school storytime, a task which the Teen Librarian would have to do occasionally. That went better than I thought it would, although I was again helped along by the interviewers, who acted like real 4-year-olds and responded accordingly to my stories and rhymes. The third part of the interview was watching a video skit made by the Teen Advisory Council and answering their question about a disruptive teen. I came out of the interview still feeling anxious, but relieved to have it over. This was followed by a stroll down the Riverwalk and lunch on Union Street.

In the days after the interview, I didn't know what I wanted the outcome to be. Moving would be difficult within itself, but would also make things harder for John, who is counting on getting a position with Boulder OSMP again this spring or summer. But a full-time professional position, that's what I've been looking for since before I graduated. It would be hard to turn it down. A few days later, I had pretty much decided that, if offered the job, I would indeed turn it down (after more serious consideration). I know it seems an unwise action, but I think we'd be happier in the long run, staying here. As it turns out, it was a decision I didn't have to make. I got a call the day before yesterday saying that, while I'd make a good librarian, they had decided to hire someone else. Once more, my feelings were confusing: I didn't know whether to feel relieved, or disappointed. Of course, I had wanted to turn them down, and I just needed to feel like some library wanted me. It's better this way, though. Now that I officially have a full-time job, I'm more financially free to take my time and look for jobs in the Denver area. Hopefully the economy will turn around soon, and the hiring freeze that's affected many libraries now will be melted and more jobs will open up. Until then I'm just happy to be working full-time, and looking forward to getting an apartment in a few months.