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Friday, April 23, 2010

Rant Against Romance Novels Part II

"I could not have said this any better..."
Nicholas Sparks stated that he has no contemporaries.  No one else does what he does.  He writes unpredictable love stories, not trashy run-of-the-mill romance novels like Shakespeare.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Food + Meetings = Bad News

Every time there is some sort of food brought to any of the meetings, whether it's candy, cake, mixed nuts(weak sauce), etc, I am always skeptical as to why: "Why are they trying to butter us up?"-mentality.  Sure, there has been the "Retiring" and "Going-Away" aka "I'm sick of you people, so I'm going to another branch" meetings where food is the norm, but if it's just a regular meeting and they bring food to butter everyone up, I always assume it can't be good.

There's a Circ meeting today and I just got an email saying there will be pizza... that can't be good.

The tomato topped, round doughy goodness is being brought in as the harbinger of bad news.  If it's Domino's, there won't be any temptation, that stuff tastes like someone took a Thomas the Tank boardbook and melted cheese on it.  They can't fire me if I don't accept a slice right!?? 

Friday, April 16, 2010

Passive Aggressive Librarians with Printers on the Rampage

The secret's out.  There is another stereotype for librarians out right now, passive aggressiveness.

To celebrate National Library week, Buzzfeed collected 20 Passive Aggressive Library Signs.  If I knew they were looking for contributions, I could have added another 20 to that.

Here's to National Library Week!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Patrons Behaving Badly part II

Last Sunday, I ended up working at the County instead of the usual Sunday shift at the City library system.

Let me just say, that the patrons that come in on Sundays are NOT the same ones that come in during the other 6 days of the week.  I only recognized a handful of the 1000+ people that walked through the doors.

My first hour on the desk started with a patron coming up to me and telling me, "Just to let you know, the guy at the internet sign up station is intoxicated.  You might want to keep an eye on him."  Great, yet another drunk in the library.  This guy was surely drunk, and as I looked at the lower right hand corner of the computer screen, I was thinking to myself, "It's 5 o'clock somewhere (in the middle of the ocean.)"  He was wobbling back and forth as he was jabbing at the keys to enter in his account number.  I watched this go on for a good 5 minutes, wondering if someone at the Reference desk would notice the drunkard squinting at the keyboard.  I could only assume that it was turned into a waiting game between Circ and Info to see who would have to deal with him. 

Luckily the guy gave up, and wandered into the stacks.  Before I knew it, he was passed out in a chair in the periodicals.  Since Circ had a better line of sight on the guy in this location, the Info manager told us to watch him and I could read her mind as she told us this and it read, "SUCKERS!"  He slept for an hour or so, and by the time I came back on to the desk he made his way out.  Apparently this guy was found unresponsive at an internet terminal the week before. 

You think that his tolerance level would go up and he would have been able to sign off the internet this time instead of drooling on the keyboard and having the space-bar imprinted on his cheek.  At this rate, he'll be passed out just outside the front doors next week.

Monday, April 12, 2010

The Patron is Always Right

The patron is always right, unless I say so.

Last week a patron wanted me to check in her items to see what was still left on her account.  I checked them in and showed her the screen of what was still checked out.  She said that out of the remaining items, there was one she was sure she returned.  Okay, routine shelf check, nothing new.  She asked me if she would have to pay for the item, even though she is "100% positive" that she returned it.  I assured her that she wouldn't have to, and she didn't believe me and asked who she would have to talk to fix the matter.  I told her I could and she seemed okay with it, she then looked back at the computer screen and said that she also returned another title that was still listed.  I told her, okay, I will check on that item too.  She then asked yet again, if she would have to pay for items she knew she returned already, I told her no, AGAIN.  And then she says, oh wait, those two were also returned.  It was at this point, that I commented, that 4 items is a lot to have not been checked in, and she went on to say how she is very good at keeping track of her accounts, showing me a handful of due date slips in her purse.  My spidey-sense was already going off, but I never take the route of accusing patrons.  I know my coworkers, and I know that there will always be mistakes with people's accounts.  I told her I would email her the results of my book hunting.

Well, shocker, none of the 4 items were on the shelves.  I guess I have not been in the library system long enough to be jaded to go against the patrons, so I emailed her that I will take the items off of her account.  I looked at all 4 items and they were just added to the system last year, I added up all of their prices in my head and I started to get angry at this patron.  I'm not one to argue with a patron, unless I know for certain they are in the wrong.  I just let karma handle all of the patrons who have pulled fast ones on me.  A couple hours later, I get a reply email saying that she found all 4 of the books.  It was at this point I did a face-palm. 

Thankfully, this patron turned out to an honest one, confused - yes, but honest.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Ewe get a car! Ewe get a car! EWE GET A CAR!


So I am watching the new BBC/Discovery episode of 'Life,' and don't get me wrong, I love nature shows.  I am a self professed Shark Week Geek, yeah, I know that sharks don't evolve each year but I still watch it every year.
But I cannot get into this series like I did with its predecessor, 'Planet Earth.'  It's not the visuals that I am disappointed with, I have 52 inches of 1080i HD real-estate.

It's the audio.  Why is the States' version devoid of Sir David Attenborough --- a
gain!??! 
You know, I let the fact that 'Planet Earth' was commented by the Alien movies lady slip by, most likely because of all the eye candy this ground breaking series had to offer.  But the second time around, it is going to take more than that for me to believe all the hype.  Not only is the US version "dumbed down" but Oprah's narration is unimpressive and does the series no justice.  Score one for the Brits.

As the saying goes, the sequel is never better than the original.