Book Covers by Bibliotecher...

Didn't notice the "Real Deal" blurb til after.

My new at work hobby started with this find.  I couldn't find any worthy/inspiring books until a week later.  I had a hard time choosing which picture to use.  Not surprisingly, there's a boatload of pictures of people shoving/fighting/running to get that discount item from whatever Big-Box retailer.  I ended up printing 5 pictures and had my supervisor choose the best one.  Let's just say that I put in too much effort for this.

Operation Creepy Carrots

The Abyss...

My supervisor made the wise decision to place a picture book on the ledge of his cubicle.  Needless to say the book fell into the abyss a few days later.  It was a slow night, as usual, so he and I spent the last hour looking for items in the branch to use to retrieve it.

The circ manager saw both of us on his desk with our heads against the wall and asked us "what the hell are you two up to now?"  She told us it was a lost cause because the gap between the wall and cubicle was too narrow and the only way to separate the cubicle wall would be to dismantle the whole row of cubicles, 6 in total.  The circ manager just rolled her eyes and told us that it was impossible to get it back and to just mark it missing --- oh yeah, challenge accepted.  We only had an hour before closing so we called it quits for the night.

After clopening (Clopening; noun: when you are scheduled to close the night and open the next morning), we returned to our mission to free Creepy Carrots from the cubicle crevasse.  We ended up using two yard sticks and "chop-sticking" the book free.  I sent this pic of the successful rescue and she just replied, "So how much cursing and band-aids did it take?"  No band-aids were needed --- thank you very much, a few curse words though...

There's a book in my boot!

I Love Childrens Librarians...

Dunnnn Dun, Dunnn Dun...  More Books Need Augmentation Apps...

Yesterday, the quarterly, biannual, whenever they feel like it, Childrens Librarian Management meeting was held at my branch.  Needless to say, I was really looking forward to it.  One of my old branch coworkers emailed me a week before to say that she was coming in extra early to say hi and catch-up aka gossip.  She even brought me a little goody bag with a bacon flavored lollipop.

I ended up getting stuck on the desk for the whole duration, 3 straight hours because the assistant branch manager had to set up the web cam for their teleconference and had to be present during the whole thing.  The video came through just fine, but surprisingly a good majority of the librarians are near retirement age and they had a hard time hearing the presentation.  I could only imagine the whole room going, "We can't hear it," "What did she say?"  "Can't you turn the volume up?"  It stressed out my manager so much that he had to take a break outside.

When I came in to work today, my branch Children's librarian was so excited to show me one of the things she learned in the meeting: the 2013 Guinness World Records Book augmented reality app.  Granted it only works on a handful of pages and it is actually pretty wonky.  I tried it on the branch's iPad and then on my Android tablet and both had their own issues but overall it's pretty damn cool.  My favorite pages were the dunking parrot and of course the shark one --- "DEEP BLUE SEA... THEY ATE ME!  A EFFING SHARK ATE ME!!"

Me getting paid to play with stuff at the Info Desk.

How To Pass Time on the Desk...

Tuesday nights are "fun." Fun because only the part timers, info and circ, close the branch. When all of the full time managers walk out the door, there is a collective sigh of relief. It's the whole, "when the cat's away, the mice will play." Having fun while at work-- gasp! It's a concept that managers seem to forget, plus it seems very fitting since it involves cats and libraries.

I find myself doing the oddest things to pass the time. I believe the uber-strict internet filters play a big role in this. I found this measuring tool hidden in the supply closet. I really don't see the justification to have one in every branch, it's not like we have to recreate parking lot accidents on a daily basis. I have no other idea what it could be used for. Just another waste of government money if you ask me.

Anyways, this little thing kept me occupied for the last hour or so. I would make wagers with my coworkers on anything I could measure: the width and length of the library, the distance between the info and circ desk. This picture is the measurement of the circ desk from end to end.

If there's any "branch-pride" to be had, it would have to be about having the longest circulation desk. It's infamous within the library system, other branch staff refer to it as, "The Queen Mary of Circ Desks." Yeah, I get bored pretty easily if there aren't any patrons to people-watch...

The Weirdos Come Out at Night...

I rarely work the evening shift, but whenever I do it the branch seems so different.

I step out from the backroom to the circ desk and its like I walked into the Twilight Zone. The patrons are all different too.

This middle aged woman walks up to me at the desk and writes down her last name on a piece of paper and tells me she wants to pay down her fees. I say her last name out loud to make sure I read her chicken scratch correctly and she shoots me a glare. She then proceeds to write down her first name, and I say it out loud as I am bringing her account up. She gives me a nasty look and tells me, "You don't have to say my name, you SHOULDN'T say my name out loud." Good grief woman, if I say your name three times does Beetlejuice pop out of the stacks?? She ends up paying 46 cents towards her fees and walks away.

15 minutes later she comes back up to me and pays a quarter. I asked for her name and this time I didn't speak her name. 5 minutes later she comes back and decides to pay more of her fees, this time a whole freaking penny.

Other than her, I was bored out of my mind so I decided to do some Mythbusting, library style. I kind of feel bad about wasting two stacks of Post-It's but I couldn't find any romance novels in the discard bin to use. Of course the phone book myth worked with the Post-It's, now I need to figure out how to run more Mythbusters experiments at the branch.