Liberrian Love

My new favorite blog is Love the Liberry, updated faithfully by a reference librarian who chronicles the absurdness and redundancy that library workers deal with every day. Though I work at a library, I am not a Librarian, which would require a couple of more years of schooling. But the public doesn't really know that there is a hierarchy, so they tend to approach any of us who work there as the same. The main difference is that I get to pass off questions with time-consuming answers off to a reference librarian.

So in honor of my new discovery, I decided to write down a few of the things that happened to me yesterday. The patrons actually dialed down the crazy, I've have much more interesting days, but a few things of note still occurred. 

1. Checking in books in the morning, I came across one of my pet peeves, a book returned with copious amounts of human and pet hair sticking out of it. I looked at the title and author, and both were appropriate--Don't Look Twice by Andrew Gross.

2. Another from my check-in shift. A book called Electronics of Radio came back. It came with a supplemental informational disc. FLOPPY disc. (I sent it to be considered for discard.)

3. Two nice ladies donate 300 books. (It's not unusual for us to get hundreds of donated books each day, but not usually in the space of ten minutes.)

4. While working at the front desk, I see a young woman in the lobby on a laptop, using our wireless and trying to corral her baby who is restless and constantly trying to crawl away. I walk past to put some magazines in our free rack, and see that she is web chatting, presumably with her husband. I return to the desk and my coworker and I spend a few minutes helping patrons. When we're finally not busy anymore, I'm about to go tell her she can come in and use a study room or go in the children's area, just as she is leaving. 

5. It's a warm day outside. I see a guy leaving, wearing a fleece zip-up vest, jeans, and no shirt.

6. A young man has used up his internet time, but he wants to get back online for a minute to log out of Facebook. I sign him on with a guest pass. He takes no longer than a minute on the computer and leaves. A teenager who is respectful and honest? How refreshing!