Browse with Bookish Desi

The end of the semester in sight, I have a slew of things to do:

1. Study for final in Cataloging

2. Create presentation re: Podcasting (I agreed to make a presentation/workshop re: podcasting for another class… Volunteered, in fact. Whether this was wise or foolish remains to be seen!)

3. Do my darn Pathfinder!

yikes yikes yikes

Today went by quick at the library, as Saturdays are wont to do. Patrons kept me busy busy busy requesting GRE test prep information, holding/requesting specific romance novels by Brenda Novak, Geronimo Stilton books, inquiring how to obtain some very specific sounding government healthcare documents, and of course downloading tax forms, tax forms, tax forms, and, and, and…. Not to mention the myriad computer and printer assistance requests.

At the end of it all, at a quarter to five, things slowed down a bit. I started wandering around the floor, letting folks know that computers were shutting down, that the library was about to close, that they should bring their books to the front for checkout, and oh, by the way, could I help them find something if they weren’t finding what they wanted?

Amidst all this end-of-day wrapping up, Read the rest of this entry »

So, one day last week I got a bit shaken up. The good news, reflecting back, is that at least it was a figurative rather than literal shaking up that I got.

Let me start at the beginning of the story. I saw a tall academic looking man come in, wearing glasses, headed straight for the reference desk - where I was sitting. I remember wondering what he would ask about. He started asking some obscure academic type questions, which at first impressed me, but then quickly made me realize, from his repetition of certain words and phrases over and over again, and from his fixed stare, that he was what one calls “not quite all there.” I did my best to help him however, and at first it seemed that though his inquiry was a bit difficult and obscure, that all would go well.

Then he stopped in the middle of his inquiry and proceeded to tell me that I looked very much like someone who he had a bad experience with… Read the rest of this entry »

Today I decided to do something with all that kid-energy roaming around our library during this post-Christmas winter-break time… so I invited a bunch of kids who were hanging out in the library to make snowflakes with me… it was fun, although there was a touchy moment when five-year old Ahmed got laughed at by his ten-year old brother for making a square-shaped flake.

But then Ahmed got back at him by making the best blue snowflake to be found this side of the Mississippi.

Then there were the triplets who came to cut and fold flakes… needless to say, none of their creations were identical.

Oh. And how could I ever forget the little two year old who came to participate with mom and big bro and sis in tow. When asked his name, he said, I kid you not, “Good boy!” And beamed.

I am loving this Web 2.0 how to design your website with simplicity guide by Ben Hunt (found on the website design by scratch site) which I found via an online search recently, but which, due to grad school pressures, I didn’t have time to look into. Ironically one of my grad school assignments was to create a website, so actually, I could have used the tips from this site…

But no problem, I’ll take their lessons to heart for my real, actual honest-to-goodness website which I will create soon. When? I don’t know. But… soon.

In the meantime, here, check out Alex Dukal’s beautiful site, which was given by Ben Hunt as an example of a website which works extremely well, being simultaneously simple and yet richly nuanced. Alex Dukal is an illustrator and graphic artist, and after having seen his site, I now want to share it with one of my favorite coworkers, the children’s librarian where I work… I love the synergy of the web sometimes. :)

One thing I’ve noticed with my new job at the library is that, much like teachers, librarians and library staff get exposed to myriads of people and (presumably) millions of germs on a daily basis. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit about the myriads of people, but in truth, the place where I work is quite a busy place, especially considering its small size.

So, yes, like teachers, one of our occupational hazards is germ exposure. Patrons sneeze and cough without covering their mouth and nose with even their hand, much less their sleeve, return books with god-knows-what smeared all over them, and kids who are too sick to go to school magically have time to come do their research project at the library’s computers, thereby prompting germophobes like me to want to pull out the Lysol.

But wait. Read the rest of this entry »

Years ago, I wrote a short story about a young woman who got into trouble with her long distance phone company by racking up a huge phone bill. In that story, in the days before ubiquitous cell phone usage, her “astronomical phone bill” was in the whopping amount of $853.52, which many of my Writing workshop peers found to be somewhat unbelievable. Well… better believe it, ‘cuz, as they say, “Truth is stranger than Fiction.”

Check out the below story to learn just how much financial trouble technology can get us into: Read the rest of this entry »

[continued from The Holy Terror (part 1)]

So, the other day, I was mystified when I found the HT quietly hunched over a keyboard and looking quite concerned. I leaned in to see what was going on. Ah… He was working on a report. A report that had to be 500 words long. A report which was due the very next day. It was good to see that even the HT could be quiet when the occasion called for it.

Several hours later, the poor HT was still in the same spot, still trying to tap away (he doesn’t know how to type yet) but looking quite worn though not defeated. By now a small crowd of his subjects had gathered ’round to give him encouragement – and their computer time, which he desperately needed. When he stretched his now knotted up fingers, one of the few girls there volunteered to help him type if he dictated. This went on for some time. But then, alas, she had to go home. Then our security guard joined the crowd and told him he would dictate from the HT’s scribbles so that the HT wouldn’t have to keep trying to decipher his own words as he “typed.”

After a while, though, things got rough. There were only five minutes left until all of the computers in the library would shut down. (They are programmed to automatically do this near the close of the day.) The HT was in the last stretch — the ever-dreaded Bibliography, wherein he had to type in all of the addresses of the websites he had used as sources. Alas, the HT had missed copying and pasting them into a Word document, so now they all had to be entered by hand. Enter moi, fledgling “librarian” who saw a win-win possibility in this predicament. The security guard saw what I was about to do, and grinned. “So, what, you’re getting into the action too?” he asked.

I said to the HT, “Tell you what. I type 60 words a minute. I’ll type these bibliographical entries for you, but in return I ask you to do me two favors. One, please help this young kid sitting next to you to print out the webpage on Gorillas that he’s trying to print. Be nice to him - he doesn’t speak much English. And two…”

Here, I was interrupted. “I know, I know! Two is “be quiet,” right?”

“Yes, how did you know I was going to ask that?”

“Oh I know, I know, I have a loud voice.”

So we switched places, the HT to help the young non-English speaking kid to print out lovely gorilla photos, me to type up the HT’s bibliographical references. We printed out the report just in the nick of time, with the computer timing out right after I clicked Print. Smiles abounded.

The HT left the library happy, as did I, as did our security guard. The next day things were a tad bit quieter in the Chess Kingdom. All praise the Holy Terror.

There is a kid who comes into our library on an almost daily basis. My nickname for him in this blog will be “The Holy Terror,” (AKA “HT”). Actually, he’s not really a terror, but he does have one of the loudest voices I have ever heard in a library. I must say that I sympathize, since I too have a propensity to speak quite loudly.

The HT is a bright kid who means well but tends to boss around the other kids–mostly boys–and at times cajoles them out of their computer time. Despite his bossy nature, he’s one of those proverbial “heart of gold” kids, though, since the other boys seem to go along with what he wants and don’t look too unhappy - he’s one of those born leader types, albeit a bit too overt about the power structure. Through the guiles of our weekly chess program instructor (who is worth his weight in a combination of any precious metals and then some), all of these boys have gotten hooked on chess and now they visit the library on a regular basis to play chess. (As I told another librarian yesterday, back when I was a teacher, I would have cried tears of joy had my kids been remotely interested in anything that didn’t require pushing a remote, clicking a mouse, or pushing around a joystick. Needless to say, the leader of the “chess gang” is the Holy Terror. He usually rules over his little Chess Fiefdom as a Benign Tyrant - sometimes encouraging, at other times goading and taunting, but always, always LOUD. [continued in The Holy Terror (part 2)]