Jan 19 2009
Are Holidays Truly Worth It?
Well, it’s Martin Luther King Jr Day here in the US, which means that every federal agency is closed (post offices, courthouses, banks, and yes, you guessed it, libraries). Normally I’m all for vacations - who wouldn’t appreciate a day to just relax and do what you want, not to mention the three-day weekend! - but since I’ve started at the library, I’ve gained a new outlook on these holidays.
It’s especially hard for the holidays that aren’t as celebrated, like MLK Day or Veteran’s Day. Since all of the “normal” stores and businesses are still open, people tend to think that the library will be too. When they come and see that we’re closed, they get grumpy (and tell us all about it the next day. ‘Cause we’re just that special).
Then you’ve got the check-in situation - talk about insanity! Our return bins outside are not connected in some super-cool way to our library through chutes or something (I’m imagining Batman caves right now for some reason) so what you see is what you get.
Once they are filled up, the only way to get those books inside is with a cart, where the library employee manually dumps books from the bin into the cart, pulls the cart inside, and does the check-in, only to go back outside and repeat the process until it’s empty. As breath-taking and exciting as that sounds, I promise that there are greater thrills in this world than doing outside check-in (like, say, a root canal. Or watching paint dry).
Well, the problem comes with the fact that although the outside bins are big enough to last from Saturday evening until Monday morning without overflowing, much longer than that and there simply isn’t room to put any more books in.
You’d think that in this case, the patron would drive to the front of the library, walk inside, and return the books in the foyer (which is open 24 hours a day) but nooooo - instead they simply pile the books on top of the return bins outside, and then drive away. (People who do this are several bricks shy of a load, and I don’t think they ought to have a drivers license, but as of yet, this isn’t on the questionaire to get your license. I’m fairly sure the ALA is lobbying for it now, though).
Yes you heard me right, on top of the bins (sorry, I just can’t get over this). Where, ya know, anybody could walk by, steal them, and nobody’d be the wiser. Then guess who’s on the hook for the stolen books? The patron stupid enough to leave the books out in the open in the first place. As you can guess, they don’t take responsibility for this easily (’cause, after all, they did return the books! ::beat head against wall::) and it ends up being a yucky mess.
Have I mentioned yet that I don’t like holidays?
Then there’s the mail. You can’t forget the mail! All of the mail that we’d normally get over the course of two days is crammed into one day (which means twice the newspapers to catalog and put out) and then there’s all of the other mail we get in scads…Of course, we don’t have any time to work on putting the mail away because we’ve got busloads of patrons coming in to use the computers that nobody could use the day before. (Don’t get between a patron and their ability to check their email every day. It isn’t a pretty sight).
Then the poor pages are going crazy because the carts are overflowing with books to be put back on the shelves (literally - books end up stacked on the floor because there is no more room in the inn cart - sorry, wrong holiday) so they’re expected to work a super human feat and get twice as many books put away than they’d normally have to. They get this crazed look in their eyes when you ask them to search for a missing book on the shelf, and you find yourself mumbling that it’s no problem, you’d rather just look for it yourself, and scurry away before they show you what pages can do when armed with carts full of books. (Believe me, you don’t want to know).
Because of this and more, my little tidbit of advice to the world is this: Don’t come into the library the day after a holiday if you can help it. Your librarian will thank you. Schedule your run either the day before the holiday or several days afterwards, in order to give the library time to settle back into its routine. You’ll get better service and have more selection for books if you come on a normal day, not to mention a lot shorter lines and more pleasant librarians. Speaking of…
Pearls Before Swine rocks.
Every day after a holiday, we run around the library like insane people, occasionally stopping to ask each other, “Was it really worth it?”
The answer is always a resounding: No!
But since I get it off whether or not I think it’s worth it, I’m going to kick back and enjoy the day. After all, I need to save up all of my energy for tomorrow.
Hava
This is so funny! Tonight I was going to stop by the library to pick up a book that had finally come in - then I remembered that it was closed for MLK. I’ll take your advice and wait till Wednesday to go pick my book up.
I hope your day runs smoother than you expect it to tomorrow.
Second the “ew” on the holidays.
I think I might’ve been lucky enough to miss the post-4th of July rush the summer I was working at Lakeview, but I know what you mean about the drop box pileup. It was bad enough just recovering from the weekends!
Good luck with your drop boxes; I’ll keep you in my thoughts.
The weird thing is that in the US you have these holdiays which most people dont seem to get off! I remeber even being expected to work Good Friday when I was working in our US office (I don’t think so I get paid to have Good Friday off in Australia!)
BTW our local library here has no after hour slot or bin to put bins in - you have to bring them back when they open which is only 4 hours sat AM and 4 ours Sun PM and close at 5 during the week! Fortunately you can renew online though!
I dunno… I kinda like getting paid to spend all day in my PJs and watch trashy TV (I’m talking about you, Maury Povich!). But you are right. The day after is NOT fun. Especially when you’re the Lone Ranger on the Reference Desk.
Now see, I always hoped those outside bins had some conveyer belts or something because I couldn’t imagine what a pain it would be to to unload that outside. It was bad enough when I worked at the public library and we had to go under the stairs where all the books were in a big mound on the floor and we had to crawl around and pick them all up!
I can’t believe people are stupid enough to leave books on top of the return. I’d fine them for stupidity, even if the book *didn’t* get stolen. They’re just that lazy–they don’t want to have to bother to get out of their car and walk inside or to come back again later. Gah.
“They get this crazed look in their eyes when you ask them to search for a missing book on the shelf, and you find yourself mumbling that it’s no problem, you’d rather just look for it yourself, and scurry away before they show you what pages can do when armed with carts full of books. (Believe me, you don’t want to know).”
Thanks so much for the laugh and sorry if I’ve every been the one to give you the evil eye. This last holliday it really didn’t help that my reshelving area was hacked to pieces. Instead of just having the cart overflowing my shelves were overflowing onto the floor. It was a mess!