Nonfiction Book Reviews

This morning, I went downstairs and started doing outside check-in.  As is common, there was a stack of books already sitting on the counter that fellow employees were giving to me to check in.  I started doing check-in, not paying a whole lot of attention to the titles of the books, when I saw a book that needed a new barcode.

I quickly pulled up the book in the computer to “send it to mending” (that’s what we call it when we tell the computer program that the book is being fixed and/or mended, so that we know where in the library it is at) when I happened to see the name of the person who checked the book out on the screen.  It was a fellow coworker of mine at the library.  I then did a double take and stared at the title of the book.

It was a book on saving your marriage.  I looked at the next book in the pile - another book about trying to stave off divorce.  With a feeling of dread, I checked it in and checked the patron portion of the computer - yes, it was the same employee.

I felt sick to my stomach.  I had no idea that this person was struggling with their marriage.  I felt like some sort of interloper, that I would know something this huge and significant without meaning to, and certainly without wanting to.

I completed check-in this morning like normal, but inside, I was just sick.  It wasn’t as if I could walk up to this person and say, “Hey, so I see that you’re on the edge of divorce.  My condolences.”  This person has no idea that I know.  And quite frankly, I didn’t want to know.  At the same time, I’m sad and I want to hug this person and tell them that I feel for them.

There are some days that I learn more than I really wanted to know about my fellow men.  Working at a library seems to bring that to the forefront.  When you check out 15 books to someone about being pregnant, there’s a pretty good chance the patron is going to have a baby.  Same thing with books on advanced cancer; books on dealing with a new medical diagnosis; and yes, books on dealing with divorce.  The titles tell me, whether I really wanted to know or not, the inner thoughts and lives of the person checking those books out.

And there are some things I just didn’t want to know.

Sad today…

Hava

PS Before I forget, two important things: First off, tomorrow at midnight is the end of my first contest here at Nonfiction Book Reviews.  So if you haven’t entered that yet, be sure to get your entry in soon.  The other thing is another contest, this one happening over at Book N Around.  She has a massive book give away that you don’t want to miss.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The combination of working at a library plus reviewing nonfiction books in my spare time meant only one thing - Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron was a must read for me.

It is about Dewey, a stray cat found in the return bin at the library one morning after a terribly cold night in Spencer, Iowa. Someone had dropped the cat down the return bin shoot, and the library director, Vicki Myron, found him in there, clinging to life.

The Spencer Public Library adopted the cat and made him their own. In this autobiography, Myron chronicles not only Dewey’s life but her own, and also the background and history of Iowa, family farms, and libraries.  She discusses going to school to get her masters in library science,  Carnegie libraries, and remodeling libraries, all items that were especially interesting to me as a librarian.

But much more than that, it was a touching memoir of what it means to love a cat wholeheartedly, not only in good times (Dewey brought a lot of fame and attention to this small corner of the world) but in bad - when Dewey started to age and his coat wasn’t as shiny and youthful as it was before.  (Yes, believe it or not, the library board actually discussed what to do with Dewey “now that he was old” and didn’t look as good.  Apparently, we Americans are not only obsessed with human youthfulness but cat youthfulness too.)

If you love cats, libraries, or the small town life, then you’ll adore Dewey. There are pictures of Dewey throughout the book but all of them are printed in black and white, which for an orange tabby means you lose something in the process. But the Spencer Public Library has put together a web page dedicated to only pictures of Dewey with great captions underneath.  After finishing the book, I enjoyed looking through all of the pictures.

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat touched my heart - it made me think, it made me grateful, and it made me cry.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Havs

We’ve been dealing with a rash of thefts lately at the library.  I’ve discussed people stealing from our library before, but this is not your normal theft.  The person (or people) involved are not stealing books, CD’s, DVD’s, or other standard library material.  Instead, they are stealing toilet paper.

Yes, that roll of thin white paper that every toilet paper company in existence tries to convince you is nothing short of little pillows of goodness; a slice of heaven come to earth (and apparently taking up residence in your bathroom.  You’d think if heaven was going to come to earth, it would come in form of chocolate or something equally amazing, but instead, it’s just rolls of thin paper.  Me thinks that there is a bit of embellishment happening in the advertising world, but of course we all know that can’t possibly be what’s happening.)

Apparently, our janitorial staff has noticed a sudden and drastic increase in our toilet paper usage in our public bathrooms - so drastic that even the tubes in the middle of the rolls are gone.  Oh, and yes, you read that right: Bathrooms.  So either our thief has a partner in crime, or s/he is sneaking into the other bathroom when no one is looking.

Now mind you, our toilet paper dispensers all have the standard little locks on them to keep people from doing exactly this.  But give a 7-year-old a pocketknife and about 10 seconds, and they’ll have that lock picked and the roll out of the holder.  Not exactly a Mission Impossible level of difficulty here.

So what are we doing to combat the theft?  Just what you might expect from a library: We’ve put a security strip inside of each roll.  The thin metal strips that normally help keep our books and DVD’s from being stolen are now doing double duty and are keeping our toilet paper rolls from walking out the front door.  We are under strict instructions that if we find a patron trying to steal a roll, we are to notify a manager and they are to call the police immediately.

All I have to say is: Really?  TP?  Couldn’t you find something better to steal?  If you’re going to go to jail for stealing something, make it worth your while!  At least pick up a DVD or two.  I just can’t fathom having petty theft on my record because of toilet paper.

Is the economy really that bad?

Havs

Crazy day at the library today.  I don’t know if it’s the nice weather we’ve been having or what, but today at the library was HOPPING!

To add to all of the fun, I had the worst case of hiccups you can imagine come on right after lunch.  In true Hava fashion, I of course didn’t have quiet ladylike hiccups - that would be too much to ask for.  Noooo…I had loud, can-hear-it-across-the-room-library hiccups.

It all started off with a quiet *uck*.  I thought, “Was that a hiccup?  No, it couldn’t be.  I will NOT have the hiccups!”  Then I got five in a row.

Crap.

Do you know how hard it is to be serious when you’re talking to someone, when at any moment your whole body could converse like you just got hit with a jolt of electricity, and then a loud noise comes out of your mouth that sounds strangely like a dying cow?  I felt like scribbling on a piece of paper and hanging it around my neck: “Warning: I just have the hiccups, not some dread disease, and no, I am not drunk, although quite frankly, if these don’t hiccups don’t stop soon, I might driven to drink.”

But that would have made for an awfully long sign.

I was helping a patron whom I had just warned that I had the hiccups, and as I was leaning over the counter, looking at a book with her, my whole body conversed and out of my mouth came the loudest hiccup ever recorded in the history of mankind.  If anyone in the Guinness Book of World Records had been standing by when that came out of my mouth, I would have instantly made my mark on history.

Instead, the poor lady reared her head back and said, “Good gracious child!  Bless you!” while my face turned about 13 shades of red.

Ahh…the joys.

It only got worse when I was forced to answer the phone.  When I am talking to someone face to face, they can see that I am not a drunken sailor on some bender (I do look normal, which helps) but over the phone, it’s a whole ‘nother ballpark.  Strange noises emitting from the handset tends to make the callers think that I just had a heart attack and had keeled over dead on them.

“Are you okay?!” a lady shouted.  “Do I need to call someone?  Are you there?!”  I was so embarrassed, I almost couldn’t talk.  But don’t worry, if there’s even a hint of life in me, I will be able to talk.  I am just that dedicated.  And talkative.

The hiccups stopped as suddenly as they started.  My throat eased up, and I could tell that with just the blink of an eye, they were gone and they weren’t coming back.

Glory hallelujah, I was free of the hiccups!

*uck*

Havs

Okay, everyone who missed me this past week, stand up and be counted!

::crickets chirping::

Well, good, that’s nice.  Moving on now…

So I got asked out today by a patron, and for once, it wasn’t terrifying. His name is Michael, he is a regular patron at the library, he has Down Syndrome, and he also has a huge crush on me.  He’s a cute kid - I would guess that he’s physically about my age, but mentally and emotionally, he’s probably around a 5 - 7 year old boy.  Let’s just say that life is much simpler in Michael’s world.

He didn’t always love me.  When I first started at the library, Michael didn’t want anything to do with me.  He always wanted to be helped by Marsha (my boss).  I remember one time asking him if he needed help, and he told me no, he was going to wait to talk to Marsha.  I was a little sad - I’m not used to people not wanting anything to do with me.  (I have one of those personalities where I always want EVERYONE to love me.  True story).

So I started working extra-hard at being outgoing and friendly with Michael, and sure enough, he started being my friend too.  Ahh…All is right in the world.  One day he asked me if he could call me Mom.  I told him sure, Michael, you can call me Mom.  After all, who could resist Michael?

Then today, he comes up to the front counter.  “Hi!!!” he said, bubbling over with excitement.  Turns out he was going to Jackpot with his (real) mother this weekend to go to a Teri Clark concert.  I was thrilled for him - he’s a huge fan of Teri Clark, and I knew this was a huge deal for him.

And then he asked me to go to the concert with him.

Yeah…Not so much.  I told him I couldn’t go out to a concert with him.  So he changed tactics, and told me that he was going to bring a video camera with him to the concert, and that he wanted to show me the tape afterwards.  I told him I’d love to watch the tape.

“So you’ll come to my house and watch it with me?” he asked eagerly.

“No, hon, I can’t come to your house.  I can’t date people who come to the library.  It’s a rule.”

“Well, I want to talk to Sally!” he half-shouted.  He has been a patron long enough that he knows that Sally is the big boss of the library, and he was just sure that if he talked to her, she’d let me go on a date with him.  “But I loooovvveeee you!” he howled.

I finally got him calmed down, but then he started asking me, “Do you have a girlfriend?”  He meant boyfriend, of course, but it made me smile nonetheless.

“No, I don’t have a boyfriend,” I told him.  “I am married.”

“Oh, you’re married?” he said sorrowfully.  “How long have you been married?”

“Seven years.”

“Seventy years?!  That’s a long time!”

This time I couldn’t hide the smile.  Yeah, considering I’ve only been alive for 28, 70 years would be quite a long time.

“Are you going to break up with him?” Michael asked, serious as can be.

“No, I’m not going to break up with him,” I told him.  “I love my husband.”

“Oh.” Silence for a moment.  “What’s his name?”

“Doug.”

“Can you ask Doug if I can take you out on a date?” he asked earnestly.

I just wanted to give him a hug right then and there.

“No honey, I can’t go out on a date with you.  I’m sorry.”

“Well…….tell Doug I told him hi.  Can you tell him that?”

“Yes, I’ll tell him that,” and I watched Michael walk out the door.

Working at a library is so rewarding.  I can’t tell you how much I love knowing that I am making a difference in the patron’s lives, especially the regulars like Michael.  Michael wasn’t threatening or obnoxious - just imagine a seven-year-old telling his mom that someday, he was going to grow up and marry her, and then you’ll get the picture.  It was just cute.

I tried to get my husband jealous over my new boyfriend tonight at dinner, but he didn’t fall for it.  Perhaps I’ll have better luck next time.

Hava
Who’s not sure how many more boyfriends she has that she can drag out of the closet to make the hubby jealous with, but is going to go check right now to see if she can’t round up one or two…

A while ago, I wrote a review of The Romance of Libraries by Madeleine Lefebvre, which was full of romantic stories of how people met and fell in love at the library (some of the love stories working out, and some of them not).  I thought it was sweet that some people actually got in engaged in a library, and I was a little sad that nothing that romantic has happened in our library (at least that I know of).

Well, all of that has changed.

On Thursday night, I was standing at the front counter, doing nothing in particular, when Ann came running over, flashing her hand at me (Ann is a reference librarian at my library, and she also made it onto my Top Ten Coolest People You’ll Ever Meet list.  Just to help you guys place her).  Anyway, on her hand was a beautiful classy engagement ring.  We hugged and jumped up and down and squealed together (sorry guys, that’s just what happens when someone gets engaged - can’t help it!) and when we finally stopped squealing (five minutes later) Anne told me the story.

Her fiancee (who was standing right there, btw) had given her a book that he had illustrated and written himself.  It was an absolutely awesome book.  Professionally printed, beautifully drawn - it looked like something you could buy at the store.  Except this was the only copy of it made.

It was entitled The Librarian and the Geek, and was the story of how they met and fell in love.  At the end of the story, the geek asks the librarian to marry him, she says yes, and they live happily ever after.  When she got that point in the book, he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him, and she did indeed manage to squeak out a yes.  Afterwards, they came upstairs, where she showed everyone in the library the beautiful ring and the amazing book.

I have to say - I love the ring.  It looks just like something I would have picked out for myself.  But the book - now that’s the really cool part.  Anyone can buy a ring - it only requires a credit card with a high enough limit on it.  But to spend a month writing out a story and drawing up illustrations for a book to be published just this once for a very special occasion?  That makes it by far the most romantic proposition I’ve ever heard.

Congratulations, Ann, you’ve found a keeper!!!!  Your mother gives her stamp of approval.

I wanted to take a picture of the glowing Ann (I swear she is letting off waves of happiness - you can’t help but smile when you’re around her!) and of the ultra-cool book, but my camera battery just died.  Maybe I’ll see what I can do on Tuesday when the library is open again.

In the meanwhile, I had to post a picture of me wearing my brother’s birthday present to me.  In case you can’t read the writing on the shirt, it says “Librarian” across the front of it.  Now I can be known as a librarian wherever I go! LOL! Thanks brother.

Havs

I am not feeling well (I have strep throat and a sinus infection, lucky me) so I’m going to make today’s post short (no need for cheering, Peanut Gallery).

But yesterday, I saw a crazy true story on the MSNBC website that I just had to post about: A lady who gave birth to a baby in a library.  Yes, you heard that right - a lady got on the city bus to go to the library, but somewhere along the way, she went into labor, and by time she walked through the front doors of the library, was in full-on labor.  She gave birth in the foyer of the library, and was taken shortly afterwards to the local hospital.

She gave birth to a baby girl, which of course, makes me wonder: What is she going to call her new little bundle of joy?  C’mon - there’s no way she could avoid naming her something to do with libraries and books, right?

So I’m opening up the comment section for ideas of what you guys think she should have named her new little baby girl.  The most creative answer gets all of the accolades and honor that comes with such an amazing contribution.  In other words, sorry, nothing that cool.  Except you knowing, deep down inside, that you’re just so awesome.

Hava

PS Check out my new poll in the right sidebar. —> Be sure to vote early and often.  Cheating is encouraged!

This morning at work, I had a patron walk up to the front counter and ask, “Can I use a computer?”

Which happens a million and one times a day, and wouldn’t be at all memorable, except he kept swaying on his feet as if he was onboard a boat, and his words were slurred together.  Then it hit me - the smell, that is.  He smelled as if he took a bath in a vat of alcohol.

He was completely and utterly drunk.  At 9:40 in the morning.  His blood-shot eyes had a hard time focusing on my face and the smell was overpowering.

I don’t know if we just live in too small of a town or what, but I have to say that this is not a common experience at our library.  I can only remember helping a couple of drunk patrons in my year and a half at the library, and they weren’t as bad off as this.  The stench of alcohol made it difficult to breathe.

Years of customer service experience kicked into gear, and I was able to pretend as if the guy wasn’t completed soused.  “Do you have a card, sir?” I asked him.

Still swaying on his feet, he mumbled, “No, but I’d like to get one right now!”

As I pulled the application out of the drawer and handed it to him, I thought, “What are the chances he’ll remember he did this tomorrow?”  The image flashed through my mind of him pulling his library card out of his wallet later and saying, “Where the &@#$) did this come from?” lol.  At least library cards are free, right?

He took the application and laid it on the counter.  He studied it for a second, decided that couldn’t be right, and flipped it upside down.  Studied that for a couple of moments, decided nah, that wasn’t right either, and flipped it right side up again.

While he was trying to decipher the English language, I was searching the database to see if he already had a card with us.  That is standard procedure when someone is signing up for a new card, because many times people will forget that they had a card before (or try to sneak it by us) and sign up for a new card when an old card has large fines on it.

Before he could finally decide how to spell his name, I had found his name in the database.

“Sir, have you ever lived on Main Ave?”

“Well, yeah.”  He pauses and looks at me with bleary eyes.  “I think so.  A long time ago.  Maybe…” his voice trails off.

“Bad news, sir,” and I handed his drivers license back to him.  “You’ve already got a card with us, and it has $35 in fines on it.  From 2000.  You don’t have to pay for that, but you also can’t use the internet or check out books.”

“Oh.”  His face fell as he stuffed his drivers license back in his wallet.  “Can I look around?”

“Not a problem,” I assured him.  “You don’t need a card to look around, you only need a card to take books out the front door.”  Which was all true, normally.  He shambled off into the nonfiction section.

I stepped away from the counter and took my first clean breath of air of the last five minutes.  Ahh…much better.

Right then, my boss Brenda happened to come up to the front desk.

“Brenda!” I grabbed her and explained what just happened, and then said, “I’m kinda worried about him - what if he goes off and pees on the books?  Or throws up?  Or passes out?  Do we do something when they’re that drunk?”

Side note: I worked at a plush resort for a year and a half as a front desk clerk.  There was a bar in the lobby directly across from the front desk, and I smelled guests (as we called them on the resort) that stunk like alcohol quite often.  But as far as I knew, I had never smelled alcohol like this before.  It was emanating off him in waves.  That, combined with the swaying, the red eyes, the slurred speech, and the complete inability to tell which way was up on a form, told me that this guy had to be coming off one heck of a bender.

On one hand, I really wanted to keep him at the library as long as possible, in order to let him sober up before he went back out into the world (and possibly got behind the wheel of a car, God forbid.)  It was also a cold and windy day outside - not the kind of weather you’d want to hang out in.  So I felt bad thinking that we needed to get this patron back out the door.

But on the other hand, if he went walking up the stairs, lost his balance because he was plastered, fell backwards, took out the innocent patron walking up the stairs behind him, and they land in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs, both of them dead from broken necks, I would feel pretty darn guilty about that too.  Our library is good at putting up with a lot of things, but possibly endangering other people’s lives is obviously a big problem.

Plus, he was docile at the front counter, but you never know what a drunk will do.  What if he got angry about something and started hitting other people, or ripping books to shreds?

This was one of those “Neither choice is a good choice” situations.

Luckily for me, I didn’t have to make the decision.  Brenda went to Sally, the director of the library, who called me in and asked me what happened once again.  I told her the story as they peered up to the second floor, where the patron was sitting at a desk, apparently reading a book.  I kinda doubted he had the ability to actually read anything, but I guess he wanted to act like he was, in order to appear “normal” or at least prolong the chance of him not getting kicked out.

It didn’t work.

Sally grabbed Christie, our maintenance supervisor, and they went upstairs and talked to the guy.  Sally told me about it afterwards - apparently, he didn’t give any sort of fuss at all when Sally said, “Sir, I need to ask you to leave.”  He just stood up and walked down the stairs and out the front door.

As he was leaving, Christie told him, “Sir, we’d love to have you come back when you haven’t been drinking.”

He said sadly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” and then left, walking down the street.  We watched him until he went out of sight.

The whole thing bothered me.  I always want to save everyone - I am one of those people who actually tear up when I see a homeless person on the street; I’m pathetic that way, I know - and it really bothered me that we kicked him back out into the cold.  After all, isn’t a library supposed to welcome everyone?

On the other hand, there were definite risks if he stayed.  If he peed all over the floor, I wouldn’t want to clean it up.  Same if he threw up or defacated on himself.  Not to mention the risk of him hurting himself or others, knowingly or unknowingly.

I guess it just made me sad.  How did he end up like this?  What would cause a man to be blindingly drunk at 9:40 in the morning?  Did he have any family who cared about him?

I just hope he went somewhere warm and dry to sober up.  And I really do hope he comes back.

Your thoughts?  Do you think we should have let him stay?  Do you think we did the right thing by sending him back out into the streets?  Do you think we should have called the police (which is what my husband thought we should have done when I told him the story)?  Leave your thoughts below.

Hava
Who wants to save the world but can’t and it makes her sad…

There is a mom and two daughters who come into the library every week.  I helped sign them up for their library cards, and I absolutely love the two little girls, so I always look forward to their visits.

Well, today I got a special treat from them.  The younger daughter (maybe three or four years old) was in one heck of a singing mood.  I was standing at the front counter, doing my thing, not paying any attention to the rest of the world, when my boss Martha snickered.  “That’s cute!” she said.

I looked up. “What’s cute?”

“That little girl!  Can’t you hear her singing?”

I listened for a second, and sure enough, there was a little warbling voice belting out:

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the waaaayyyyy.”

Pause. Silence.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the waaayyyyy.  Oh what fun, it is to ride” big breath “in a one horse open sleigh!”

Pause.

“Jingle bells.  Jingle bells.  Jingle all the way.”

I’m doubled over at this point, laughing.  Although the picture to the right is my niece, Allie, the similarities between Allie and this little girl at the library is almost uncanny.  They have the same big cheeks, the same brown curly hair, the same cute little nose.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were twins.  Or at least sisters.

So there’s your mental picture, okay?  Now get the voice in your head.  You know how three-year-olds are, where they can sing as they do other things (sing LOUDLY, mind you) and yet their mental concentration is on something else.  She had a very cute, high-pitched little girl’s voice that actually stayed on key for most of the singing.

And boy did she belt it out.  Her mother came over at first, and tried to shush her, but she would have none of that.  Mere seconds after her mother went back into the stacks to try to find a book, the daughter would start singing again.

“Jingle bells!  Jingle bells!”  Every time, I cracked up.  I just couldn’t help myself.  Oh, to be three again, and have that complete lack of fear of making a fool of yourself in public.  She would sing for a while (and she’d get pretty far into the song, actually - I was rather surprised at how well she knew the song, not just the first line) and then peter out.  About a minute or so later, she’d remember, “Oh yeah!  I was singing!” and start belting it out again.  And I’d start laughing all over again.

I was sad when they finally left - I was getting good exercise, laughing that hard.

Now have I made up for all of the times where I whined and complained about the patrons?  Because I have to tell you: There are a lot of great ones out there.  And awfully cute little kids to boot.

Hava

A while ago, Stephanie from Rocket Scientist tagged me to write about my job, and hopefully come up with a list of things that the “average Joe” wouldn’t know about their local library.  Since I have never worked at any other library, and I am not actually a librarian myself (see below), I’m going to list out six things that happen to be true for our library, but I make no promises for any other library. With that in mind, here we go:

1) When we first process a paperback book, we put vinyl on the cover to help protect it.  It is ordinary vinyl (we buy it from a local store, actually) and is normally used to line the bottom of people’s kitchen cabinets.  Clear and strong, we use it to make our paperbacks last longer.  If you’re really rough with your paperbacks, you could easily do this at home to your own books.

2) We put thin metal strips (think roughly the shape and size of spaghetti noodles) in between two pages in the middle of each book.  This security strip is then activated, and the book is put on the shelf.  If someone tries to walk out the front door without checking out first, the strip sets off the security gates.  Most of the time when the gates go off, it’s because the employees at the front desk have simply forgotten to desensitize a book, but either way, the patron has to come back to the desk to get cleared.  Otherwise, we call the police.  Which really isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, promise.

3) Not all library employees are created equal.  There is not a single person working at the circulation desk at my library who has any sort of library degree.  The only education requirement to work at the circ desk at our library is a high school diploma.  The reference desk is a whole other story.  There, two out of the three ladies has a Masters in Library Science, and the third one has a Bachelors, and is working on her Masters.  This is why we send all questions to the reference desk - they’re smarter than we are.

There is a debate in the library world as to whether or not a regular clerk like me should be called a librarian.  I have no library training, and no degree.  It’s like the secretary at the sheriff’s office calling herself a cop because she’s in the office with other cops all day long.  It doesn’t mean she actually knows how to be one. But on the other hand, it’s hard to figure out what to call me if not librarian - circ clerk works, but most people don’t know, off hand, what that means.  So the debate rages on.

4) The bigger a library, the more specialized each position is.  If you’re interested in working at a library, then you’ll want to consider what exactly is drawing you to it: Is it the idea of being away from patrons, just working on the computer and cataloging items?  Or do you want to be out and about, answering questions, helping patrons, etc?  In a really small library, one person does both, so if you’re interested in that, you’d want to find a job in a small town.

5) Each book in our computer system gets a code: tanfn, for example, stands for

T - junk code - doesn’t mean anything
A - adult book (as opposed to a child, junior, or young adult book)
N - non
F - fiction
N - new

tapbsf is adult paperback science fiction. tafn is adult fiction new. As strange as it sounds, I actually think in code - one time I found a book labeled tafn instead of tanfn, and instead of thinking, “Oh no, we’ve got a nonfiction book labeled as a fiction book” I thought, “Oh no, we’ve got a tanfn labeled as a tafn!” Which is a good sign I need a vacation.

6) If a book is lost or damaged, we only charge the cost of the item - what we paid for it ourselves, or if it was donated, what the cost would be to replace it. Despite what some patrons think, we do not make money off them. I had to explain this to a guy just the other day. He said that the library was a money making operation, and I told him that there were certainly a lot of people who would wish that were true, but it definitely wasn’t.

Well, I hope I didn’t put anyone to sleep. I don’t know how much wild and new information I brought up here, but hopefully this gives you a little better idea of how a library works. I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can, so feel free to leave a comment below!

Havs

Note: I talked about a strange patron before in my post entitled Pick Up Lines.  If you missed it, make sure to read that before continuing with this post…

So the creepy patron showed up again at the library tonight.  After being gone for weeks, bam!, there he was, haunting the upstairs, and the poor pages.  I never laid eyes on him, but I sure heard all about it.

Becky, one of our pages, was upstairs putting books away when she was asked by a patron to help find something.  She left her cart there, and walked off with the patron.  As she came down the stairs, who was coming up, but the creepy dude.  Keeping her cool, Becky finished helping the patron, then came over to the front desk immediately.  Leaning over the counter, she whispered to me, “The creepy dude is upstairs!  He’s back again!”

“You mean the one who stalked me before?” I whispered back.

“Yeah.  He’s back.”

Oh crap.  I wasn’t feeling well tonight (still not, actually) and I really didn’t want to mess that guy again.  He had caused enough trouble the last time he showed up.  Doesn’t he know to only be a pain in the rear when I’m feeling mentally up for it?  Can’t people start scheduling stuff around me?  Heck, doesn’t the whole universe revolve around me?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to take any chances this time - I had been chewed out enough last time he came into the library, thankyouverymuch.  I picked up the phone and quickly called Sally, the director of the library, and told her what was happening.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, “I’ll go upstairs with Becky right now.  Tell her I’m coming,” and hung up the phone.

Becky filled me in afterwards on what happened.  Apparently, as soon as she went back upstairs, she saw the creepy patron standing next to her cart, waiting for her to come back so he could talk to her.  Well, that’s what we’re guessing anyway - she wasn’t stupid enough to actually do that.  (Yay for smart pages!)  As soon as she saw where he was, she pivoted on her heel, headed back down the stairs, got another cart of stuff to put away, and went back up with that.  She left her old cart alone, and figured he could guard it all he wanted - she wasn’t going to touch it with a ten-foot pole when he was in the vicinity.

In the meanwhile, there goes Sally, charging up the stairs.  You have to imagine Sally in order to realize how almost funny this whole situation is.  Sally is a tiny woman - both in height and size.  Diminutive is about the best word I can come up for her.  But even though she’s in a small body, there’s no lack of courage in her, and she was bound and determined to make sure us staff were okay.  So off she went to guard us.  Before going up the stairs she held up her emergency pager and said to me, “I have this on me.”

That was her way of reminding me that if she held two buttons down on that pager for just a few seconds, an alarm would sound at the front desk, and that’s the signal for us front desk people to charge to the rescue (or at least call 911.  C’mon, how much courage do you think I have?)

Sally sat down at a table next to the elevator, and proceeded to watch the guy’s every move.  If he made even so much as a twitch in the wrong direction, she was going to intercept him.  To do what, I don’t know - I can’t exactly imagine Sally tackling him.  She’s old, and she’s tiny, and she’s…Well, I just can’t see her tackling people.  Maybe I have a lack of imagination, who knows.  That would be a first for me…

But luckily for all of us, he eventually left without doing anything.  I don’t know if he realized that we were watching him, and that took all the fun out of it, or if he just decided to head out for the night.  But I can say that I was pretty proud of Sally tonight.  She was willing to protect us from this guy, and for a gal who barely comes to my shoulder, that was a pretty big task to take on.

I still haven’t told you guys about the crazy Russian dude who wanted me to have an affair with him, nor the patron who comes in regularly, causes all sorts of problems, and (it turns out) is on the sex offenders list in our state.   Apparently, there is no end to the strange patron stories I have to tell.  Isn’t that just so exciting?

That’s what I thought.  ‘Til tomorrow,

Havs

I ran across another Today.com blog entitled The Librarian.  Delighted, I clicked on it.  How fun that there was another Today blogger who was a librarian!

She related the following story on her site - I’m pasting the most hilarious part below, but follow the link if you want to read the whole thing:

Two years later, she’s still coming in and still asking questions about her future, like we’re some kind of Magic 8 Ball come to life. I mean, I know the sign above the desk says INFORMATION, but that’s not really what it means. Her questions now are more specific, like “Do you think I’ll win $70 million from the lawsuit against my job?” She says she’s suing her boss because he’s mean to her. Or “Do you think I’ll marry a tall Italian man who drives a BMW?”

And while she used to just frown when you said you didn’t know or shrugged, now she gets ANGRY and huffs at you. Oh, yeah and she really hates me because I won’t answer her questions. She asked me not long ago if I liked working at the Library and I told her I did. She wrote me a sweet little note that said I DON’T LIKE YOU WORKING HERE.

Lovely.

I almost snorted my water up my nose when I read this (a hazard of browsing the internet and drinking at the same time). A patron who honestly seemed to think that the reference desk should not only be able to tell her where the atlases are at, but also peer into the future, and tell her what her fate is going to be?  Oh c’mon peoples, you just can’t make this kind of thing up!

I started to think about how, exactly, this was supposed to work. This is what I came up with: What if, after the librarian finishes school, master’s degree proudly in hand, she’s suddenly imbued with a magical ability to read palms and foretell the future?  Switch the tassel from one side of the cap to the other, and BAM! Here comes all of the psychic abilities.

I tell you what, I’m feeling significantly ripped off by the reference desk at my library, because never once has any of them told me what numbers to use when buying a ticket for Powerball, nor accurately foretold even so much as the weather. Hey, they are the “Information” desk - shouldn’t they be able to tell me anything and everything I want to know?

For any of you who are down on your luck, and need a bit of extra cash to make it through, be sure to stop by your local library before hitting your gas station, so you can have your lucky numbers in hand. Give yourself plenty of time though - when word of this spreads, the lines are going to be insane.  Forget the lines at Disneyland - this is so much better than a three minute ride through “It’s a Small World.”  We’re talking months of camping out here.  Black Friday times, like, a million.

Just remember, Almighty Reference Ladies, I was the first to know about this magical power, so you have to help me first.

Hava
Who is off to go plan how she’ll spend her millions of dollars…

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

A couple of weeks ago, I had yet another great experience where I had a strange patron try to hit on me.  I’ve actually only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to these “strange-guy-in-the-library-wants-to-go-on-a-date-with-me” stories.  Aren’t you excited?  I’m thinking of writing a book, “The Day a Weird Patron Hit on Me.  And That Day.  Oh, and Don’t Forget This Day Too.”  It will be a New York Times bestseller, I’m sure.

This particular instance all started when I was on my break out in the stacks, looking for something to read.  As I walked towards the paperback section, I saw a guy ahead of me in tan coveralls (the type that 97% of all farmers in the area wear) walking towards me, but naturally, I didn’t think a thing about it.  When I walked down the aisle and started looking the books over, I felt a presence to my right.

I looked up, and there was the tan overalls guy, standing at the end of the row, blocking the pathway to get back out, and staring right at me.  I instantly felt a little claustrophobic.

“Hi,” he said.

Oh boy.  All of my internal antennas were going haywire.  He was quite a bit older than me (he had a ragged beard with gray streaks in it, so I knew he wasn’t anywhere close to my age) and the tan coveralls told me that he was probably straight off the farm.  I could feel the pressure of his stare on me, and I tried studiously to give him the cold shoulder without being flat-out rude.

“Hi,” I said in a monotone voice, careful not to look at him again.  I was worried that he might interpret me looking at him as a sign of interest, so I kept my eyes straight ahead.  I continued to study the shelves, pretending that nothing could be more engrossing than staring at the spines of books, but inside trying to formulate a plan.  As the minutes ticked by, the guy’s breathing got deeper, and he inched minutely closer.

I have heard that when you are scared and under stress, you tend to miss obvious things that you’d otherwise pick up on.  This experience is testament to that fact.  Afterwards, I realized that I could have gone around the back end of the aisle to get out, but since that was the opposite direction from the main library (and safety), naturally my brain didn’t think of it.  All I knew was that he was in my way of getting out, and was moving closer every minute I hesitated.

I was in panic mode and started conjuring up wild ideas.  I fingered my cell phone in my pocket and thought about calling the front desk to tell them that there was a strange patron up in the stacks who was getting closer to me by the minute, who was staring incessantly at me, and who was blocking my path to get out of this aisle, so can you please come help me? but I figured I could be dead by time I got through to someone.

What about the police?  But then I realized if I called them, they’d take even longer to get to me, and I could be long dead by that point.  I grabbed a book off the shelf and pretended to study the back of it, but instead was wondering how much damage a paperback book could inflict on someone.  What if I pelted him with a bunch of them?

Right then, he finally spoke.

“What’s a pretty lady like you doing in a library on a cold night like this?” he said, his heavy drawl making it difficult to understand him.

I wanted to laugh.  What am I, in a bar?  What kind of a cheesy pick-up line is that, anyway?!

“I work here, and I’m on break,” I said, still pretending to study the shelves.  Still didn’t look up either.

“Oh!” he said.  I could tell he was surprised, and a little taken back by this.  It didn’t deter him from staring however.  As he stared, I mentally reviewed the situation.  I realized that he wasn’t a farmer in off the fields, he was probably homeless.  He had talked strangely, as if he was either mentally slow or had an extremely thick accent, and I was pretty sure that it was the first option.  That meant the danger level just skyrocketed.  A farmer is usually harmless, whereas a mentally slow homeless man could be potentially very dangerous.  My heart rate kicked it up a notch and I felt sweat trickling down my side.

I mentally marked a spot and decided that if he moved in past that spot, I was going to scream bloody murder and hope for the best.  That was my only real option anyway.  Pelting someone with paperback books wasn’t exactly going to do much, and perhaps screaming would scare him off.  There was a larger guy on staff who was working at the reference desk, and I imagined him charging up the stairs to my rescue as I screamed and threw books.

Finally, finally though, the guy wandered off.  Didn’t say anything else - just left and wandered to a different part of the library.  I grabbed a book off the shelf and went and sat down to finish my break.  I was shaky inside, but I just chalked all of it up to my imagination.  After all, the guy hadn’t actually done anything.  He didn’t try to grab me, he didn’t say any lewd comments, he didn’t expose himself to me, and he certainly didn’t try to kill me.  I went back to work, convinced that I had made a mountain out of a molehill.

I laughed with Tiffy, my coworker, as I described the scene to her, and then again with Gennifer.  The patron had left, and I figured that we had seen the end of that.

Except he came back again, and started wandering out in the stacks.  Worried, I pulled the page aside (a page is the person who goes out into the stacks with books and reshelves them) and told her to be careful with this patron.

“Oh yeah, he came yesterday evening and watched me and Chauncy [the other page] work for quite a while.  He just stood and stared at us as we put books away.  He’s creepy.”

The story got around, and pretty soon, the second in command at the library came over to me and gave me a tongue lashing.  It was several hours after the incident, and she was only now hearing about it?  Whoops.  Apparently, if weird guys stalk you while out in the stacks, the boss wants to hear about it right away, not two hours later, and certainly not secondhand.  Who knew?

Well, I do now - in fact, I know it quite well by now, because the director of the library gave it to me again the next morning, and my immediate boss gave it to me the day after that.  The next time a strange guy starts breathing heavy and staring at me, I will definitely know to get to the nearest supervisor and tell her all about it, believe me.  I have done some pretty dumb things while employed at the library, but this is the only time that I have ever been lectured about something three separate times by three separate bosses.  This made me realize how much they care about my safety, which is touching.

I could probably do without the lectures, but I s’pose when I stop deserving them is when they’ll stop giving them.

Oh, and the guy came back one more time, but has since disappeared.  We’re thinking he’s moved on to another town.  But if he does comes back, you can be sure I’ll scream nice and loud.

Havs

Before I get into what will surely be a cosmic-bending, mind-opening new post (as they all are, right?) I wanted to tell those of you who read my “Only Women Will Understand This Post” post that I now have an update on what I think the relationship is.  Be sure to check out the comment section and scroll all the way down to my comment, where I lay out my newest theory.

For the rest of you who actually have a life, here’s the cosmic-bending, mind-opening post as promised:

Umm………

What, you actually expected something like that?  You do realize what blog you’re on, right?

And in other news, I have to tell you guys about one of the strangest patrons our library has ever been graced with.  We have self-centered patrons, rude and mean patrons, and of course, just-this-side-of-the-loony-bin patrons.  This patron is of the loony-bin persuasion.

She started out normal enough.  She came in every day to use the computer, which we have quite a few patrons who do that.  Over time, she started telling us about how controlling and horrible her boyfriend was.  Sympathetic, we all listened to her complaints and naturally took her side.

Then one day, she came in with a little stuffed cow (think Beanie Baby - check out the picture I took this morning with my camera to see this little guy in all his glory) and told us that her boyfriend told her that she couldn’t keep all of her stuffed animals anymore - that she had to give some away.  She thought that she could give us one, and we’d take “good care of it.”  With as straight of faces as we could manage, we promised to take good care of the cow.  We took it and put it on a counter, where it sits to this day.

She named the cow (of course!) and told us that we had to make sure to pet Herman the Cow and feed it often.  At this point, I started to get more than a little weirded out by her.  She does realize that it is just a small stuffed animal, right?

Then one day she said that it was Herman’s birthday a couple of days later, so she was going to help celebrate it by bringing us all donuts.  Bribed into playing along (we’re an easy bribe, what can I say?) we agreed to help celebrate his birthday.  (Question of the Day: How does she know when he came off the assembly line?  Or does she instead count the day she bought him as his birthday?  Inquiring minds want to know.)

She made us promise to feed Herman a donut if she brought them in for us, and we all solemnly swore we’d do so.  I missed the day of the celebration, so I’m not sure what all happened there (perhaps one of my coworkers wouldn’t mind leaving info in the comment section about it…?)

As time went by, she got stranger and stranger  (I know you don’t think it’s possible, but she did).  When she came in, she’d talk to Herman as she was signing up for the computer.

“Are they treating you okay here?  Are you getting enough carrots?” in a baby talk tone of voice usually reserved for infants.  Then she’d interrogate us on how we were treating him.  I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

Not convinced that we were doing a good enough job of keeping Herman company, she brought in a stuffed cat on a rug so they could sit together and not be lonely.  Dutifully, we took the cat and placed it right next to Herman, where it has sat ever since.  (As you can see in the picture above, Kiki the Cat is nicely keeping Herman company.  Good Kiki.)

She has told me several times that her boyfriend won’t allow her to keep all of her stuffed animals, and can’t stand the way she treats them.  Although this boyfriend certainly sounds like a loser in some aspects, I can’t help but agree with him wholeheartedly on the whole stuffie business.  She is in her 40’s, I would guess, but treats these stuffed animals better than some people treat their children.

If you can see in the lower right-hand corner of the picture, there is a yellow note taped to the counter.  That is the instructions she gave us on how to take care of Herman the Cow (namely, he likes carrots and celery.)  It also has Kiki’s name on it, plus Herman’s birthday, so we can be sure to never forget that important piece of information.  Lucky us.

Because I’m not very good at keeping a straight face when she starts her baby talk with Herman, I try my best not to ever be the one to wait on her at the counter.  I don’t want to hurt the lady’s feelings, so if I do get stuck helping her, I umm and ahh my way through it until she leaves and I can go into the back and laugh.

Crazy is as crazy does.  Or something like that.

Hava