Conference Week: Day 1

(Reconstruction of Eaten Blog Entry, with a big thanks to Phil and Sam for sending me the original pre-chewed feed which I've now reincorporated)

Today is the first day of our state's "liberry" association conference, taking place in a resort hotel up in the northern part of the state somewhere.

Am I going? No.

Do I want to go? No.

Are me and Mrs. J the only staff members in house today? Yes.

Am I wearing shoes appropriate to a 10 hour shift? No. (These Skechers tend to start biting after about four hours. My feet are screwed, but it's my own fault.)

Am I anticipating "liberry" goodness/badness to shortly ensue? Hey, it's 10 hours in the crazy house here. Of course there's going to be standard issue "liberry" activity, both good and bad.

8:54 a.m.-- a full six minutes before we open, I get a phone call asking to speak to Mrs. C. I have a feeling that the phrase "I'm sorry, she's out of town at a conference for the rest of the week" will leave my mouth several thousand times today.

9:24-- Yet another call, this time for Mrs. A.

9:44-- And we have our first Rogue sighting of the day as Mr. Smiley comes in. He brings Mrs. Smiley with him. Mmm, that's some grumpy old people goodness for your ass.

9:58-- More people phoning for Mrs. A.

10:06-- We get our first computer patrons of the day. Two at once. Unrelated.

10:10-- Mrs. J informs me that some mischief-minded turd-blossom has removed the bolts that hold the back guard-rail portion of our rolling step-ladder in place. As a result, she nearly tumbled ass over teakettle off the top of it while trying to shelve a book. That's right, Mrs. J might have been killed because some asshat kid thought it would be funny to use his dad's leatherman to unscrew the bolts. The culprit seems to have stolen the bolts as well. Now I have to go put a sign on it telling patrons to stay the hell off of it before someone else tries to take a header.

10:11-- Someone comes in looking for Mrs. A.

10:15-- One of our board of directors, Mrs. Day, calls to say she's going to come in to sign checks and is on her way. This doesn't actually mean she's on her way. This means at some point during business hours today she'll roll in, probably at an inopportune moment, and will likely give me shit about having to come in and sign the paychecks two full days early, like I'm twisting her arm and forcing her to come in. SHE CALLED ME!

10:22-- A patron asks if we're closed tomorrow because of Toyota. I say, "No, it's Veteran's Day. What about Toyota?" He explains that Toyota will be filming a car commercial along mainstreet in Town-A, just down the hill from the library. They're apparently going to close off the entire area for traffic throughout the day. Good thing we won't be open.

11:34--Mrs. Day comes in to sign checks, several hours earlier than I expected. She doesn't even give me any crap, though she does have an ILL request for a book that does not exist in the entire state system.

12:40 p.m.-- I see a crabby looking lady trying unsuccessfully to put her books into our locked after hours book drop box out front. She must know that books that actually make it into the box are considered fine free, because when she finally brings them in I see that they are 89 days overdue.

12:51-- We're having surprisingly low traffic today. We did 169 checkouts yesterday, which is a busy day for us. I was expecting a patron flood since I'm the only guy manning the building. We've actually been able to search the shelves for overdues and mail the notices out, though. Ooh, that reminds me to remove Mrs. 89 Days overdue notice from the pile before we waste 37 cents on her.

12:55-- Parka makes his first appearance of the day. Oddly, he's not clad in his namesake parka despite how cold it actually is outside.

12:56-- I go to sign Parka on a computer. I have to wait for it to reboot from the ground up, cause the last user shut it down rather than just logging off. While I wait, two clients from the Unobstructed Doors Mental Health Assistance Organization come in and their aid heads them right for the restroom. One of them cuts a fart that is impossible to ignore. (*I will not let Parka see me laughing at the handicapped... I will not let Parka see me laughing at the handicapped* )

1:45-- After nearly half an hour of circulation silence, I attempt to eat my lunch. Staff lunches are an odd phenomenon here. No matter what time we decide to eat, as soon as food is unwrapped and begun to be consumed, the patron floodgates open up and we're suddenly swamped. Food presence also tends to act as a magnet for one or more of our board members to come in—usually the one who thinks it's just horrible that the staff eats at the circulation desk in front of God and everybody. Hey, once we get the new library built and actually have a break room we can move the party somewhere else. Right now it's either the picnic table outside in the cold or Mrs. A's tiny office or the restroom. Of course, the moment I unburped the lid of my salad container today, the front door started swingin'.

1:50-- Parka comes up to complain that the internet is slow. He's enlisted the testimony of a fellow internet crowd member to back up his claim. Naturally, he assumes I have the power to do something about it. I don't, but I go reboot his computer for him anyway. He's lucky I don't go into a diatribe about how slow things USED to be a year and a half ago, back when we had dialup speed instead of cushy DSL.

2:18-- The Toyota crew evidently thinks our nearly post-Autumn town isn't foliated enough for them. Patrons have come in and mentioned that the crew is downtown in a cherry picker attaching leaves to the bare trees in front of city hall. From our side window, I can see them doing this.

2:43-- A female patron returns eight John Grisham and Patty Cornhole books on tape all of which are in horrible condition, are 61 days late and some of which are missing tapes. The cardboard cases look as though she sat on them repeatedly. She fesses up to one of the tapes being missing, but I detect others. Her husband—who looks exactly like you'd imagine Hagrid's younger brother might—unleashes two very loud open-mouthed sneezes with barely an "excuse me."

2:55-- Parka returns for his second appearance. He's evidently waiting for a specific e-mail.

3:00-- Like a big ol' coward who is only scheduled to work til 3p, Mrs. J flees the building leaving me by myself for the rest of the day.

3:25-- Blogger EATS this entry and I have to reconstruct it from the ground up. Thanks guys.

3:27-- Shortly after discovering this, the circ desk becomes awash in patrons. A lady is irritated that she can't seem to log on from home into the practice test service we offer on our website. The community college library has told her she needs to come to us for the password. I explain that we don't have a password for it. The old testing system used to use the patron's library card number for it, but I don't think that's how it works anymore. She claims she's tried that, but can't actually demonstrate for me how poorly this works for her because she has—all together now—forgotten her library card. She's fed up with the site and with me. Her attitude and the fact that blog entry was just eaten, is pissing me off. I tell her that Mrs. A and Mrs. C, the two people with definitive answers for her, are out until Monday.

"So, what, I'm out of luck until next week?" she says.

"Not if I can figure it out for you now," I say.

She starts ranting at me again. While she's busy with that, I load the practice test site on the circ computer and see that it clearly does NOT require a library card to access, but simply and clearly asks the patron to choose a username and password of their own. Once I've told her this, she suddenly remembers what her username and password are, logs into the system and is now in love with me that I've solved her problem.

3:37-- Someone phones for Mrs. A. Turns out the caller was already fully aware that Mrs. A is out of town at the library conference, she just thought she'd call anyway. In fact, the phones will NOT. STOP. RINGING. I can't even hang it up from the two calls I've just taken back to back without another coming in.

4:15-- Dadgum, I wish I had a big stool to sit on. Stupid Skechers!

4:34-- Our first call of the day asking what time we close. Whoo hooo, take a drink!

5:05-- And the world comes to the library. For 20 minutes straight, we're slammed. And when does the circ computer decide that it's going to take a break and completely freeze up? Oh, only when there's suddenly a line four patrons deep, two of whom want new library cards. I beat the computer into submission.

5:30-- Man my legs are hurting. Okay. Fine. I'll sit down.

5:48-- I call a patron about a book she has on hold. Unfortunately, she had just been in half an hour earlier so I should have given it to her then. I hate it when I do that.

6:03-- By pure chance, I spy Chester the (Potential) Molester parking in our half-hour parking and then lurking into the darkness toward the community college. From what we're told by the college's librarian, Mr. Rob, Chester's been racking up quite the reputation around there too. The only good thing about that is that at least the girls there are of consenting age.

6:32-- Half an hour to go. We've had very little traffic at all for the past thirty minutes. I think I'll vacuum.

6:51-- Already finished my end of the day duties. One last patron (who I like) is left to go. My 10 hour shift is nearly over. I plan to go home, eat whatever delicious meal my wife has prepared, and completely skip church choir practice. (The choir director is just gonna make me stand up.)

Shite! I hear a car!

Ahhh... False alarm.

6:59-- That's a wrap. Wow... a whole day with both Mrs. A and Mrs. C gone and no call from Mr. Kreskin. I would have had money riding on that one if there was anyone around to bet with.

7:00 p.m.-- I don my coat and exit stage right. (After craftily deleting my saved reconstruction file and browser history, of course.)

Patty Cornhole and the Brimstone Clue

Mrs. A and Mrs. C were both out today, so Mrs. B and I split the day up between us with me opening. I must say, it was one of the easier shifts I've ever done. Even Mr. Kreskin failed to call despite the absence of Mrses. A & C. (I have no doubt he probably called to plague Mrs. B at some point today, though.)

I spent much of the time cross-checking our book database with the printed report concerning books of ours that are allegedly lost to the sands of time... (BEGIN BORING TECHNICAL LIBRARY BIT THAT YOU MAY FEEL FREE TO SKIP IN CASE YOU JUST WANT TO READ ABOUT MY MOST RECENT ENCOUNTER WITH MRS. CAROL SATAN) These are books that were checked out on our old VTLS system, before we moved to the new Millennium system, and may or may not have been returned to us in the intervening time. If they were returned, they've likely been checked out again in the last five months. If not, they will likely be missing from the shelves. Regardless, we have to look in the record for each book in question to find evidence of their status. If they've circulated in the last five months, we check them off the list as books we probably still have. If they haven't circulated we go look on the shelf for them and if they're not there we delete them. Fortunately, our paper record also contains the names of the patrons who last had each book, so maybe we can find them in the new system and put the hurt on them. I'd be happy to undertake such a lengthy and potentially fruitless task, just cause I have an overdeveloped sense of library justice. (END BORING TECHNICAL LIBRARY BIT)

So I'm searching away when a female patron approaches the circ counter. I'm so engrossed that I don't even look up at her right away. I just notice her peripherally and say, "Can I help you?"

"Could you put me down for the new Patricia Cornwell?" the patron said, sliding a book across the counter for return.

Ahh, Patty Cornhole, I thought. We meet again.

Having never actually read any of her fiction, I can't say that I really have anything against Patricia Cornwell. (I do kind of question her logic in blindly rejecting all previous research as to the identity of the real Jack the Ripper in favor of her somewhat forced view of it in her big non-fiction Jack the Ripper expose book from a couple years back. I didn't read much of that book either, but read enough to see that she didn't agree with the major points raised by Alan Moore in his graphic novel FROM HELL, nor with the research of other prominent Ripper-ologists. The New York Times book review of her tome was pretty scathing on this point.) However, despite having no real animosity toward her, I do think it's terribly funny to call her Patty Cornhole all the same. And it's especially fun to call her Patty Cornhole in a cheesy overly enunciated announcer voice, just like the guy who does I LOVE THE 90'S. Of course, I don't do this around the patrons.

Naturally, this particular as yet unseen female patron didn't know the title of Patty Cornhole's book, and since I haven't bothered to pay enough attention to Patty Cornhole's recent releases to know off hand, I had to look it up. It's called Trace. I mentally noted this, then scanned the barcode of the patron's returned book to bring up her account from which I could access the hold screen. At the same time that I scanned the book, my nose finally clued in that I'd been smelling something smoky and awful for the past half minute. It seemed familiar and in a bad way, but I didn't place it right away. I brought up the hold screen and added Trace to her list of books there.

"Do you need my card?" she asked.

Technically, I'm supposed to ask for it, but it's just as easy to bring up her record if she's already returning a book I can scan anyway. I explained this to the patron, still not looking at her. Then my eyes happened to fall on the Patron Name field of her record. It read: Mrs. Carol Satan. Only then did I finally look up at the woman herself and see that, yes, indeed it was her, standing there like the kiss of death. Actually, she wasn't quite as bad as the Kiss of Death. The Kiss of Something Foul to be certain, but not Death. In fact, Mrs. Carol Satan looked downright nice. Her hair was stylishly cut and she was dressed in a very pleasant ensemble and looked for all the world as though she were headed out to a nice restaurant or perhaps even to church. Sure, she wasn't actively smiling, but she was also not actively breathing fire and gnawing the heads off of infants, so it was a toss up as to her actual mood. I might not have even recognized her if she hadn't brought in a thick cloud of her usual stench of Brimstone and cigarettes. (They say smell is the sense tied closest to memory, but some memories are just too horrible and must be suppressed, so it's no wonder I didn't pick her up on radar earlier.)

What really burned me about this situation, though, is that by not paying attention to who she was in the first place, I had inadvertently been far nicer to her than I might otherwise have been. If I'd realized this was Mrs. Carol Satan in the first place, I would never have been so kind as to put her book on hold sans her "liberry" card. I'd have made her search through all the cigarette butts I imagine are clogging her purse and dig that sucker out. What's worse, now I've set a precedent in her head that she doesn't need her card for all transactions, which will surely come back to bite us in the ass in the future. My only real comfort is that she doesn't usually come in on days that I work, and it's only because I was filling in on this particular Tuesday that I saw her at all. When she bites in the future, she'll bite someone else. (Course, she'll likely bite Mrs. A or Mrs. C, who will then in turn bite me back later.)

Superfreak!

We've officially had our first complete patron freak-out about the new library cards. I only wish I had been there to witness it first hand.

Let's call the superfreak patron in question Rick James, just to establish a theme and for no better reason than I happened to see the real Rick James on a rerun of the Surreal Life a few nights ago. Our Rick James is a guy about my age who, being the wrong race to begin with, of course looks nothing like the real Rick James. In fact, he looks kind of up-tight most of the time. As far as his patronage goes, he's actually only an intermittent patron at best, coming in only once or twice a month, sometimes skipping several months on a stretch. Even with infrequent visits, though, Rick James has skirted the edges of Rogue status on a couple of occasions in the past.

For instance, Rick James is a big fan of our books on tape. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen him check out an actual, honest-to-God book from us before. So, one time Rick James checked out one of our books on tape and managed to break one of the tapes. Mind you, this would have been okay with us, as we know that the tapes do break due to the constant wear and tear. We wouldn't have even made him pay for it. However, Rick James not only broke the tape but then tried to repair it on his own. I don't know how exactly he did this, but images of glue and nails come into my head whenever I think about it. In the end, he failed miserably at the repair job, screwed the tape up even more than it had been, then returned it to us. He explained what he'd done and suggested we could probably do a better repair job than he did. I wanted to say, "So could most paraplegic rhesus monkeys," but refrained from doing so.

Now, that's certainly annoying. However, Rick's actual claim to fame is his utter refusal to check anything out on his own card. Ever. It's not that he's even a Seefile or anything--he just refuses to use his own card.

On the first several occasions that I had to deal with him, I would ask his name so I could look up his record, as per our old VTLS system and library policy. Rick James would just shake his head at me and tell me to put it on the card of his girlfriend. Rick's girlfriend, Gladys Knight, used to come in with him fairly often and they always checked their items out on her card then too. I figured it was therefore an authorized move and began putting his books on her card when he was in solo; and it was cool with her. Sure, it was odd, but we didn't care if he used her card so long as she was okay with it. And Rick James was far from the only person to exclusively use someone else's card. Several male patrons used to use their wife's card, which we just chalked up to laziness on their part. With Rick there turned out to be another reason.

For the past several months, Rick and Gladys have seriously cut back on their visits. If I'd thought much about them, I might have assumed they'd moved, but I don't so I didn't. Rick just suddenly popped up again a couple months back, causing me to think, "Oh, yeah, the book-on-tape-won't-use-his-own-card guy. I remember him." And, of course, Rick also returned to checking out more books on tape to Gladys's patron record.

Neither Rick nor Gladys have been in for the past four weeks since we upgraded to our new circulation software system, however. That is until last week when both of them stopped by.

(Again, I only WISH I had been there, so most of the following dialogue is paraphrased from second hand information.)

After bringing their book on tape selections to the circ desk, Miss E told Gladys that she would need one of our new library cards before she could check out. No prob for Gladys Knight--she's easy-going. She even had her old card with her, proving she's a responsible patron. Miss E then asked Rick if he needed one too.

"No, I'll just use hers," Rick James said.

Sorry, but no. We no longer allow patrons to share cards like that. You'll need one of your very own.

Rick James grumbled and griped at this, but went over and started filling out a new card application all the same. It didn't take him long to find something to whine about.

"Hey, why do you need my driver's license number? Do I have to give that?"

Yes, you do.

"But why?"

All of our patrons have to have a unique ID number so we chose a driver's license number since most people have them.

"How come?"

Because we need to be able to tell patrons with the same name apart.

Naturally, Rick didn't like that one little bit.

"This is just the government!" he said. "The government is trying to get this information and keep tabs on what we're reading. Your new system probably keeps a record of everything we read!"

Now first off, the government ALREADY HAS everyone's driver's license information. After all, drivers licenses are issued by THE GOVERNMENT in the first place.  Secondly, our system does NOT keep records of everything our patrons have read. Some patrons wish that it did, because they can't manage to keep track of what they've read by themselves and wish we could tell them so they didn't keep checking out the same Patty Cornhole book. But, no, we don't keep patron book records. Even with the new circulation system, we only have the ability to see who the last patron to check out any given book was, and this is for purposes of tracking down patrons who might have allowed their dog to have a bite of a book should we wish them to pay for it. It's hardly a grand scheme of the Homeland Security Conspiracy, but there was no telling this to Rick James.

About this time, Mrs. C stood up from her computer where she'd been listening to Rick James's ranting.

"It's not the government," she told him. "We have nothing to do with the government." (Well, outside of a miniscule amount of funding.) "And we don't store records of what patrons read."

Mrs. C then explained that the drivers license number was necessary to differentiate Rick James from any other Rick Jameses who might be patrons of one of the libraries in the surrounding consortium counties, (or indeed the real Rick James). We're in essence trying to protect our patrons from having other people with the same name check things out on their card, saddling them with the bill if the items aren't returned.

Rick tried to grumble some more about this but relented after Gladys told him it made perfect sense to her. He finally put his license number down and turned in his application to Miss E.

As she was typing it in, Miss E noted that Rick's listed address was a post office box.

Sorry, if your mailing address is a post office box, we'll need a physical address as well.

This is what ignited the powder keg.

"You need a physical address?!! You need a physical address?!! Why would you need a physical address?!!" Rick was really starting to shout, getting far more angry than necessary.

Mrs. C stepped in again and tried to explain that people change post office boxes and telephone numbers all the time and we really have to have a backup method of contacting patrons when we need to.

"But why would you need a physical address?!!" Rick continued to shout, ignoring everything she had just said. It was like his brain was stuck in a loop and just kept repeating, Why would you need a physical address? Why would you need a physical address? over and over, drowning out all explanation to the contrary.

Then a new voice entered the fray. Our head librarian, Mrs. A had come downstairs just before Rick's tantrum began, had witnessed it and now she was having no more of it.

"Now look here!" Mrs. A said. Rick immediately stopped grousing and looked here. Mrs. A marched up to him and said, "The reason we need your physical address is so we'll know where to send the sheriff when you don't bring our books back!"

I love Mrs. A.

Rick didn't have much of a defense for that, but he still had a fallback position: "But why do you need a driver's license number?!"

"Because we don't want anyone getting more than one library card in our system. And if we require a unique ID number like a drivers license we can stop people from getting multiple cards."

"But why..."

"No. Let me explain," Mrs. A said. "Before we put this system into place, there was a patron in another county who got five different library cards from five different libraries with five fake home addresses. She then checked out ALL the arts and crafts books from those libraries and has now disappeared with them. Thousands of dollars worth of books are gone because we didn't require proof of ID to get a library card. Now that we require the drivers license number, if we try to make a new patron record and type that license number in, any existing records with that number will pop up automatically and we won't issue the patron another card."

"But why do you need a physical address?"

Yes, indeedy, Rick had waited through all that just to default to But why do you need a physical address? once again. There was just no talking to him.

Gladys Knight went ahead and accepted her new library card, but Rick James refused to supply the necessary information for his and left saying he'd do it some other time. Our guess is he'll try to go to another area library and see if he can sneak past security measures there. He's not the only one. We've already discovered another guy who has already managed to get two cards at other area libraries by telling them that he has no driver's license or state ID. He also supplies them with faulty contact information, which is why it's important for libraries to follow policy and demand to see some form of identification, if only a current bill and a photo-id. We've now got a "liberry" APB out on that guy and have just added Rick James to the watch list as well.

The Rick James situation, however, does put me in mind of another patron and former almost-rogue who, coincidentally enough, I was already in the process of composing an entry for....

Joey's New Show is Gonna Suck Too

We're still not Friends with the new Millennium software system yet.

I think most of the problem stems from our ignorance at how we can adjust the system to Not Quite So Annoying mode from the Pretty Damn Consistently Annoying mode it's currently in.

We can't seem to make it stop printing whenever we perform ANY normal function with it. Check out a book, it prints a slip. Renew a book, it prints a slip. Put a book on hold, it prints a slip. (And while I'm using the term "slip" what I really mean is "a full 8.5" by 11" piece of paper with a slip-sized print at the top of it.)

Oh, we can uncheck the little box that says PRINT SLIP and make it stop temporarily, but that box never stays unchecked for long. In fact, it rechecks itself to PRINT SLIP if you do pretty much ANYTHING and suddenly the printer starts shitting out slips again. Actually, if it only shit out the slips that wouldn't be so bad. (It might even be useful at shutting the whine-holes of some of our patrons who moved here from big cities where their libraries gave them an itemized printout of all their books with every checkout, and where they were served pastries and tea and had a frickin' Starbucks in the reference hall.)  Instead, the printer shits out BOTH a slip AND a damned cover page for each slip that tells us it just printed a slip. No kidding? REALLY? A slip you say? Damn, I'm glad you used a whole piece of paper to tell me, cause I wouldn't have noticed it among the 500 other pages the printer's shat in the last hour!

Occasionally we are able to convince the infernal thing to stop printing on a more lengthy basis, but we never know exactly how we've done it when we do. See the thing comes with more than one PRINT SLIP box to check and we think they ALL have to be checked, cause if you do only one of them it just rechecks itself when your back is turned. Another method is to shut Millennium down and bring it back up again. A box comes up that mentions something about printing capabilities and you can tell it "HELL NO." This is all very inconvenient because our circ computer is so slow that it literally takes 8 minutes to reboot, during which time the computer cannot be used for anything else. It's also merely a temporary measure, cause as soon as we really DO need to print something, say a book hold request slip, the computer assumes you want it to print EVERYTHING once again and starts doing so with gusto.

We know there has to be a way to get it to print only when we specifically request it. Our librarians are hesitant to call our state tech guys to ask, though, because: A) the tech's are busy as hell with all the other libraries calling to ask why the system keeps freezing up or eating patron records or losing its ability to search books by barcode or smoking cigarettes in the restroom and horking sandwiches from the staff fridge, etc.; and B) because we have no faith that the tech guys truly know any more about it than we do. Many of the other libraries seem to take this same attitude, which is why they call us when they have questions. Naturally, these questions tend to land painfully in my crotch.

THEM ON PHONE: Hey, Juice, this computer isn't letting us check a book out to this patron and it keeps telling us we can't access its Booginfroondle Record using that number, cause it's invalid, but we're not using that number and we don't want to access its Booginfroondle Record in the first place, we just want to check out a Patty Cornhole book to them. How do I fix that?

ME: (*THROWS UP HANDS*) Pshht! Ya got me. Have you tried turning it off and rebooting?