Conan the Librarian

I'm taking a class on Intellectual Freedom this semester, and it's pretty interesting, even if all of the legal case study stuff does make my head spin, and even if it is urging the paranoia to new and amazing levels. What it's also doing is making me acutely aware of everywhere my library fails at intellectual freedom, whether you're talking about removing materials from the shelves on the basis of personal values, or protecting patron privacy. Really, it's entertaining to watch my classmates and professors stare at me, mouths agape, when I sigh and raise my hand again when we're asked if anyone has any experience in a particular issue.

Anyhow, the point of this is that I hate patrons who don't believe me when I tell them something. Last week we had the Girl Scouts using our atrium to run their sign-ups and information sessions. They were allowed to do this because we have a policy in place that allows groups to make use of our space for public meetings and the like. Also explicit in the policy is that the library does not endorse groups merely by allowing them the use of the space. I'd say that implicit in that statement is that we don't maintain flyers or do the jobs of the people who made use of the space, since we don't have anything to do with them really.

Yet when I tell a woman that no, I do not have the registration forms for the Girl Scouts, and no, I will not take her name or her daughter's name and contact the local representative for her, she continues to PUSH PUSH PUSH. Apparently she thought that if she kept asking me if I'd do it, I'd change my mind and sign her daughter up for the Girl Scouts. Never mind that I have nothing to do with them. I finally got her to believe me, but it took some doing.

So while my library fails on a lot of levels when it comes to the issues pertaining to intellectual freedom, when it comes to library neutrality concerning outside groups making use of the space? We're okay. Even if the patrons don't give a shit.

Ooh boy, it's been a long time since I posted. I blame the monotony here, and the fact that all of the problems and annoyances have been blurring together into month after month of unreasonable attitude and shrill demands. And the ever-present birds. I know I've mentioned it countless times but really, I hate them. And naming one a "funny" name after a local mob boss? Yeah, you're super clever for getting the joke. Now shut up.

Anyhow, today has been impressive. It started with the guy who wanted to show his sixth grade daughter MySpace, then ranted on: computer filters, the state of the local school system, how we should abolish DDC in libraries, how we should abolish fines for children's books and let them keep the books however long they want, the problems with how laws are filed, and a few other topics I think I managed to block from memory.

Then there was the kid printing walkthroughs and item guides for a video game. We charge five cents per page for anything that's not for school. One 74 page document later the kid realized he only had 3.50 with him. He had already sent a 38 page document, a 12 page document, an 11 page document, and finally a 314 page document to print. That's $22.45. I got it to stop about five pages into the 38 pager, then the others started and I got it to stop 5 pages into the 314. Then I told him to stop wasting our paper and go buy a guide. It'd be cheaper.

A note to all summer camps out there:

If you book a visit for your campers, please tell the counsellors what you booked them for. If you don't tell them that you booked them for a tour and storytime then they come in thinking they're just going to look around. Likewise, if you tell them you just booked them to come in and look around they sometimes come in expecting a tour and a storytime, which we can't always do.

Oh, and it's nice to tell us that you're coming so we can avoid having six groups in the room at the same time, all demanding the attention of the one librarian at the desk who has no coverage because no one knew six groups were coming. Thanks.

My newest pet peeve is those stupid sneakers with the wheels built in. I think they're call Heelies, and I hate them. Mostly I hate them because both parents and kids seem to think that they don't fall under the category of "roller skates, inline skates, or skateboards" none of which are allowed to be used inside the building. So the kids go gliding around the room, usually out of control, because they're un uneven stone or they're on carpet, neither of which are the best surface for skating. When we ask them not to use the wheels indoors, both parents and kids usually look at us like we're the biggest jerks on the planet.

After watching three kids in a row almost go head first over chairs because they weren't looking where they were rolling in time to stop themselves, I think it's a justifiable request.

The best are the ones who say "I wasn't using them!" Which is always a blatanly obvious lie, since they just went coasting past the desk.

My other peeve today is a grown woman who, when asked to leave her coffee at the desk, instead put it down on the floor. Where it can more easily be kicked over to soak into our carpet. Grr.

So many things to rant about, since I've been bad and not ranted for ever so long. Coworker woes, computer woes, patron woes, etc.

Last night some guy mooned the entire circulation staff in a lame (and nasty) attempt to end an argument he was losing about having to pay late fees.

Today I had to tell two 12 year old boys not to wrestle on the floor of the reference room, twice.

One of my erstwhile classmates from GSLIS is applying for a recently-opened reference position here and actually said to me "Oh just look at you! Acting like a real librarian!" Hi, bitch, I've been here for five years as a "real librarian". Kiss my ass. I'm quite certain she's never worked in public service, so this should be fun to watch.

Speaking of that reference position, dude, I wanted that job. I'm sick of this room. I'm especially sick of the animatronic animal things that sing, which my coworkers keep putting on the desk for kids to set off over and over and over and over again.

And the 200s section of Dewey can suck a big one. Thanks.

Last, but not least: If the program details say "Ages 13 and up" then don't act so surprised when I tell you that your 10 year old cannot register for the program.

That's about it for now. I'll try to keep the stories coming at a more regular rate, cause goodness knows I've got tons.

And the winner for best phone call of my career so far:

Me: Hello [name of library and department], how can I help you?
Man: Is this the public library?
Me: Yes it is. What can I do for you?
Man: The name J - O - H - A - N - N - A yes, complete with huge pauses, is that a male or a female?
Me: With an A on the end that's Johanna, and a female.
Man: You're sure.
Me: Yep.
Man: Okay, thank you.

Why do I think he meant to call Reference, not me?

You don't know DDC. You don't know the room's layout. So STOP INTERRUPTING ME while I try to tell you where your book is. Every guess you make is WRONG because you don't know what you're talking about, so please kindly knock it the fuck off.

The next time some parent asks why we don't leave out crayons for kids to color with I will regale them with the story of how I came in today to find a black crayon on the floor of the story room. Then I will tell them about how I looked up and saw our whiteboard easel, which we use for holding big books, or for doing word games with the older kids, covered with black crayon scribbling. And when I say 'covered' I mean that there was more black than white showing. The easel's surface is roughly 20"x23" so that's a good bit of space to clean off.

Y'know, black crayon is really hard to get off of a whiteboard. It took me 40 minutes with an art eraser to rub it mostly off. Then another 10 or so after minutes of brushing off the eraser dust, rubbing off the lingering smears, because wax smears on whiteboard. It was a mess. And now my hand and arm hurt from the erasing. Grr.

This is why we don't leave crayons out. Eventually the crayons make their way away from the tables and out into the rest of the room, and then it's only a matter of time before they're used to draw on things that shouldn't be drawn on.

A note to any teachers who might be reading:

1. I am not a reference tool. I am a guide to reference tools. Consider me meta-reference for your students. This means that when you give them assignments that ask questions such as "What does a boa constrictor look like?" I will show them a book with a photo of a boa constrictor. I will not describe the animal to them. This also means that you need to explain that we do not write papers or assignments for the children. They are expected to do their own work. Shocking, I know.

2. It helps me and my coworkers when you actually give a child an assignment sheet or a syllabus with the assignment guidelines on it. When you write them out on the board we then have to contend with inaccurate, illegible, and often imaginary guidelines in order to help your students. I know it makes more paper clutter, and it would be nice if your students could learn to accurately copy down information, but ultimately it simply undermines the point of the assignment when the child doesn't know what he/she is supposed to be doing.

3. When giving a biography assignment on a particular group/profession, it's nice to use accurate terminology, as opposed to buzzwords. "Groundbreaker" is not a term used by the Library of Congress to describe a group of people. When your seventh grade students cannot even define the term to me in such a way that I can figure out who qualifies and who does not, it is a useless term. If your intention is to have the students look through a group of people to choose a single subject as part of the assignment process, then narrowing the field to something smaller than "people who did something important" might help.

4. While I appreciate that our homework alert form on our website is being used, notifying us of typical assignments such as state or country reports is not really a priority. An assignment requiring three different media types for a giant poster on an endangered animal found in South America would be a good example of something we'd like to know about ahead of time.

Today the patrons at my library reached new lows.

The most stunning example:

A man who gave his secretary a note which read "Call library for book Ports & Harbors, checked out in [Town], can they get it?"

Of course, NO we CAN'T! Because we're the only town that has it and it's OUT! And asking the secretary (who read the note to me when I answered the phone, not bothering to say hello or anything) about the project that the book was for yielded very slim results. It took a while before I could even get it out of her that she was calling for her boss.

Then she transferred me to him. He was useless too. His 4th grade son had to make a model of a harbor. They have pictures and info from another library they spent a whole day in over the weekend. They just wanted "more harbor facts".

Right, I'm going to get a secretary to call up my grad school library and requst books for me.