Security gate woes
Our security gate has been stepping up it's war against me. It has recruited some students to slowly break my will. It was bad enough when it'd just go off. It would beep and then lock. There isn't anyone around, no books to pass through. It could be some ghost or poltergeist. It's a better explanation than what the security company told us. Sometimes these things happen. I keep a record of these assaults on my sanity. Well, for later. You never know.... Not much I can do about the students. The one that stands out is the woman who tried to return her books. She attempted to leave the library to place all her books in the book drop on the outside of the library. In order to return books to the library. With staff at the desk waiting to help her. She explains that she wants to return her books. Okay. We unlock the gate and she tries again to leave to return her books!!!!!Finally I just tell her leave them. Labels: returning books, sanity assaults, security gate
Sad case
Had a student come to my office to "help" her. She had been in the previous day and been helped by someone and apparantly that help didn't stick. Anyway, she didn't have a copy of a book needed for her class. The bookstore was backordered. Anyway, she was quite upset that the only copy of the book on campus was in our reserves collection (for that class). Apparantly, this "wasn't fair" that it was on reserve because she needed it.
Interruptions
I just love it when I'm trying to help someone and they keep interrupting while I'm answering their vitally important question. Mind you they interrupted me doing something vitally important. Case in point. A female patron comes in and says "I asked for something to be delivered here for me." Oookay. Thanks for the information. So she's standing there staring at me. I am using my incredible library powers to discern that the book is on the shelf waiting for you. I ask her name and she says, Helen of Troy, like I should have recognized her instantly. Oh of course! Who? Now Helen is back. She wants to know where the PA's are. I don't get the full sentence out before she interrupts to say "they are near the BR's right? Uh no, not exactly. We do have a lot of other books between the B's and the P's in stacks. Blame the alphabet for that one. Labels: alphabet, call numbers, interruption
A new insult record!
Had a patron break the insult record lately. I couldn't decide if I wanted to award him or kill him. Three insults in about 8 minutes. He had been sent over to the library(first trip by the by) to get a specific edition of a book for his boss. First of all he didn't know the title. He did however know the editor's name. But he told me it was the author's name. I finally find it, by using the call number which he also had, yet didn't think was useful. I see that someone had returned it in the last few days. We invite him to look on the shelving cart, and he pulls the wrong book. He found the 2006 edition. Which isn't the right translation. Here comes insult number 1. The library is wrong. How could they have made such a huge mistake as to catalog an English translation as a Greek one! It's a travesty. He shoves it in my face TWICE, probably in order illustrate his point. But really just annoying me. At this point I have to help him to shut him up. I doublecheck on the screen and see that the book he has is a different call number and a different edition as well as a different barcode. I tell him he has the 2006 edition. Then he looks over the cart again and WOW there it is. Insult number 2 was the comment in order to find things here, you have to know what you are doing to find things here. Meaning of course HE knew what he was doing and no one else did. Then insult number 3 was if I know how to check books out to him. He's lucky he made it out of the library alive at that point. I thought about hitting him, but the boss was in her office and she would have seen. And the rule is NO WITNESSES!
SSSSHHHHH!!!
I mean it this time. Shut up!!!!! I don't care that you have run out of milk, or you need to buy a car, or your fiancee is stuck at the airport on stand-by and won't be home to feed your pet lizard or whatever. Turn the *%$#!! cell phone off. We here in the library have no interest in your life and all the jetsam that you are currently broadcasting. And don't give me those dirty looks when I ask you to move it outside. I'll bet you no one else cares either and are relieved someone kicked you out. Labels: cell phones, sshhsing
We're back
I bet you thought we had given up or went for therapy, as there has been no Ire for quite some time. Call it a sabbatical. Now we might not have a book or papers but we have observed the habits and rituals of the library users. Both the wild and domesticated. So watch the space. And here's the LI contribution to the Vampire Librarian's meme. "A man is not poor because he has not provided for the morrow. If we only remember what quantity of food the sea full of fish offers, on whose contents each man in Catholic Naples is bound by his religion to feed one day of the week; how profusely all sorts of fruit and garden stuffs are to be found there at every season; how the country wherein Naples lies, has the name of Terra di Lavoro, (not of Labor but of Husbandry), and the whole province has borne the honorable title of the Happy Country (Campagna Felice) now for centuries, we will see how easily one may live there. One who has lived here long would see that the Lazzarone is not a whit more idle than the other classes, but would also perceive that all in their way labor not merely to live but to enjoy, and that they are quite free from the labor for living." The Early lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson v.II Labels: meme, Ralph Waldo Emerson, return
What is youth coming to?
This would fall into the category of "stupidity ire" Silly ArticleIf you read the article carefully, one of the students who agreed to let this woman stay in her room and knew the woman was coming in through the window is 'upset at the security at the university'. If Stanford were to ask me I'd suggest evicting this student from the university. If she's dense enough to just agree to let some women stay in her room & then blame the university she shouldn't be at a school of that academic quality. Oy. Labels: fools
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