Librarian Ire

Happy Halloween!!

posted by Loki at 4:22 PM | 0 comment(s)

De-Nied.

Dear sir,

We regret to inform you, but you have been banned from the university libraries. It has come to our attention that your ignorance of books & journals, computers, printers, the internet, staplers, and what is a library is so immense that you should immediately be remanded into a cryogenic sleep facility until such time as you can undergo successful brain surgery. Your recent interaction with library staff when inquiring after a journal article has irrefutably proven our diagnosis of your stupidity. University librarians do not have the time in which to continue to explain to you why a licensed database does not mean that its "free online", that "you need to come to the library to use a library computer" does not mean "then I can get it online free at home", why "its not fair" that something is free to university students and not to you, nor are staff able to wait on the phone while you ask questions better held until you enter the building, like "where are the computers", "how to I get online", "how do I use the catalog", "where do things print". We apologize for the inconvenience, but really, staff just does not have time to deal with boneheads.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

posted by Loki at 9:28 AM | 0 comment(s)

See, It's not my fault

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051025/hl_nm/rsi_dc

See, I'm forced to curl up into a ball between patrons, its not that I want to. It's the cytoklinedeetidees.

posted by Loki at 7:52 AM | 0 comment(s)

Whine and cheese

Lots of little things to whine about. Nothing earth shattering, but still not good.
First of all the Nathan in training had a fight with someone who he shares his shift with (I am in total sympathy with the guy he argued with) and now wants to move. To the one quiet calm day. Damn. There goes my week.
Then the schedule was changed and no one bothered to tell me about it.
Oh and a special request came in that confused the hell out of the archivist, so she passed it along to me.
And some idiot from a nameless university in Oklahoma wanted microfilm sent to him via ILL. No biggie. Except its the fifth time he's asked and I have had to tell him five times that the film is checked out already. What is so frigging hard to understand about that?! It does say it on the online catalog. I looked. And to compound the idiot-ness of this request he actually had the film he was asking for!!!!!
How the hell do you not know these things!?

posted by Nike at 9:46 PM | 0 comment(s)

Blog Spammers must die.

I need to look into this whole blog spamming thing. Did LI cross some invisible line? About 2 months ago, suddenly spam comments appear. They annoy me. Very. Very. Much.

Bastards.

posted by Loki at 7:43 AM | 4 comment(s)

Emailing the Patron

Things have been suspiciously quiet this last month... Perhaps my dream is realized and I am now feared by all? Well, I think its a smashing time to address "How to communicate with the patron"

Example 1 : A book has been recalled from a patron by someone and they have sent you, the circulation desk, an email saying something to the effect of "I need this book for my work so am going to keep it. Could you tell the other person?"

Polite first reply by staff: Dear patron, All circulating books can be recalled from one patron by another. Recalled books will need to be returned to the library. We can assist you in finding another copy, or in placing a recall request of your own on the book.

When, after 2 weeks, the recalled book is not brought back, whatever do you do?

Iron-drawers: Patron, the book Blah-Blah is now 14 days overdue. Fines of $1/day are accruing on this item, you are being billed for the book, and all of your library privileges have been blocked. Return the book immediately.

Book is returned approximately 2 hours after email is sent.

Example 2 : A patron has returned a reserve book without one of its pieces (map, disk, whatever)

Polite: Dear patron, The book blah-blah which you recently checked out from the library was missing the map that accompanies the book. Do you have this map? If so, could you return it to the circulation desk? Thanks, Circ desk

Iron-drawers: Joe, The map for the book blah-blah which we emailed you about previously has still not been returned. The book has been checked back out to you and you will accrue fines of $3/hour on this item until the map is returned. Loki, Circulation Manager.

Time it took to return? 56 minutes.

What have we learned? Leave off the niceties - there's no "dears" or "thanks" here. Leave no room for ambiguity - we know you have it bring it back! And finally, name the money amounts and make no mention of the limits that you probably have; Make them think it will be $3/hr forever!

posted by Loki at 1:13 PM | 1 comment(s)

ILL updates

Amazingly there have been very few idiot alerts for ILL lately. I know I shouldn't even THINK that, but considering the track record around here it deserve a mention.
The only thing I can really complain about is that a nameless university in California has been holding some of my books hostage for a while now.
I sent the normal return them or die(polite version) e-mail. Nada. Then I sent the slightly less polite return them or die follow up e-mail. Still nothing.
Then I called! They claim to have sent them back just today. Well, we shall see.

And no one from Australia has taken my challenge. Sigh. They are still -30.5 on the What were you thinking list

posted by Nike at 5:27 PM | 0 comment(s)