Other People's Cats/ Adventures in Shelving: Closing

As I've said (and proven) in the past, oftentimes I'd rather hang out with the feline species even more than with my own. Who can resist their smug little grumpy faces? Not me. Did you know that dogs can sniff out cancer in people? Maybe cats can too, but they probably don't care enough to tell anyone. They just want to sleep and purr things. Anyway, I hung out with some cats in Eagle Rock this week. Or, I tried to...


She was friendly.




One of her kittens, on the other hand, was not. This is as close as he would let me get.

On a side note, I want to live in Eagle Rock.


I'm going to try to write a closing edition of "Adventures in Shelving" at least once a week. This is why -> I tend to find the best things while closing up the library. Lots of patrons leave stuff for library workers to clean up. The important things go to the lost and found. The little random bits go to one of two places: 1) the trash can or 2) MEEEE!!!!

Zum beispiel:

See that green cat up there? You know, the one being attacked by flowers at night? While his balloon friends try to pull him encouragingly by the ear to the safety of his house with no windows? He belongs to me now.


And this guy...

is literally flying.....on drugs. Look at his red, dilated pupil...chasing a hallucinated butterfly while the flower does some strange wiggly dance, and the apple tree king with his beady apple eyes and rosy apple cheeks watches intently with his crown made of cumulonimbi.

Gems like these drawings make it so much easier to get through that last hour of closing. It's a tie between unwanted scribbles and the announcement at 8:30/5:30 (depending on the day).

mehr kommt mehr kommt...

Adventures in Shelving - Reflecting on the Adult Summer Reading Program

I guess on a lighter note...

I'm extremely jealous of the Children's Summer Reading Program that our library put on. Why? Because they had awesome prizes (my definition of awesome should be considered questionable to most people). I want a harmonica. I want one of those colorful weeeewwooooop! whistles. But most of all, I want a pair of disguise glasses with the nose attachment and little mustache and eyebrows!

I read ten books for the Adult Reading Program. I didn't get anything. It honestly didn't even feel like I was participating in a program. We don't even get together and share how awesome our books were (I read some pretty awesome books). Okay, so I work for the library. Maybe the prizes are better off going to patrons. But I'd settle for a mechanical pencil as a prize. An eraser. A feather tied to a piece of string - anything! I'm not hard to please! This is someone whose second job could no longer pay her, but she still did the work voluntarily and then agreed to get paid with sticker paper. STICKER PAPER. Oh, and then one time, I asked to be "paid" with a sheet of brown felt. This is all true.

I'm usually good at winning drawings too. When I was younger I would always enter those coloring contests at grocery stores, and then one time I won this Chester Cheetos Bike (these are the only pictures I could find of it). I don't know where mine went, but it was a big deal at the time.

Anyway, now that I got that out of my system, I have to find a store that sells those disguise glasses. And then join a book club. And wear the glasses to each meeting. Where is this going? Is this even funny?

Adventures in Shelving - I Am Watching You.

Dear Ten Year Old Boy who blazes through the magazines aisles minutes before the library is set to close, quickly flipping through pages of Shape/Esquire/Women's Health/Gentlemen's Quarterly/Rolling Stone to catch fleeting glimpses of oiled up cleavage/barely concealed nipples/curvy hips/shapely thighs before someone passes by and figures out what you are doing,

I know what you are doing. I'm watching you with a half smile on my face not because I think you are a good son who is looking for healthy exercise tips for your mom, or the perfect Father's day present for your dad, but because I don't blame you for having a natural tendency to be curious and, by many people's standards at least, slightly perverted. I'd feel even more uncomfortable if I saw you flipping through O, the Oprah Magazine (I have a special post dedicated to Oprah coming up).


Don't hate the playa, hate the game,
bianca

I was going to link those magazines to pictorial examples but...you can look it up yourself.

Adventures in Shelving - Ways To Upset Patrons #1

Sooo when a patron comes up and uncomfortably asks you to help him find a book on the subject of, let's say, HOW TO DATE, he might get offended if you hand him a copy of Dating for Dummies, and forget to explain that he shouldn't take the title so literally.

If said patron then proceeds to walk huffily away with an off the shoulder dirty look back at you and no "thank you" in sight, BUT with the book totally in his hands, you can blame it on his lack of social skills, thus the reason for him to need a book on dating. I guess.

Maybe I shouldn't have been smiling while handing him the book? That might have confused him. I was just happy for the guy, like, "Way to go, man...good luck! I hope you learn how to smile. Maybe that's lesson number one in the book. Don't leave me hangin' here with no facial reciprocation or eye contact! I'd high-five you, but it'd be too loud....am I smelling the pheromones of fear and barely suppressed embarrassment in your perspiration right now...? Not gonna lie, I kind of like it. Haha, I'm just kidding...or am I?"


LESSON LEARNED: I need to read and react to people better. Do they have a Complete Idiot's Guide to Dealing with People Just as Awkward as You Are and Other Normal People Too book available at the library? Place a hold on it for me.

Adventures in Shelving - The Curse of Looking Young

Dear...my security blanket,

I can tolerate a lot of questions regarding my age. I have to, especially at work.

Examples:

While standing in front of an empty truck near the New Books, staring blankly at the AV section

Patron: Hey, I really gotta use the computer, do you work here?
Me: Yeah, but the Computer Tech at the Information desk can help you. [Points]
Patron: [Looks confused] You sure...? [Starts walking off, mumbling, still looking at me]
Me: I'm sorry? Yes, I'm sure she can help you better tha-
Patron: -don't even look old enough to work...[Walks away in a hurry]


While shelving Children's DVDs

Lady: Excuse me, do you work here?
Me: [Looks down at collared shirt with an "Arcadia Public Library" patch on the front of it] Um, yes?
Lady: ...You're not a volunteer?
Me: ...no. [Friendly smile. Keep it together]
Lady: Really? How old are you? [Looks confused]
Me: [Smiling because I've heard this before] Well, I'm over 18.
Lady: Oh my God. You look so young!
Me: Heh heh, yeah. I know...
Lady: Wow...you look like you're still in high school. You can be my daughter's age... [Keeps mumbling surprised cries of disbelief, looking me up and down]
Me: [Beginning to realize the lady doesn't have a real question] Did you need any help, or...?
Me, again: [Beginning to realize I could be her daughter's teacher. Scary]
Lady: [Doesn't hear the question, still too preoccupied with my dumb face and dirty shoes]
Me: [Smiles, nervous laugh, goes back to shelving]


But this is where I draw the line:

Children's Room, Fiction Section, After school

High school boy: ...soo what grade are you in?


Not cool. Can't you at least be creative? What about, "Excuse me, I was wondering if I needed my library card to CHECK YOU OUT!"

On second thought, no thank you.


I guess it doesn't help that I mostly dress like a prepubescent boy. And I still don't have my driver's license...and I don't have a "grown up" job. But that's another post altogether.



Live every week like it's shark week,
Biancaaa, almost 25

Adventures in Shelving - Things the Library Doesn't Need

Dear Whoever is in charge of these things;

With all due respect, it is my humble (very humble!), lowly, bottom (very bottom - as in "you probably don't even know my name" level of rock bottom) of-the-barrel-scraping-library-shelver opinion that we do not need three (3!) copies of Night at the Museum starring Ben Stiller. Two widescreen copies and one fullscreen copy? There is a slight possibility that there are many other, and possibly more important (or at least more entertaining) things we could get instead of two extra copies of the same movie. I don't know who made this decision, but I deeply (but POLITELY!!) disagree.



Please do not get me fired for having an opinion, I really love my job, I just didn't like shelving two of these at the same time,
[name intentionally withheld]

Adventures in Shelving - 020.92 (The One About Libraries)

Dear....nobody who reads this,



I've been reading library-related memoirs recently. Actually, only one is worth mentioning. It's called Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian by Scott Douglas (he also writes about his job on the McSweeney's site, which is also good). It's insightful, funny, tragic, frustrating and totally worthwhile, exactly how it is working with the public. I loved it from the first page (and not just because it includes a description of my position):

"Chapter 372.6
-LIBR- Librarians Can't Read:
Being the Chapter in Which Our Hero Discovers He Wants to Be a Librarian

'You catch a guy on a computer jacking off, just get a librarian - don't try and handle it yourself.' That was the first thing Faren, the library manager, said to me on my first day of work.
I was a library page.
Library page is the lowest place you can be on the library totem pole. Besides putting books back on the shelf, the library page is also responsible for doing the jobs that nobody else feels like doing, which include, but are not limited to, cleaning up vomit, washing windows, scraping gum off the tables, moving furniture, and keeping a watchful eye out for male patrons who are jacking off on the computer. Being a library page also means you are stupid until you can prove otherwise."

Each chapter's number is actually the call number that correlates to the main subject of that chapter. For example, in Chapter 808.543, he talks about storytime with kids. In Chapter 641.5, he writes about food in the library (particularly popcorn). My inside-library-joke-loving self was tickled at the beginning of each chapter.

It was pretty inspiring to read about all the good things that libraries do for their specific communities. When I'm in one of those moods of self-pity, hating myself for having to clean up after people everyday without getting the appreciation I think is deserved of pages (usually occurs during the Summer Reading Program), I'll pick up this book to remind myself of the amazing things that can happen here too.


And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make,
bianca

Adventures in Shelving - Part Letter T

Mustachioed Patron: Excuse me, do you work here?
Bianca: [nods]
Mustachioed Patron: Well, I haven't been here in a while, and I was looking for the card catalog - so that I can look up a book. Can you tell me where the card catalog is?
Bianca: __________________________________________

Guess my answer:

A) Hmm...actually, I don't think we have one anymore. I think it's all electronic now.
B) Um yeah, I think they call it a computer?
C) Card catalog? [laughs] What's that?
D) Card catalog?! Go back to the Stone Age!

...now guess which one I wanted to say.

Adventures in Shelving - Part 02

Okay. School's out. Summer's here. We get it, kids. Stop unshelving every single book on dinosaurs and dropping them in the picture books section. Don't rub your faces into those puppets unless you want pink eye. Please don't reshelve Clifford the Big Red Dog books where Eric Carle books should go. Please don't reshelve period.

During this year's summer reading program, I've found a new way to humor myself and thus not go completely insane. When choosing picture and easy reader books to display, I go by certain criteria...

1) Interesting title/cover art
2) Theme
3) Subjects that "don't belong."

Example 1: I love Leo Lionni picture books because of the construction paper-like quality to his work. Good cover art, I display it.
Example 2: Sometimes I'll display more popular books, or all the ones on my cart about cats, or going to the beach, or spaghetti parties. Themes.
Example 3: Displaying books that don't belong is my personal favorite. It's usually by coincidence, but every so often I'll put up books about Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, or other holidays that have nothing to do with summer. Last week I put up some books about school. It's educational. Summer won't last forever. I'm displaying valuable lessons in perspective. For the kids as much as for myself.

It's all in good fun. Sometimes the weird books even get checked out. You never know what kids want to read...

Adventures in Shelving - Part 01 In a series of however many times weird things happen in the library....the Infinite Series.

As a lowly shelver, I witness some pretty interesting things. Strange people who stare, others who sleep. Numerical transpositions, books shelved upside down or spines in. Late parent pickups, unfound books desperately needed for finals, temporarily lost children. Bird books mislabeled as bat books, children's' books whose titles seem innocent enough, but read from the wrong perspective...a little too graphic for the young ones?

I take my job rather seriously, for good and bad. I'm obsessed with numbers and order as well as with people watching, which makes my job harrowing and easy. Fascinating and horrifying. Maybe it's good that I only work 15 hours a week, yes?

One time as I was shelving in the yoga section, I found a book shelved incorrectly. Not only was it incorrectly shelved, but it's real home was far from the yoga books. I decided to put it away since it probably felt uncomfortable around so many pictures of smiling ladies stretching away in unitards.

The book seemed to get lighter as I approached its correct shelf. Ah, yes, here is my rightful place, it seemed to say. My eyes scanned the call numbers to find the correct resting place of the book in my hand when I found ...another incorrectly shelved book exactly where my book should be. Coincidence? Maybe. I decided to investigate.

I replaced the books. I took this new one, for which I already felt less sympathy, one aisle away to its real home.

And guess what I found. Another misplaced book. Exactly. Exactly where this other one was supposed to go. Someone was playing a game with me. Someone was wasting my time. I looked around to make sure no one was watching me. This was slightly embarrassing. Scavenger hunts are fun, but not while you're working, and especially when you seem to be the only one playing.

I put the correct one away. I took this new joker out (it was laughing at me). Read its call number and found that it belonged one shelf above where it had been incorrectly placed, almost directly above where it had been.

I'd had enough. Thankfully, I found no wrong book where the other should have been. If I HAD found one, I wouldn't have shelved it. I was getting annoyed. And just a little paranoid.


I still don't know if that was all coincidence. I do find books all the time that are shelved incorrectly, whether by shelver's or patron's mistake (or mischief), but never to that extent. That was just during the first month of working at the library. That was just one not-so-strange story. And one without library patrons in it. You know there's more. Many, many more....