Rant of the Wild Librarian: Puzzlements Three

I’ve been a professional librarian for going on 18 years, now, and before that, I worked college summers at the main branch of my hometown library.*  Before that, I visited the small, storefront branch in my neighborhood as often as Mom would let me.

There are still many things that puzzle me about the job and also about the mindsets and motivations of the patrons who visit the library.

Here are three of them:

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Why would anyone steal from a public library?

I’m not talking about thefts of rare books for profit or those enterprising citizens who check out hundreds of DVDs and CDs and pawn them, then think telling the library that their card was stolen or they lost all seventy-five of those CDs—In a fire! In the flood! In the divorce! Locusts!—will get them out of a Grand Theft charge.

I’m talking about people who rip off RFID tagged back covers and walk out with a damaged book they could have easily checked out or do any of a number of things with a CD or DVD to baffle the security gates.

Or who check out an item and keep it forever and always—because that’s stealing, too.

I don’t get it.

People . . . if you’re a taxpaying resident,** you and your fellow residents already own these items. The whole collection is yours. We’re just storing it here to spare your overcrowded shelves.

The reason you have to return the stuff you check out is that it’s community property. You aren’t sole owner and sharing is caring.

So if you love an item, return it, undamaged, so others will have a chance to see how fantastic it is. You two can have another sleepover as soon as your schedules match up—and if your Very Favorite Library Item is retired from our shelves, you might be able to find it in our Friends book store and take it home for your very own, like a paginated Velveteen Rabbit.

If you hate something you checked out, return it anyway—it’s not your job to protect people from whatever sinks your battleship. If you’re compelled to make sure everyone knows what a waste of time/danger to one’s immortal soul this evil/ill-plotted/morally re-pugnant/politically agenda-ed/badly edited thing is, write a review.

Just don’t write your opinion in the pages of the book. Even grammar or spelling corrections.

That’s not justifiable post-editing, it’s prosecutable vandalism.

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Why do people complain about paying fines?

You agreed to the rules, Sparky. Twice: once when you signed up for the card and once when you checked out the item you returned late.

Fork it over  and quit telling us the game is rigged.

If it is, it’s in your favor.

We make every effort to tell you when the item is due when you check it out; we’ll even e-mail you a couple of days before you have to return it.

We have phone and online renewals for slow readers and those inevitable “Oh, crap!” moments.

If you return stuff after hours, don’t worry: we back date overnight returns.

If you tell us you’ve already returned the item, we’ll suspend our disbelief long enough to do a thorough search. If you claim the item is lost, we freeze the fines long enough for you to make a reasonable effort to locate it.

We aren’t being unreasonable, here.

We just want all taxpayer property back on time so that other taxpayers—including you—can borrow it.

If fining you a dime a day—a dime a day***—is so unreasonable, maybe should should stick to short books in the reference collections; you know, thing that can’t be checked out in the first place.

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Why would one stand in the Orangetown Public Library
and tell the staff that the Appletown Public Library
is superior in every possible way?

Is the Appletown Library closed today? Have the buses stopped running?

Do you really think that library systems have match pricing for printouts? Do you think Orangetown librarians will give you extra computer time because Appletown has a higher limit?

Do you think we’ll bend ourselves into pretzels to prove that our library is the best?

No two library systems are alike and our library policies aren’t arbitrary, they’re tailored to the community they primarily serve.

Here are two math problems to illustrate:

The Orangetown Public Library System has 70 public workstations from which patrons print 900 pages a day and the Appletown Public Library System has 20 Public workstations from which patrons print 400 pages a day.

If both library systems have the same budget, per capita, and both get the same discount on printer toner and paper, which library is statistically more likely to offer five free printouts to patrons who print from their workstations?

And:

The Orangetown Public Library System has 70 public workstations. On average, each workstation is in use 95% of the hours the library is open.

The Appletown Public Library System has 50 Public workstations. On average, each workstation is in use 50% of the hours the library is open.

Which library is statistically more likely to offer higher computer time limits and still be able to accommodate the majority of patrons who wish to use the workstations?

If you need any help with these, I’m sure  the Appletown Public Library will be able to assist you.  They don’t look busy over there . . .

Ahhhh.  That’s better.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go spelunking under the kids’ beds for overdue library books. And yeah, I’m planning on complaining about that at great length.

But not to the library.

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* Yes, ’twas fate.  Fate, and a sincere loathing of the local frozen yogurt place, where I worked the summer before college. But that’s a different rant.

** If you aren’t a taxpaying resident and you have a library card that we accept, you are our honored guest and our collection is also your collection. But that doesn’t exempt you from minding the House Rules. Guests that steal from their hosts aren’t invited back.

***Yeah, some items are a dollar a day, now. But those items are iPads, so . . .

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The Wild Librarian Says : Wheeeee!

I was offered the job!

That’s right! Starting next month,* I’ll be working on a different floor! With windows.

Sunglasses and vitamin D, here I come!

That’s not the only difference, or I wouldn’t have bothered, but it isn’t an insignificant one.  Neither is stepping away from the enclosed environs of the Archives—breathing history is tough on chronic sinusitis.**

I’ll have to work one night a week,*** travel more between branches, and trade in my personal workstation and cubicle space for a login and a couple of assigned drawers.

But the questions will be quicker and the patrons will have different interests, and most of my new duties will be my very favorite parts of library work.

I will be moving around instead of waiting in the basement lower level for petitioners like the Mushroom of Wisdom.  And no one will ever ask me how to find genealogical proof that their great-great-great grandmother was born a Cherokee Princess—which is not and never has been a Real Thing™—right here in Pottawattomie territory.^  If they do, I’ll direct them to the person who replaces me.^^

And there’s a rumor I might get to select adult graphic novels.

I am overcome, y’all.

Overcome.

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*Assuming that the person who left that department for another department doesn’t want her job back after her probationary period is up.

**I can’t claim it as the cause, though—I grew up in southern Ohio and “Cincinnati Sinus” is no joke.

***I’m working one a month, now, which is why I can never remember when it is.

^Which at the time would have been approximately than 400 miles north of the nearest Cherokee settlement—give or take, as the United States spent a lot of time and resources keeping most native nations unsettled.  But that’s a rant for another time.

^^Again assuming  the person who left the ref department won’t return, bumping us all back to our original places like an Occupational Newton’s Cradle . . .

Random Thursday: Literary Trompe Romps and Well-Read Street Art

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon this week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.

I had a lot of fun with this one—turns out when you work with, for, around, and at books approximately 17/6 (I do parent and sleep when truly necessary) and ask your friends for cool stuff to post on Thursdays, you get a lot of cool book-related stuff.

Who knew?

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Alice on the Runway at Watership Down

No, not really. It’s in London.

My alternative title was Reason #768,987 to visit England.

(Downith and Vonnie, you’re tied for #1)

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Faux Distractions

Artist Don Gray gave a garage door a library look for Lee Dembert,
a former book reviewer for the LA Times.

Awesome.

True Confessions:

I knew what this was before I opened the attachment, because my friend Siobhan likes to use subject lines that are nearly as long as her e-mail messages.

So instead of “Cool art!” or “Want that!” my first thought when I saw this image was “Whoa!  That’s a really clean garage!”

And my second was, “Is that track lighting? What on earth needs to be directly lit in a garage?”

His rare, first edition Chilton’s Manuals?

And does he know the damage direct lighting can do to those schematics?

Sheesh.

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For all the DIYers

 Roger Light shows you how to paint a trompe l’oeil bookcase very, very quickly.

I love how the time lapse makes the books pop into 3-D like magic.

Which, in a way, I guess they did.

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Little Prince Sighting

Not sure where this is, but that it exists somewhere is good enough for me.

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It’s Always Literate in Portland

Even the parking garages.

If this isn’t awesome enough,
The stairwells  give you something to read
while you’re looking for your car.

(first photo by Michael R. Allen)

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Melbourne Timequake

Hey, Lyra!  Wanna go to Australia?

We can put Sherry in charge of the plane tickets and Laura in charge of the map.

Or we could stay here and start a band called the Melborne Timequakes.

Let me know.

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Trompe Librarians

Entirely wrong and yet so remarkably realistic . . .

(Dee? Kev? Did you send me this?)

Random Thursday: From the Library of Random

It’s Random!  It’s Thursday!  It’s . . . you know the drill.

By the time this post is up, I will be at the state library conference, attempting to ingest enough caffeine to compensate for waking up at 4:30am in order to leave the house at 5:30am to get the library van at 6am so my fellow zombies librarians and I can arrive at the conference around eight.

That’s a lot of am to overcome.  Wish me luck.

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Meet Kuzma

Click the image for more adorable photos and a video.

Kuzma is the new library assistant at a children’s library in Novorossiysk, Russia.

He wears a bow tie and is paid in cat food and skritches.

I’d wear a bow tie, too, if I could sleep on the job . . .

Kuzma, by the way, means “order” and “arrangement”, which isn’t a bad name for a library cat.

We totally would, too.

(I don’t remember who sent me this first, but thank you Dee, Lisa and Vannie!)

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Speaking of Librarians . . .

What did you think we do all day?

Shelve books or something?

(Thanks, ‘firstmausi!)

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All the World’s a Library

You know those Little Free Libraries popping up all over the place?

They just went free range.

BookCrossing is the equivalent of literary geocaching—
or the environmentally sound equivalent of releasing a balloon with a postcard on it.

It’s simple:

Select a book from your own vast collection.

Go to BookCrossing.com and

I’m told that there are a couple of  “official” BookCrossing stations around,
but most of the time, people just leave them on buses, street benches, coffee shop tables, airplanes, wherever.

Since I tend to do that anyway, I might as well tag ’em first!

I’ll report the results . . . once I can choose a book.

Who’s with me?

If you try this, let me know how it goes!

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Be Honest

All you library staff out there:

When you’re alone at home, do you do Dewey?

Or do you just say, “Chuck it”?

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Again!  Again!

If only because of Christian Kane’s “fraud” line—if you’re a fan of Leverage, you know why.

I wonder if this show will help fill the hole in my heart where that one used to be.

Nah.

But I’ll bet it finds it’s own place in there somewhere.

Signs of an Organized Mind

Let’s do a logic puzzle:

Stipulated:

A messy desk is supposed to be the sign of an organized mind.

Librarians are supposed to be really good at organization.

Blogs offer insights into the workings of the writer’s mind.

I am the writer for this particular blog.

I am also a librarian.

If these things are true, then:

Is my workspace messy or organized?

Is my mind messy or organized?

Time’s up.

Yeah—trick question:

Featuring forms, photocopies, legal pads, thank you notes, an Easter Card, part of a photo shrine to my kids, one of several mugsful of writing instruments (not pink feather pen), a small glimpse of a panic button (behind the dandelion sphere), various tchotchkes, my container o’ small pointy office supplies, my new bottle of germkiller, and my Halloween costume.

Yes, that’s Joss Whedon, framing a scene from my future biopic, as Periwinkle the Frost Fairy waits for me to refill my travel mug.

‘Cause all librarians know that there are many different classification systems out there, and that the definition of organized is perhaps more subjective than most people want to believe.

So there.

Behold, the inspiration for this post* and my go-to justification for the state of my workspace, from a man who once called the Dean’s Office at Princeton University to ask for his own address, because he got lost walking home from campus:

What’s on YOUR mind today?

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*Not entirely true.  I was actually inspired to write this post because, after owning my smartphone for a year and a half, I finally learned how to send photos from it to my e-mail account (in my defense, the settings had gone all wonky and the guy from the Verizon place had to unwonk them first . . .though it did take about half a year of nagging gentle reminders from Watson and my husband to get me to take it in) and for the first couple of days I took pictures of everything.   And then a friend sent me the Einstein thing just as I needed a post, which just goes to show that serendipity isn’t a bad basis for one’s organization system after all.  See?