First refgrunt of the year
posted Friday, 6 January 2006
I had a refgrunt all started last night but then somehow closed my e-mail and lost it all. So let's see if anything happens during the second half of my alone-on-desk shift. It was super-busy when I first came on, yikes.
One cute thing I remember was a dad telling his little girl "You have to be very nice to the books, you have to be very gentle." Yay and woo hoo!
Various printing helps. It'll only print the picture on the screen, you can't make it print any larger than what's on the screen (I'm not about to get into enlarging on the copier, I just can't cope.) I don't know why it's not printing your Arabic-language document, I've tried Print Selection, but that's all I know to do. I don't think there's anything wrong with the printer, but I'm not a computer technician, so I've done all I can do.
Apparently daddy hasn't given the little girls the library voice speech, they're being so loud that he can't hear me when I say "Little ones need to hush, please!" (I was so startled by their sudden screaming that that was what came out.)
No, it's not your turn on the CD-ROM yet. I warned you when you signed up it was going to be 45 minutes and you've got 15 to go.
I'm continuing my power-weed of the picture books and this is the most interesting title I've come across so far: And God Created Squash by Martha Hickman.
(As an aside, my GOODNESS do they need weeding! I have a feeling we must start at A every year and not finish up, because the letters in the middle and at the end are bursting out of the shelves and many are embarrassingly old and ugly.)
A retired staff member calls up to find out how many ounces are in a gallon. When I ask if it's her she says yes, she hoped no-one would recognize her voice. But she has a seriously distinct one, so I did. And it's not like she was asking anything embarrassing - she's filling up an aquarium and needs to know how much water to measure out.
Yes, it's finally your turn on the CD-ROM.
Pretty slow after I come back from my break...
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A boy placing holds for himself and his sister is very hard to understand. Finally she calls over that "Oregon" is Eragon and the boy has to say Geronimo Stilton's Christmas Tale 4 times before I understand him. The first is fine, the second is a paperback not in the catalogue.
Second guy of the night who offers to pay to use our Internet because he doesn't have any ID. Man, maybe we should start offering that service. Why let the Internet cafe up the street make all the money?
PhD Man calls in to ask about an author of graphic design books. As usual, we don't have what he wants but thankfully he doesn't make me ILL them over the phone because I'm able to tell them they're available at another library system that he has a card for. Although he says he might call me back if he can't get them from them. Great.
If the Jan 3rd issue of the paper isn't over there, someone's stolen it. Or someone might be reading it. No, you can't really get it online. We have a newspaper database is delayed about a week. Here's the URL for their site, but they usually don't have the full paper and want you to pay. No, you don't go to Google, you type it into the address bar. (Yeesh. If it had had a chance of being in the database, I might have tried more, but I never have any luck with the stupid thing, anyway. And I doubt she could've coped with it, anyway, if she didn't know where to put a URL.) Or you could try another branch like Main, they may still have it.
Sorry, woman who is picking her teeth, we don't have any bus schedules. The cheap-o bus company refuses to send us any more.
Bleagh, a guy's cell phone rings and he starts yakking away while he's on the computer, which means there's no point in telling him to take it into the foyer because he's on the all-sacred Internet.
After about 10 minutes of yapping, I send a message to his computer asking him to end the call or take it outside. It may have caused him to lower his voice a fraction, but otherwise has no effect.
Ah, another one, great. This one's talking at the top of her lungs over in the kid's department and looks disgusted when I shush her. I know I shouldn't shhh people but sometimes it's the only way to get the message across, especially when they're engrossed in their phone. The sky could fall on them and they'd keep blabbing.
A woman is very interested in some of our adult programs, including the literacy one hardly anyone has signed up for. Cool.
Oh my lord, computer guy's phone rings AGAIN. If you're that big of a hotshot, you should have your own computer at home, mister.
That card doesn't work on the Internet because it's a card for a different library system. Why is that so hard for people to understand?
Yay, it's closing time and PhD Man didn't call back!