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February 26, 2011

Library Articles...

HarperCollins To Restrict Library e-Book Loans
Sex Offender Accused Of Assaulting Girl At Rutgers Library
Books Checked Out Of Library In '70s Returned
International Music Score Library Project Raises Copyright Concerns

Internetless Friday...

Yesterday we had the pleasure of an internetless day at my library -- We currently have no idea why our server went down, but it's back up and running today (Thank God, because as you can probably guess, I'm the Saturday Librarian). As a result of this lack of internet access we had a super peaceful day -- Who wants to hang out in the library if there is no internet? Basically everyone that came in grabbed something and left.

I spent my day playing with glitter and getting to know "Favorite Page #1's" replacement better -- I shall call her "Mini Page" because she is only 14-years-old. We had a nice time talking and I look forward to getting to know her more.

February 24, 2011

Babysitter Brawl...

Yesterday I wasn't feeling so hot, so I ended up leaving work after thirty minutes. Apparently I missed a brawl between my favorite nanny and some random old woman. Earlier today said nanny came up to me asking for my Department Head because she wanted to apologize to her. I asked her what had happened that she needed to apologize and she goes on to tell me that she was getting ready to leave with the kids, so she bundled up the baby and put her in her stroller, she starts to cry -- She cries all the time, she's a baby. The nanny was about to get the baby's brother when a random woman (who she nor no one else in the department had ever seen before) walks up to the stroller and rips it open screaming that the baby is suffocating and that she was going to call the police on the nanny for child abuse. At the sight of this woman touching the baby's stroller the nanny cursed her out -- Totally understandable in my opinion, you don't touch other people's strollers and/or children. There was apparently a screaming match and our Director had to be called down. They had the old lady leave and as she was leaving she was questioning one of my coworkers about how often the nanny came to the library, saying she was still going to call the cops. I cannot believe I missed such chaos.

As the nanny was telling me the story she was getting worked up. She looked at me and said "Miss. _______, I was gonna beat her ass!" I looked at her and told her I would have let her, because I don't blame her what-so-ever for cursing the woman out.

Library Articles...

Egypt's Jewel Of A Library Reopens, Thanks To Demonstrators
Thomas Jefferson's Books Found In Wash U Library
eBook Online Lending Collection Helping To Save Libraries?

February 23, 2011

Flat Stanley In Aruba...

If you've been following me for a while then you know that I bring a cutout of Flat Stanley with my whenever I go on vacation or somewhere new (If I remember to take him that is). So obviously I brought him with me to Aruba. Here are the photos I took of Mr. Stanley while I was on my most current vacation.

Different Direction...

I just realized that I forgot to post that the Assistant Director at my library is leaving. She got a job as a director else where, so she'll only be around for a few more weeks. I'm happy for her, but I'm not happy that I'll have to break in a new assistant director. I shall keep you updated on the new assistant director search and such.

Photos From Aruba...

Here are some of the 600+ photos I took while I was on vacation in Aruba.

Favorite Ex-Volunteer...

As I noted in Teen Scream, "Favorite Volunteer #1" is now "Favorite Page #3" because our Page Supervisor hired her as per everyone in my departments recommendations. So I'd like to welcome her to our crazy library as an employee and let the world know she has moved up in our little library -- Even though she is sad to lose her title as #1 volunteer.

February 22, 2011

Teen Scream...

One of my coworkers told two teenage boys that they couldn't use our computers because they didn't have library cards or IDs on them. So what did they do? Snuck on to one of the three computers outside of the computer room. I caught them, called them out on it and proceeded to remove all of the keyboards from the back computers while they were still logged in. One boy looked at the other and he was like "Oh, shit she is gonna beat your ass" I didn't answer, I just pointed to the door.

As a result of me taking the keyboards away, the teens that arrived later on in the day tried to steal the keyboard from our OPAC computer. They though they were being slick tugging on the keyboard wire, but I see everything and they got yelled at.

Basically I spent a good portion of the day yelling at teens. In addition to the computer teens, there was a group of obnoxious girls that I had to keep yelling at because they kept putting their feet all over the chairs and sitting on tables.

Unfortunately I did not win the yelling star for the day, our security guard did. Apparently the Adult Librarians have been having a problem with a book thief. One of the librarians on this fine evening had an idea who it was and he caught the guy in the act, thus our security guard got to scare the shit out of the book thief. Sadly I missed him yelling at the guy. "Favorite Page #3" formally "Favorite Volunteer #1" said she is now afraid of our security guard because he went crazy on the guy.

February 21, 2011

Misfit Fail...

So I woke up at 7:45am, took a shower, got dressed, made a quick soup, cleaned the snow off of my car and started to drive to work only to realize three blocks away from the library that I didn't have to be in until 1:00pm today because I have a video game program tonight. Fail.

February 20, 2011

Alan Moore ♥'s Libraries...

1960's Comic Book Ad For Libraries...

Valentine's Day, House Parties, Etc...

Monday: As everyone knows was Valentine's Day. I spent my Valentine's Day working from 9:00am to 5:00pm -- Within those hours my passive aggressive side came out, I bought chocolate covered strawberries and gave one to everyone but "Sarah" because I really hate her.

After work I had dinner with my sister and her boyfriend, then the three of us went food shopping -- I was not a third wheel or anything, they had plans for Saturday instead of Valentine's Day. I know you're probably thinking why didnt' I hang out with my boyfriend, well I didn't hang out with Justin because it would have taken me an hour to get to his apartment, I would have had to go food shopping and then I would have had to cook dinner, I didn't wanna do all of this because I had to work a split shift the next day.

Tuesday: As I stated above, I worked a split shift. I went to a meeting in the morning with Lenni on Mobile Literacy and I worked with "Emily" in the evening. Nothing particularly interesting happened.

Wednesday: Was an annoying day at work. Within ten minutes of being in the library I wanted to tell several people to go to hell and leave for the day. Obviously I didn't, but I really wanted to. Instead I spent the first five hours of my day were spent running around in children's programs; setting up, taking photos of the children, doing circle times, cleaning up, etc. After the programs ended my day got better and work went quickly.

When I left work I went to dinner with Erin, then we met up with the boys to hang out. We went shopping and then we came back to my house to play video games. It was super amusing to watch my two best guy friends and my sister play Just Dance 2.

Thursday: Was another annoying work day. My Department Head was being nasty because she was figuring out statistics for the state report and there was just bad energy in the air.

One of the Processing Clerks sent down fifty books claiming that there were no record numbers for them and that they weren't in the OPAC. This was untrue, if the lazy Clerk in question would have searched the series title she would have found that there are indeed records for each of the books. I was going to send them back up to the clerical office but my Department Head made me find the records, print them out and then send the books back upstairs. I wanted to scream at her.

At one point my Department Head left for a while and in that time period one of the nasty Clerks called up and asked "Sarah" if we had a Page because the bookcart was full and they needed someone to bring it up and bring down an empty cart. She told them we didn't have a Page and the Clerk demanded someone come down for the cart, I refused to do it because I had just done a Clerk's job looking up the records so "Julia" went down to get it. After "Julia" brought the cart up we get another nasty call from the Clerk and she demanded an empty cart. I wanted to curse her out and yell at "Sarah" for thinking that "Julia" or I should have gotten the cart and not her -- I wanted to say "Bitch, I get paid too much money to be pushing carts around. Take your ass downstairs and get it."

In addition to those things I had the worst storytime in forever. I had twelve children and not enough crafts because the person who did the storytime failed to inform me that more pieces needed to be cut out. Aside from those things I had a child in the class that I took in to be nice because she had missed her class the day before for the older kids and she keep being annoying. Also, everyone had to use the bathroom, I stopped class at least five times to call children's parents in to take them out of the room.

Life after work was much better. Justin, Phil and a few other people came over to my house to hangout with my sister and I. We played video games, had dinner and drank a bit. It was an excellent ending to a blah day.

Friday: Work was peaceful -- My Department Head and "Sarah" were both off. "Julia" and "Amy" almost acted like normal humans, with the exception of "Julia" farting in the middle of the Youth Services Department and then saying "Pretend like you didn't hear that... Did you hear that?" -- I just rolled my eyes and walked away from her. Aside from that the day was wonderful.

After work my sister and I scrambled to clean up our house before people came over for our party -- Seeing as our parents went to Miami right after we got back from Aruba we thought it would be a great idea to have a house party. About ten people came over and we had a great time. We drank, ate and played the game from Inglorious Bastards (2009) -- For those of you that haven't seen the movie they play a game at a bar where they have the names of famous people/characters on their foreheads and they have to guess who they are by asking yes or no questions, it was a great party game. I actually figured out who I was after two questions -- I was Hitler thanks to Phil.

Some Of The Names Used
  • OJ Simpson
  • Sally Struthers
  • Miss Piggy
  • Charlie Sheen
  • Scary Spice
  • Michael J. Fox
  • Tiger Woods
  • Mickey Mouse
  • Zac Efron
  • Liza Minnelli
  • Strawberry Shortcake
  • Hitler
  • Sailor Moon
  • Marilyn Manson
  • Godzilla
Saturday: I spent the day in New York City with Justin. We started off the day by going to the Coffee and Tea Festival NYC at 7 West. We have actually never attended the festival before, so we didn't know what to expect. It was an event that was open to the public but it was definitely geared more towards people within the coffee and tea businesses. We really didn't mind, we walked around, tried various coffees, teas and desserts, got some swag, etc. It was a nice random thing to do for the day.

The festival ran from 11:00am to 5:00pm. We basically did everything that we could in about two hours, so we decided to hang out in the city for the rest of the day. We went to Bryant Park, had lunch at Connolly's Pub & Restaurant, walked through Times Square and picked up French macarons at the Macaron Café.

Let Them Buy Their Own Books...


"Lines" by Ros Asquith (February 8th, 2011)

Library Articles...

Patriot Act Measures Extended For 90 Days By Congress
Library Lending Gigures: Get The 250 Most Borrowed Books & The 400 Top Authors
Librarians Go Online To Catch a Suspected Book Thief
The Most Borrowed Library Books Of 2010 (UK)
President Obama Delivers Another Slap in the Face to School Librarians
Library Cuts Will Deny Our Children The Glorious Addiction Of Reading

February 13, 2011

Man Cries Over Library Closing...



Library Closing, Grown Man Cries About It

Aruba...

I know it's been almost ten days since my last post but I have a good reason for not posting, I was in Aruba with my family. We went on a seven day all inclusive vacation to the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort in Aruba -- Don't ever stay at this hotel*. Aside from the hotel, I had an awesome time and I would go back if I was staying somewhere else.

I spent the majority of my time at the beach, swimming, drinking Miami Vices and eating, so I don't wanna bored you with a day by day breakdown of my trip because it basically revolved around those things with a few random things thrown in.

Random Things I Did In Aruba
  • Tubbing
  • Jet skiing
  • Snorkeling at the Antilla wreck**
  • Fofoti Tour: The Best of Aruba***

* The hotel itself was not a terrible looking or dirty place, it was actually quite nice. The problem with the hotel was the staff. Just about everyone at the hotel was rude and everything they said was very inconsistent -- One person would say one thing while someone else would say something else. It was bad.

While we were out to dinner we actually met a couple who had been screwed over by both the hotel and Travelocity. They had booked an all inclusive vacation for two through Travelocity for the hotel ($3,000+) and when they got to Aruba they were told there was no record of them paying for an all inclusive trip, just a room. They were telling us how rude the people were to them and all the bullshit they went through trying to rectify the situtation to no avail. Moral of the story, do NOT stay at the Holiday SunSpree Resort in Aruba.

** The MS Antilla is a World War II shipwreck off the coast of Aruba. At 400 feet long, the Antilla is one of the Caribbean's largest shipwrecks.

*** The Fofoti Tour included visits to the California Lighthouse, Gold Mine Ruins, Natural Bridge, Rock Formation, swimming at Baby Beach.

February 2, 2011

Delayed Split Shift...

Today there is yet another delayed opening thanks to the ice rink outside. They postponed the opening until 11:00am, which benefited me because I was supposed to work a split shift today (9:00am-12:00pm then 5:00pm-9:00pm) and now I don't have to go into work until 4:00pm. Thank you Ice Gods, even though "Amy" called me at 6:30am to let me know.

The only bad part about later is that I'm stuck working alone with "Sarah" which I'm not looking forward to. I'm just gonna have to practice my ignore people right next to me powers.