Psychic Librarian

Today's phone conversation proves I have not been blessed with the ability to read people's minds...

Me: "Pleasantville Library, can I help you?"

Patron: "Yes."

**Insert long and uncomfortable pause here.**

Me: "Hello?"

Patron: "Yes."

Me: "How can I help you?"

Patron: "I want to see what's due on this card." *Spouts off library card number.*

Now we're getting somewhere! Unfortunately, as a general rule, librarians don't know what you want or need until you tell them. The first step to recovery is admitting that you need help, so at least this patron is on the right track. However, we appreciate those of you who are able to articulate not only that you need help, but what you need help with, on the first try.

You Know You're a Librarian when...

...you give people the evil stare when they're being too loud--even when you're at a concert.

...you walk in to a fast food restaurant and a little kid points and yells to her mom "HEY! THAT'S THE LADY FROM THE LIBRARY!!!"

...you look to see if the barcode on your personal DVD case matches the barcode on the disc.

...you slowly start migrating towards the colorful new cardigans in every clothing store you walk in to.

...you contemplate getting a chain for your glasses so you can stop spending half your day trying to figure out where you laid them down last.

...you associate the transactions in your online bank account with the Dewey Decimal System.

...you start writing a blog about your crazy patrons to keep your sanity intact.

National Punctuation Day

Today September 24th is National Punctuation Day so Im giving my punctuation the day off consider doing the same with yours but just for today

Duct Tape: Problem Solved

Unfortunately, I was out the day this particular story takes place, but as told to me by my co-worker (we'll call her Olivia), with a few of my own comments thrown in...


Olivia decided to answer some phone calls during the busier part of the afternoon to help relieve some of the stress at the circulation desk. She received a phone call from a woman that went something like this:

"Terry Library, this is Olivia, can I help you?"

"Well, first of all, I'm blind. Like really blind. And I also just had surgery and they messed up my brain...I was wondering if you could help me find some duct tape. I have about 6 rolls here that people have gotten me and they're all the wrong kind. They don't listen to me. I need the kind with those strings in it. The really tough kind. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes, ma'am. I believe Duck brand duct tape, like d-u-c-k duck has that kind of duct tape. Let me see if I can look it up..."

Meanwhile the woman proceeds to explain why she needs this sort of tape...

"See, these maintenance men at my apartment think they can come in whenever they want. They're trying to sabbotage me. They drive really fast over the speedbump in front of my apartment to make lots of noise, and one day they even hit an elderly woman! In fact, this morning I woke up to find one of them maintenance men starring me in the face! I tried all these other kinds of duct tape on my door, but they just keep pulling it off!"

Her findings? Ultimate Duck brand duct tape. According to the website, it has the "best performance in extreme indoor/outdoor conditions." Excellent. I would definitely classify this woman's condition as extreme.

After hearing about this ultimate duct tape, this patron was extremely thankful and asked Olivia to repeat all the details so she could record it and play it back to her supposedly incompetent duct tape scouts.

Olivia made sure to add a disclaimer: "Even though I gave you information about this duct tape, I cannot guarantee that it will fix your problem."

The woman didn't seem too concerned--"Oh, I understand," she said. "What's one more roll of duct tape?"

This is another case that proves the theory the world seems to cling to: librarians know everything.

(Side note: this is the same patron that has called a few times asking how to keep the microwaves from coming down through space through her microwave and into her brain. Our suggestion? Cover her head with aluminum foil.)

Illiterate=Broken Computers

A woman came in last night, walked up to the front desk, and confidently proclaimed: "I'm illiterate!"
She followed that with: "Meaning...if you put me on one of those machines over there *points to the computers*, I'll break it."
I was puzzled by how these two things connected. Should I then conclude that any patron who is unable to read should be banned from computer use to keep from having to replace all of them on a daily basis? And how exactly does the fact that one can't read increase one's chances of breaking a technological device?
What she really wanted was for us to show her books about bees and bee keeping, which she didn't want to look up herself, apparently in fear of breaking the computer. We showed her the section, which was not a problem in the slightest since we do that sort of thing all day, but I wasn't sure it was going to do much good--how, may I be so bold to ask, is she going to read these books if she's illiterate?

Sorry I Asked

I casually walked past a gentleman that's a frequent patron to our library and smiled. I should learn not to do that.

Him: "How are you?"
Me: "I'm pretty good. How are you?"

I feel like our culture has become almost like robots when greeting each other, and unfortunately I was in robot mode...

His response?

"Well, I went to the ATM to get $1000 out and they put $20s in the $100s spot, so I got a bunch of $20s and now I have to wait 7 to 10 days to get my other $800. That's how it's going."

Sorry I asked.

Mr. Discreet

A man came in today to use the internet, which isn't anything out of the ordinary, since on any given day we have 100s of people looking for the very same service. He was assigned to a computer whose screen happens to face the circulation desk and is clearly visible to the staff.

As I was walking back toward the desk, a co-worker of mine began to chuckle and my manager, standing next to him, tilted her head sideways and looked perplexed, yet slightly amused. When I came within sight of this gentleman, I saw that his computer screen was turned almost completely toward the wall of the cubicle he was in and he was straining to fit his head between the screen and the wall. The woman next to him also had her computer turned, but not quite as extremely sideways. They reminded me of an old married couple who had some sort of disagreement and refused to even show each other what they were up to. I actually wish that had been the case...

My manager slowly and carefully walked by this gentleman to try to get a glimpse of his computer screen. I had turned to help another patron, and when I turned back to see what had happened, he was gone.

He had apparently been looking at personal ads that bordered on pornography. My manager had explained the no porn policy to him and asked him to leave. Although it wasn't very humorous in the fact that he was searching for something or someone like that, I had to laugh at how hard he tried to hide what he was doing. Not the most un-suspicious way I've ever seen.

Hello? Anyone home?

The simplest of phone conversations can make my day. Here's one from last week that a co-worker of mine had with a woman:
(For the sake of security--and keeping my job--the name of the person and the library will be change.)

John: "Pleasantville Library. This is John. How can I help you?"
Woman: "I just wanted to make sure I have the right number for the Pleasantville Library. Is it 444-1234?"
John: "Yes, ma'am. That's correct."
*Click*

And that was it.

Blacklisted: What the Government is Really Doing

One of my favorite and most unnerving patrons is a woman who, as soon as she walks in, comes directly to the circulation desk and demands "What's the gossip about me today? What's everybody saying?" We have tried numerous times to convince her that we haven't heard a word about her, but she refuses to believe that. The ironic thing: no one starting gossiping about her until she insisted every time she came in that people were.



Interestingly, she looks fairly normal--still a bit stuck in the 80's with big frizzy hair, a class bufount, and blatently fake eyelashes, but who in the south isn't? The oddities are quickly realized when talking with her for more than 30 seconds and then we're left wondering who let this woman escape from the psych ward.


Her imagination never ceases to amaze me. She honestly believes we are all part of some type of conspiracy against her. Her attack methods are pretty clever. She waits until one of our staff is alone re-shelving items, and then creeps up from behind and asks them to tell her "what the h*** is going on? I know you're part of the conspiracy!"



She called me over one day to her computer by raising her hand in the air. Pretending like I didn't notice wasn't really an option, so I walked over, hoping to stay in her good graces. I didn't want to know what happened to those unfortunate victims who get on her "bad list."



Every sentence that came out of her mouth started with: "You're going to think I'm crazy, but..." Like "You're going to think I'm crazy, but when I'm typing something on this line, all of a sudden words start showing up on this other line down here." All I could think to say was "Hmm..." And "You're going to think I'm crazy, but I'm being blacklisted and red-lighted...Do you know what those words mean?" And "You're going to think I'm crazy, but see how my computer keeps freezing up? Someone in the government is messing with it because I'm being blacklisted. They're watching me."

I managed to escape after a few minutes, keeping a close watch on her. So far she has taken her fists or legal action against any of our conspiratorial staff, but I wouldn't put it past her.

The Classifieds Bully

A lot of people that come through the library are job hunting. Most people use modern-day techniques like monster.com and online applications, but the patron who I like to call "The Classifieds Bully," takes the old-fashioned route--the newspaper. That's actually how I found my job, so I'm definitely not anti-classifieds. I am, however, anti-bullies.

This patron is obviously not having much luck finding a job, though, because she has come in almost daily for several months and has a permanent line in between her eyebrows and a definite line of disgust across her face. I can confidently say I have never seen the woman smile. Not even a slight smirk.

If you're like me, you are starting to feel sorry for her and hope that her life starts to improve. This feeling of sympathy started to diminish a bit after I tried to assist her one day early one in her job-hunting process.

In our library, the classifieds and job section of the newspaper are kept behind the circulation desk because we have had problems with those sections disappearing. So, we ask to hold patrons' driver's license while they look at these sections. We WILL send the library police out to get you.

She came up one afternoon with her license in hand and asked for Sundays classifieds. I dug through the stack and handed her the classifieds from Sunday--that's what she asked for, right? Not right...

Her: "These aren't right."

Me: "I'm sorry. You said you wanted Sundays classifieds, correct? See, this says 'Sunday' here." I pointed to the date in an attempt to convince her these are what she's looking for.

Her: "These are not the classifieds!"

Me: *confused expression* Does she not see the big letters that say "Classifieds"? How can I make this more clear? "Umm...yes ma'am, that's the classifieds section." I ran my finger across the words at the top.

Her: *frantically flipping through the pages* "No it's not! There are no classifieds in here!!"

Me: *even more confused expression* Am I missing something? Has this woman officially gone off her rocker? Is my eyesight really that bad?

There are, before us, thousands of classified ads for a sundry of things from puppies to slightly used dentures. I was really beginning to think I was losing it.

She finally spit out in a rampage of frustration, "THERE ARE NO JOBS IN HERE!!"

Everything suddenly became clear. This was not the jobs section. Of course there were no jobs in there. I grab the classifieds, took them back to their home and handed her the correct section.

She proceeded to rip them out of my hand, give me the most dramatic eye roll that one could give without permanently turning their eyeballs backwards, and stomped off to a nearby table.

Obviously, the whole thing was my fault. Why should she think anything else? Big bully.

The Ever-Changing PIN

Today, a patron walked up to get on a computer. Simple enough. There are two things you need for that: a library card and a PIN number. Here's how the conversation went...

Me: "Do you have a library card?"
Her: "Yes." And she pulls it out.
Me: "Do you have a PIN number?"
Her: "Yeah."

So, I scan her card and ask her to tell me her PIN so I can make the computer reservation.

Her: "Oh, I don't know what it is...it's probably the same thing we always use."
Me: "Ok. Well, would you like me to try that and see if it works, or reset it?"
Her: "Reset it. It's completely random."

Umm...I believe she just said it was probably what they always use, but apparently it's completely random. Ok, that's fine.

Me: "Ok, well I can reset it then. What would you like it to be?"
Her: "Whatever you give me."
Me: "Umm, well, the way it works is you choose a PIN and use the same one every time you get on a computer."
Her: "I don't know...ABC123...I won't remember it."
Me: "Is there something you can choose that you will remember?"
Her: "No. I forget every time. I'll have to reset it next time too."

At this point I'm wondering what the point of a PIN number is, then. Certainly she has one for her debit card? Do they let her reset it every time she makes a purchase?

Instead of arguing the politics of the whole thing, I just proceeded with the PIN she gave me and let her go.

Just another example of the strange patrons we encounter every day. Welcome to the world of the library.

How Many Feet You Meet

I have decided over the past year and a half that I have been employed as a librarian that a library is the Grand Central Station for the mentally and emotionally challenged. I do not have a Ph.D. in medicine, or even a bachelors in anything science related (in fact, like most librarians, I was an English major), but I have unofficially diagnosed two patrons with paranoid schizophrenia, decided at least one patron is a paranoid conspiracy theorist, and dealt with several others who I am convinced need to go see a surgeon to have whatever is stuck in their rear ends pulled out.

Why do so many off-color people come to the libary you might ask? The simple answer: because everything is free...barring overdue fines.

I have decided to record the daily melodramas and meltdowns that our librarians deal with to perhaps help you feel better about your job...and to make a valiant effort to keep my sanity in tact.

Thanks for listening.