This is my third weekend this month, wrangled around from holiday swaps, usual weekend, and trying not to use all of my vacation time in January. It'll mean 8 hours on the desk today--four of which midday I'll have help from one of our part-time desk staff.
9:00 Back on desk. Check the calendar for any programs I've forgotten: there's an X-Box Tournament today for 13 and older. Our younger gamers (11-12) will be crabby about that but we're partnering with local gaming store and there will be adult, guessing they put the age limits in place.
10:15 Remind myself that patrons may be reacting not to me personally but to something in their environment over which I have no control. I was friendly and polite, that's all I can do.
10:23 Grandparent looking for shape books. Point out Green labels on picture book denoting "concept books." (Shapes, ABC, Numbers, etc). Shoot email to Madame Storyteller, are we going to move those to a collected area?
10:30 Plans for this spring (maybe spring break ish?): go through the entire chapter book collection and figure out what series we own. Our Lady of Cataloging told me there's no way to do this via Horizon and I'm still figuring out what all we have, what is a series I need to check on. I did a lot of work with the weeding last year so that cleaned out a bunch of the "we only have book 3" but I want a better sense so I can keep up with new releases.
11:00 Chat with Dr. Knitter Mom who I know mostly online. Hear details of her sock club involvement. Drool accordingly. Share Unique Sheep Website. Part time person joins me for desk. Get to hold Patron Age 7 months.
12:00 Consult with Circulation re this afternoon's tournament. Apparently people drove in for this from a couple of hours away, are already waiting to queue to get onto team list (limited to 16 teams I think?). Make call to TS Dude to determine what time he'll be in to wrangle, confirm no early sign up.
12:17 Books to expand reading of a boy who likes graphic novels. Suggest Something Wickedly Weird, Horrid Henry, Batman/Superman "chapter books", and Dav Pilkey. Working through the Baker and Taylor catalog with list of "popular series" and building a series list of ones I know we have. Checking to see if there are any new titles I need to put on order.
Lunch--Quite a lot of gamers congregating, which makes sense for a tournament with no entry fee. No early sign up means they are standing in the center of the main floor lingering. When was the last time we had a big cluster of 20-something young men congregating in our library excitedly? Hmmmmm
1:47 Thinking about going to watch the horde descend to the basement at two--as the Garden Club tries to come upstairs.
1:55 Chat with parent about AWE Stations again. Early literacy games, touch screens, plug and play.... WONDERFUL things.
2:00 The gamers have descended to the basement. Peace reigns once more on the main level. I'm back to the series lists.
2:40 Remembering with coworker how to add a row to a table on new website--need to update reading lists for Newbery and Caldecott. Search staff wiki for log-in instructions for coworker to new site.Can't find it, so email to Web designer.
3:25 Patrons Age 7 and 5 (with mom) are here to pick up their display. We have a huge circular window with shelves ("the porthole") where we have kids display collections one month at a time. Littlest Pet Shop is on the way out--snowglobes should be arriving tomorrow. There is a full two year waiting list for this, it's popular.
3:45 Patron Age 6 comes by to tell me he's not coming to storytime Monday but will be in the next week. Homeschooling Mom and I discuss audiobooks for family to listen to at lunchtime. Current choice is Beverly Cleary's Mouse and the Motorcycle. Patron looking for plays and how to use self-check.
3:52 Winx movie? Putting holds on Psychic Academy graphic novels.
4:16 Check book drop--we do this 3-4 times a day to verify that it went back down after the Circ Aides clear it. We have an ancient bookdrop that sinks slowly to ground level. The noise it makes when it's below zero is hard to describe.
4:45 Wish patrons wouldn't repeatedly rush in 15-5 minutes before we close to frantically grab things. The kids are instantly stressed, can't take the time to browse and it triggers a lot of frustration for them--which means the library visit is rarely a happy one.
4:54 One more hold on a Fairy Chronicles book. Patron Age 12 needs to use the phone for a ride home.
Try again on Sunday for 1-5 on Desk....
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