reference rollcall: weirdo week edition

for some reason last week was weirdo week at the library. the most exciting moment was when i got into a heated discussion with a patron about whether or not it’s okay to call teenagers racial slurs and tell them that their parents are failures for letting them run wild in the library. (um…it’s not okay.) but aside from that–

-”how do i get out of here?!” this from a haried looking man who had come downstairs to the children’s room looking to exit the library.

-someone called looking for the cell phone number of a woman she thinks might live in new york city. sorry, even i am not that good.

-”which harry potter comes first?” i told her. “but how do you KNOW that’s the first one?”

-”i’m looking for this alphabet book that i checked out for my kids a few years ago. i don’t remember the name or author, but i know that V was for violet.” we have a list of alphabet books, actually, so we looked through all the ones that were checked in to see if V was for violet. we did not find it.

-”I need eat pray love for my book club tomorrow. what, there’s 56 holds? Seriously? but i need it for BOOK CLUB. gee, I didn’t know it was that popular.” (short rant: what IS it with women in book clubs waiting until the day before to request a copy of a NYT bestseller and then getting pissed at me because we don’t have a special secret cupboard full of their book club selections that we were saving for just as long as they needed to remember that they are, in fact, in a book club, and it is, in fact, meeting tomorrow, and that they can’t skip because otherwise tammy will get to pick the book again even though it is NOT HER TURN? lady, if you do this to me again i will find tammy and tell her that you asked me to print out an internet synopsis of eat pray love because you are too cheap to buy the book.)

a reference rollcall from last week

we started the day off with a humdinger:

-study books for the civil service exam…on mechanical maintenance. we had no such book. a book does exist (found it on the amaz0n) but no libraries nearby owned it. a library in the state did own it, but the test was in two days. so instead we found some books on basic electronics & spatial relations.

-book called ‘cat and the golden egg.’ was actually a short story in a book called ‘newbery zoo’ which we located at the next library over.

-chocolate man came in and said his wife wanted ‘shadow music’ by j. garwood. it has many requests on it but i found him a holds-exempt copy and he was even more cheerful than usual. (chocolate man is a sweet elderly gent who chucks dove pr0mises onto the reference desk every time he comes in. needless to say, i love him.)

-books on amenhotep

-little girl wanted cat stories

-1,000 splendid suns? oh, they’re all checked out? i need it for book club tomorrow. gosh, i didn’t realize it was so popular.

conversation with monsieur elderly frenchman #2

monsieur elderly frenchman, having remembered his username, continues to have problems logging into the email account he set up at the library’s computer class.

me: (after several more unsuccessful login attempts) are you sure you remember your password?

M.E.F: yes.

me: I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong then.

him: but password is right! it’s fiddlesticks!*

(people start looking up from their computers)

me: no, don’t tell me that.

him: i put fiddlesticks! fiddlesticks is password! (writes “fiddlesticks” down for good measure and holds it up for me) see? fiddlesticks!!

me: shhhh! passwords are secret! secret!

him: oh.

*not his real password

conversation with mr. elderly frenchman #1

I had been helping him interloan books written in French, a rather complicated process involving lots of typing and head-scratching, since the interloan catalog stubbornly refuses to understand French.

Mr. E.F.: merci beaucoup!

me: (trying to be impressive but drawing giant blank)… OUI!

Mr. E.F.: (chuckles and walks away)

me: wait…au revoir!!

Mr. E.F.: Au revoir!

I wish I knew how to say ‘you’re welcome’ in French.

1-18-08 rollcall

worked 8 hours yesterday, nearly all of which were on the desk. did i mind? no i did not. i love the desk. the desk is my oyster.

reference question rollcall!

-biography of hearst

-”The Infidel”

-The Closer Season 3? (not out yet, actually)

-Lori Wick series: what is the difference? do we have them all? can i put holds on them all? (yes you can.)

-lost 2 year old wearing red jacket. enjoys hiding to scare his mother. this one took 20 minutes, by the end of which there was a frantic mother near tears. several phone calls were made to all floors. 2 year old located by mr. e. upstairs hiding in computer lab.

-mr. elderly frenchman came in; i am very fond of him. he’d been to the basic email class last week and had been helped to sign up for email, however, now he could not remember his username or password. sadly i could not help very much.

-video game thieves struck again

-books about rats, raccoons, and owls.

-where are the tintin books?

-where is the jungle book?

-architect came in wanting to take photos of the library because he is designing one.

-books about the 1918 flu pandemic and its effect on people’s lives. this was fun and spurred the conversation topic “what is your favorite plague?” with my coworker. his: bubonic. mine: red death, as in “masque of the” until we discovered that edgar allen poe actually made it up, at which point i changed my answer to yellow fever.

-phone number for B. F. chen’s. did not take long to figure out which chain restaurant she really meant.

-karen kingsbury books.

-do you have the textbook for my college physiology class? i need it, um, now. (sorry, no).

-books about computers

-books about modern architecture

-oh, i didn’t mean modern architecture, i meant fireplace design

-my computer won’t scroll

-how late are you open?

-is the new pirates of the carribean movie in? (no.)

-i need to call my mom

-i need to call my mom too

-i need to call my mom again

and a few more that i forgot to write down. how could you not love this job?