A Year Ago... And Then Today

Hmm... So I just realized I started this lil' bloggy a year ago.

And then I realized I hadn't actually posted in six months. -.-

Don't fear - I have been writing drafts of things to capture precious library moments during the last half a year to share for mocking.

It turns out my falling off the radar was due to a massive sleep deprivation. (Oooops). And while I'm all well and good (or at least, on the path to well and good) the whole situation has me pondering why the human body, in all it's amazing fail-safe awesomeness completely falters under a lack of sleep. Yay for the survival instinct to you know, not die when your airways close up - but not much else by way of letting one know they aren't sleeping. It took years for me to get to this point that I was so messed up that it became somewhat obvious (obvious in hindsight, that is - during, I just couldn't figure out why I couldn't think straight and everything was foggy and muted) - and even then - while some part of me suspected - it wasn't until a family vacation and a visit from a friend in a two month span that I finally decided to get checked for Sleep Apnea. Hindsight is a terrible thing - and kinda makes me angry when I look back at all the doctors I saw for the oddities that had been plaguing me the last few years, only to have no one even suspect sleep deprivation, despite my biggest complaint being "sheer exhaustion all the time." The truth is, even if they asked me if I was sleeping, I would have said yes, as I did lay down, pass out and struggle to get up every morning. Maybe it was because it was just SO obvious that it was invisible. You know, akin to the logic of: What an odd bump in the rug. Perhaps it was overshampooed. Perhaps it needs to be stretched. Perhaps it has been walked on too much. Perhaps I left a heavy chair on it too long and indented around it. When really, there is just something under the rug causing the bump. You know, the most obvious answer that isn't obvious at all because we ironically smart (ie: stupid) humans overthink everything.

Alright. I have kvetched. I shake my fist at the past and happily look forward to the continual getting better and the future. (And hope all that know me will forgive me for being a reclusive damped down idiot the last few years, and especially more recently.)

First the Staplers, Now the Pens!

What is a girl to do???

I went through five, count it - FIVE - pens this morning. -.- All of them ending up in the trash due to malfunction. I am wary of a full blow office supply revolt...

MLIS: Must Like Insulting Strangers

I must confess to you, I nearly cried today. Well, I did, once I got home. Apparently I had to get a Masters Degree to become a librarian. So I could work on the reference desk helping the public. This is the majority of what I do:

- Let me show you how to log onto our Internet computers
- Ah, your having trouble printing, I can help...
- The copier is foiling you, yes, it thinks it's smarter than it really is...
- Sure, I can change your password, do you have picture I.D.?
- You'd like a guess pass for our computers, alright...
- Of course I can print you out map quest directions, where are your starting and ending locations?
- You need a printout of the housing list, ok...
- Ah, so you want to buy something online, well...
- I'm sorry, I don't handle personal information to help people pay their bills online...
- Yes, I can check out a study room to you
- Sir, please set your phone to silent
- It's one person per computer in the lab, please...
- Pick up books/newspapers/magazines
- I can put that book on hold for you...
- I'll request that book from another library for you and fill out this form...

The number of actual "reference" questions I get is rather appallingly low. I'm not saying being "on desk" and doing these things is below me, it isn't. And I'm not saying that they aren't important. They are. But I went to school, got student loans, to get a MASTERS degree - to basically do customer service / troubleshoot equipment / user error with over half of my work hours. And that is not even including all the people we deal with that suck up our time because they are just lonely or mentally unwell. Throw in the special afternoon desk shifts when school gets out (MLIS: Must love irritating students) - and all the crowd control & moose herding... I weep. I weep because I'm being pulled away from what I love (collection development/ programming) that I was trained to do at my salary level - to do something anyone without a MLIS could be doing, if it weren't for the way the job descriptions were written.

*deep sigh* It could be worse. Honestly, I'm just grateful I'm not at one of those libraries where the librarians are out "on desk" almost all of the time. I'd go postal.

Librarians know that the world of libraries, libraries, and how they function is changing. I went to a workshop, I was encouraged even, to attend one about the Futures of Libraries. However, when we (all the people I went with) came back - almost every grand idea, spark of the future, and creatively ingenious re-working of the framework was refuted. They listened to it, some daydreamed, but when our new library opened - well... I can't honestly say a single thing any of us took out of that workshop has been implemented or given serious consideration. Now that, my friends, is the most depressing part. Great ideas, change and the future is great - but only when leaders are willing to embrace it. I'm watching myself and many of the amazing people I work with become crispy, crusty, burnt out husks of what they are capable of because they are being drained by covering things on basic levels of bare functioning and kept away from the things they love to do.

MLIS: Many Losing Inspiration, Sadly.

Encyclopedia: The Dead Tomes

Encyclopedias. The basic reference that almost always has an answer to kids homework. However, if you hand kids the encyclopedia.... they sorta look at it with a frown. You can hand it to them, with exactly what they are looking for... and they will stare glare at it, it's tiny print, and walk away. Even if it is the ONLY item you have with a print source for what they are looking for. Ideally, in today's world, there is a single book on every subject they might be searching. Heaven forbid you have to look in a tome of "Biomes of the World" to discover and learn about the arctic tundra. If you do not have a book titled "Arctic Tundra" - in many a child's mind - you simply do not have a book.

It makes me ponder about our brains. They way we search for and seek information. Or how we, as a society, seem to simply have STOPPED searching for and looking for information. If it isn't at the top of the pile in big red flashing letters, it does not exist. And whatever is there at the top in big red flashing letters is obviously the truth, isn't it? And we wonder why the world is the way it is. Be afraid, be truly afraid.

I swore to myself I'd never be the kind of librarian that shoves books down people's throats. I am currently re-evaluating this.

These thoughts have been brought to you by the Encyclopedia, a large multi-volume tome of vast information that is only good for making your library look full and catch dust. Just ignore the fact that it has peer reviewed information and is generally more accurate than your first google hit.

And now, a little snark...

*quickly brushes stapler foil-ment embarrassment under the rug*

And now, a little snark. So I'm sitting on the reference desk, happily weeding History (which isn't actually my area, but one of the kind librarians I work with indulges my weeding obsession and lets me leave her notes about the books I feel need to go to that great big library in the sky) when a regular patron comes up to me and asks if the study room on the same side of the building as us is open.

"I'm sorry, it isn't. There are three other rooms on the other side of the library..."
"Well, isn't there another quiet room, farther down on this side?"
"Yes, but that room is reserved only for small groups."
"You couldn't just let me in? I'd be happy to leave if a small group needs to use it..."

*sigh*.... *deep sigh*.... Really, people. Look, it's all fine and good to bend the rules once in a while. And you know, if he had asked at the beginning of my shift when the library was pretty quiet and dead, I might have even done it. But it was now towards the end of my shift, school had just let and all those "small groups" were all over the library doing homework (in a surprisingly civilized library manner, actually). Yes, I'm a bit of a hard ass too - but you tell one person you'll make an exception to the rule and 1. have them ask every day for a week, well beyond the point of "exception", and 2. Someone else overheard and expects the same kind of "exception." It's not that we are evil, it's just that being nice tends to be an invitation to be run over. So I said,

"I'm sorry, that room is -only- for small study groups." Begrudgingly, he asks for the far end room on the other side of the library. I log him in and get the key and start walking to the study room to open it for him.

"So, when this group here leaves (this would be the group that was sitting behind him where he had been working at a table in the open all day), would you mind coming and getting me?"

*headdesk* Really, you actually sit here every day - and you watch us work, at the table that is RIGHT NEXT to the reference desk - and you STILL think I have the time to pay enough attention during the busy hour to whether or not someone is sitting in a particular spot and then just letting you know when they have vacated? Do I look like a personal space reserver?!?

Mighty Librarian! Foiled by the Stapler...

Alright. I'm a librarian. I love books. And paper. And, yes, I've also had a perverse love of office supplies since before my walking days. It doesn't surprise me when the computers around me act demonically possessed and gnome infested - I'm used to computers and electronics mocking me and being difficult. But I have yet to figure out why the staplers at my current place of employment hate me with such loathing. It never fails. The stapler is out of staples. I put more in, I shut it. Some times, harshly. Other times, gingerly. And always - ALWAYS - it gets jammed. I must take it to a co-worker to rescue me the blasted uncooperative stapler. Perhaps I shouldn't have joked all these years about the staple conspiracy theory... I can deal with uppity patrons, really weird questions, and find anything (oftentimes with a little help from my friends...) but the damned stapler foils me. I'd declare war with the staplers, but I fear for my life.

Never a Dull Day...

Today the plumbing blew. I think. I'm not actually sure what happened. Earlier in the day I was getting a headache, and had heard about a sewage spill in one of the shops that leases part of the building, and knew the loud grindy (yes, I know that too is not a word) noises were from whatever work people were trying to fix it. No biggie.

And then I left the children's librarian's office after nearly three hours of fiendish plotting for the next few months to have my nose assaulted. Apparently, we were now leaking sewage. It took about a half hour for the entire downstairs to be offensive. We cleared out the floor. And then we noticed that there were wet spots in the stacks. And under the library assistant's desk...

And here I thought I'd have a nice quiet day to get some work done.

The Snark Returns!

So, I'm reporting this a bit late, as it happened when I went down to Comicon, which if you look at the time-stamp, was a couple of weeks ago. But regardless. I was flying down to San Diego and meeting my sister there. I packed two of the water bottles I like from the company I like, and went off to the airport. I got to the security gate, and they stopped my bag. Hmm. They took out my water bottles and told me I couldn't take them with me. I, of course, blinked. EH? "You can take them back out that way and drink them right now if you'd like," the guard told me. As I had a plane to catch, and didn't want to drink that much water right before getting on, I told him I'd pass.

To be honest, when I told my sister all this, she rolled her eyes and asked when the hell the last time I flew was. Well, the last time I flew, they said "take a sip," wait 30 seconds and see if you drop dead. IF not, you and your water bottle are free to go through.

I was caught off guard, and I was thirsty. Peeved, mostly because the waste of the water bottles I had purchased just for this trip being unceremoniously dumped into the trash bin behind him, I asked. "Well, why is that?" I tried to be nice. But I was really seething pissed. I knew he was just the messenger, and after he gave me some sort of explanation, I let it go. I took a deep breath, put my shoes back on, picked up my bag and walked around the corner.

To see - water bottles for sale. Which only riled me up further. As I walked to the far end of the airport to my gate, seeing all sorts of different places in the airport selling water. There is something seriously wrong with this. I of course, refused on principle to buy any, despite my thirst. My thoughts on the matter are two-fold.

1. Someone should sue them for having a monopoly (The San Diego airport had the same "brand".) Or whatever the right term equivalent would be.

2. I think it would be just funny, if someone snuck into their processing plant and refilled the water bottles with vinegar.

*sigh* No, I will NOT repeat that!

A nice quiet day at the library, for which I was very grateful. After having a fever the last couple days, (YARGH), it was nice to have a gentle day at the library. However, that doesn't' mean there wasn't at least one shining star to earn my ilk.

*Phone Rings*
"Hello, reference desk"
"Hello reference, I would like to know a summary of the movie XYZ"
"Do you know what year XYZ was from?"
"1966"
"Alright, let me look it up"
*I type it in and open a window for the IMDB result and a wikipedia one, of course, I survey the summary on the IMDB one first, but, with a single sentence it seemed skimpy. And I recognized the voice, one of -those- patrons (regular) that has to ask the required number of exactly 20 questions, as if calling reference was always a game with set rules, so I read the intro on the Wikipedia page aloud to the patron on the phone*
(Insert uniform movie synopsis here that states clearly it is a western and stars Bob the Habidasher)
"So.... it is ....about westerns?"
"Yes"
"And it stars Bob the Habidasher?"
"Uhm, yes"
"And it also ...."
"Yes"
"Alright, could you read it again?"

(Note: Ire-o-meter rising steadily)
So I read the intro again. Then, the patron wanted to know more.... *SIGH* So I said there was more and began to read the first paragraph of the plot summary. Rinse and repeat ire building conversation.

"Would you please read that again, slowly?"
(Note: Ire-o-meter bubbling over)
"Actually sir, I would be happy to print this out for you to read at your leisure, if you would like"
"Well, could you email it to me?"
.... I pause, wondering the logistics of it, but before I can reach a conclusion...
"Never mind, that wouldn't be very practical. I'll just call back later after I've gotten to a computer and checked my email."
(Note: Ire-o-meter bursting and switching rapidly to anger, frustration and oh my god, I don't want to inflict this on any other poor librarian....)
"So you do have access to a computer?"
"Yes" (AHHHHHH dammit, don't ask me to do something you could do!!!)
"Well, you could pull up this web page yourself. I just searched XYZ on Wikipedia"
"Wikipedia?"
"Yes."
"Alright, I'll try that, thank you."

A Brief Snark Break

Even I am totally disarmed by utterly cute and adorable things.

For Instance:

I accidentally stumbled across this anime, "Chi's Sweet Home" on crunchyroll while watching some episodes of Vampire Knight and Saiunkoku Monogatori. I dare you to watch it (episodes are about three minutes each), and tell me it's not adorable. In my view of the world, it just might be the most adorable anime ever. It ranks right up there with Yotsuba& (which, as far as I know, is only a manga as of yet). The only thing that pains me is the thought that if it ever gets licensed here in the US and they try to make an English dub, they would ruin it. But regardless. It is all my restraint not to fly to Japan and get the manga, even though I don't speak Japanese, just so I can thoroughly drown myself in it's cuteness.