12.21.07
Category: dribblings
so yeah, nothing has been done on the car crash into the deck/fence thing. the world is too busy for little things like that. an insurance adjuster has come by and taken pictures, but i haven’t heard a damn thing back… and that was two weeks ago, so, “let the record show, they were all over that.” no one cares. (ani quote, laura!)
in other bilzness:
on Jan. 2, i’ll have worked at the ‘brary for a whole year. i know! it doesn’t seem that long, and yet, it’s like i’ve worked there forever. the bad news is, i’ll never get a raise because of some evil “finance committee” (aka: douchebag, vomit-eating, horses’ patoots) did some kind of wicked mojo and now they’ve capped salaries and cornholed poor pitiful part-time library workers. these are the worst kind of people because they have no idea what they are doing and they seem to be in charge of actual important things. oh, but they’ve borrowed millions of dollars for some kind of fan-dabby-dozy sports complex. nice.
municipal politics blah blah hate stupid what? no way! gah.
******
don’t get me wrong. i love my library job. i really do like helping people find the books they need or want. they act like i’m a hero if i’m able to help them. and they act like i’m a genius for being able to find a book on a shelf. sometimes it’s ridiculous.
“oh my gosh! you found it so fast!”
“yeah, well… it was just over there.”
“i would have NEVER found it!”
never? really? NEVER? this happens 10 times a day. sometimes it’s teenagers. most times it’s adults. MOST times it’s GROWN ADULT WOMEN/MOTHERS who have no clue how to use the library. they come up to the desk all accusatory, “ah cain’t find this book. the computer says it’s in, but it ain’t.” (the computer = search terminal. i do miss card catalogues. i mean, sure, they are outdated as all get out (as LBC would say) but at least the card catalogue was always there. it never “crashed” or needed to be rebooted, and they never needed to be shutdown. on the other hand, the computer catalogue lets you know not only if we have the book and where it is, it also lets you know if it is checked out and when it’s due. and it takes up less space. but still! card catalogue memories! author, title, subject!)
what on earth was i talking about? OH! the people who act like we hide the books on the shelves. right, so. they come up to the desk all, “where’s this book?” and these aren’t new patrons, these aren’t visitors who’ve never been in this library before. these people have been here before. they check out things all the time, but they still haven’t grasped that the fiction section? IS OVER THERE. WHERE IT’S ALWAYS BEEN. and yes, THE BOOKS ARE STILL IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY THE AUTHOR’S LAST NAME. just like they’ve been for at least the LAST 100 YEARS OR SO.
i’ve had people ask, MULTIPLE people ask if the fiction books are in any particular order. hmm? order? no. we just put them up all willy-nilly. i like to put the Suzanne Brockman books by Bill O’Rielly’s shitty fiction in hopes they’ll fight. and at night i pretend that Ayn Rand comes out and tells Sylvia Plath to quit bitching. Willa Cather and Laura Ingles Wilder sit and have their own quilting bee… they talk about the old days and about how easy these kids have it today what with vaccinations and central heat and air. King and Koontz talk about how they’ve both run out of shit to write, but that that won’t stop them. doesn’t seem to stop Koontz anyway.
it still shocks me when people ask if the books are in order by title.
title? really? no.
“where’s How to Kill a Mockingbird?”
“i…what? it’s…well first-“
“i looked under the Hs but it’s not there.”
“right, it’ll never be there. it’s under the Ls…for Lee. and it’s not H-“
“but why? aren’t they in order by title?”
hmm, maybe if we were playing Australian Rules Library. “no. they’re in order by the author’s last name.”
“when did you start doing that?”
“it’s always been like that.”
“it wasn’t like that last time i was here.”
i’ve actually had people tell me that! they insist that we move the books around. i try to assure them that we don’t do that, that we’re way too lazy to do that. but what can you do with the public?
Tags: library
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