It's quiet here at the Claremont Branch. I can hear over at the circulation desk an older woman is being told she returned a DVD case without the DVD inside. "I found that at home. I was wondering about it. If you really want it, I can get it back today," she says.
Thursday nights we stay open until 8pm. And when the light lasts people linger. During winter by 8 it's been dark for two or three hours. Few people hang around.
A warm day. The front door is propped open.
A man just asked me what our wifi security protocols are. We have security protocols? The Wireless FAQ page on the BPL website says, "Your information is not protected while using wireless." So I guess there aren't any.
Another man asks me if he can talk to me about a missing book. It seems he got a notice saying a book he checked out had not yet been returned. "But I know I returned it," he says. "I know because I opened the door to the drop box and looked in to make sure it had fallen all the way in."
I took the library card, scanned it under the laser frog scanner. The patron's library account popped up. He had exactly zero books checked out currently and had no fines. "No need to worry any more," I said.
I've been working away at the weeding project, book by book reviewing the collection for damage and for books that just don't go out the door. The section I've been going through just lately used to be very tight and has been weeded in the recent past. So mostly I'm carrying books from the shelf to the Info Desk then, a few minutes later, carrying them back. Still, a few things have been put aside: Chinatown, USA: a history and guide (1965), a 17 year old collection of George Will columns, superceded editions (a Suze Orman book, a Nolo book on 401(k)s, a J.K. Lasser Income Tax guide).
4 comments:
Ah, info desk blogging. I always enjoy these little glimpses behind the scenes.
And, of course, it's always possible my boss or coworkers or one of the patrons described will run across the blog ... so no fussing about 'em!
I worked for years at my university library, first as a student worker, then as a nighttime supervisor, for the government documents department. I had to pull info desk duty one afternoon a week--it was either the best hour of the day, or the worst. Sometimes students would walk in with dazed expressions, and just had to tell someone, "I've been coming to school here for four years and had no idea this was a library."
Berkeley & Oakland abut. And people are frequently mystified by that there's a difference between the Oakland Public Library System and the Berkeley Public Library.
There's a Montclair neighborhood in Oakland. It has a branch library. I work at BPL's Claremont Branch. I got this question by telephone: "What's the difference between Montclair and Claremont?"
... um ...
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