Blogging Reference

 This was a peculiar Saturday.  Instead of lots of short transactions, I got people who needed lots of help:  with newspaper databases, with microfilm, with online food stamp renewal, with digital media downloads, each taking about twenty minutes, with a marathon phone session lasting well over an hour helping an older woman who was very intelligent but a digital media neophyte get started with OverDrive.  I don't think I have worked so hard for my pay in a long time.

10:00  Open.  A crowd of people spills from the stairs, all rushing to be first in line for AARP tax help.They are soon out of sight.  Only a handful of Internet users take seats this early on a Saturday morn.

PC for Josh.

Where are they doing the taxes?

Where is tax help?

Phone:  Mr. L. needs contact info for Guilford of Maine, upholstery fabric mfgr.

She wants to know status of request for The 17 Day Diet by Mike Moreno.  Requested back in Dec..  Her request is still pending, pub date is 3/15/11.  Says Dr. Phil is "really pushing it."

Phone:  She wants tax help info.

 11:15  Helped man reapply for food stamps, showed another man ProQuest and NewsBank newspaper archives, gave woman lists of black authors, showed Cathy how to turn on numpad,
  
Phone:  Rosa from Lloyd, wants obit info for Marvin Sease, recently deceased R&B singer, also what kind of peppers mentioned on CBS Early Show Valentine's Day Brunch segment this a.m.

Piquillo Pepper: The name piquillo means "little beak." Traditionally, piquillo peppers are grown in Northern Spain and are hand-picked, then roasted over open fires. The peppers are then peeled, all by hand then packed in jars or tins. The roasting of the pepper gives it a rich, spicy-sweet flavor. (Source: GourmetSleuth.com)

PC's for Kasia and Katrina.

11:47  Demo'd microfilm, show woman how to sign onto PC w card, PC for Ian.

Woman says she's going through a situation with her daughter missing, can she have forms faxed to her here?  Sorry, no.

Following up on e-mail request for autobiog. of singer formerly known as Vanity, Denise Matthews.  After a career of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, she got a new liver and religion.  She self-published Blame It on Vanity in 2004.  It's not available from Amazon and no libraries own it.  Now she's put out a new, deluxe edition, available only through her web site for $50.

Phone:  She wants Frankenstein or, the modern Prometheus, but her child's teacher has specified the Oxford World's Classics edition.  We got plenny Frankensteins, Dover, Bantam, but not that one.

12:05  About lunch time, as soon as L shows up.

1:06  Back from lunch.  I got delayed helping Asian woman download audiobooks to her Olympus Digital Voice Recorder.  She'd been trying NetLibrary.  Didn't want to fool with NL, so showed her OverDrive.  She caught on quickly, was very proficient w her device.

PC for Carrie.

Where to make PC reservation, where is tax help?

She can't find Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell,  Find on shelving cart.

1:30  Noon rush is over.  Several PC's are open.  No book browsers.

Phone:  She wants I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and The Poems of Phyllis Wheatley:  a Native African and a Slave.  Don't have Bird on the shelf at main, copies at branches.  Wheatley is out & couple weeks overdue.  Says she'll call back, doesn't want to place holds.

3:12  Spent about 75 min. on phone w woman doing OverDrive support.  Got her from ABC to having audio book transfer from PC to iPod in progress.  She'll call back if she has any more problems.  Thinks she'll be all right. She was downloading the audio book of Caged Bird, coincidentally.  Maya Angelou spoke at a black history program at FAMU last week.

Girl needs When History is a Nightmare:  Lives and Memories of Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Stevan M. Weine, and Bosnia:  A Short History by Noel Malcolm.  Take to shelf.

L is gone.

Microfilm demo.

Phone:  What's up w his request for Pain, Pain, Go Away by William Faber and Morton Walker?  Is on order from Ingram.  Also wants info on prolotherapy from Alternative Medicine:  The Definitive Guide by Burton Walker.

Give out plastic bags for books.

PC for Ivan

4:04

Phone:  Mr. L. wants address for the Baptist Press.  Not a publisher but a news bureau for the Southern Baptist Convention.  Web site has only e-mail contact, no address, no phone.  Not in Gale Media Directory either.  No luck w Google.  He says he'll try SBC on Monday.

Shelve a few K's from old display.  Between Kellerman, King, Koontz, and Krentz, the K's in fiction are very konstipated, little room.

30 min closing announcement.

How can he find a play by John Millington Synge?  Give him The Complete Works of.

Where are self-help books?  Take to shelf.  Show inspirational books too.

Has PC reservation downstairs.  Can I cancel it?  Wants to be upstairs.  Is Learning Express appropriate for his high school student, for SAT prep?  Yes, give him helpful bookmark.

She wants nursing assistant exam test prep book.  Place hold.

She can't find Sliding Into Home by Kendra Wilkinson.  Find on New Non-Fiction shelves.

Tax form questions, which 1040?  Show handy guide on how to choose.