Blogging Reference

It's another Game Day Saturday, FSU plays NC State at noon.  The weather is overcast and cool.  The vane on the cupola of the old, WPA-built post office, (now a bankruptcy court), is pointing North.

The self-checkout machines are not working.  Not sure what's wrong.  Normally, if the library system is up, they're fine.  I'll try again in a little while.

10:00 Open  Phone:  Rose C. wants to know how to dance the Tarantella.  Don't find a "how-to" right off.  The International Ency. of Dance has good article.  "The figures of the tarantella...may be executed in any order..."  Will mail her the article.  Lots of YouTube videos are out there, but I don't think Rose is a computer person. She sounds quite elderly.  Says they want to put on the dance at an Italian festival in February.  She has a friend who says she knows how to do it, but is too old to actually perform it now.



10:24  The computer reservation system isn't working either.  They're rebooting it.  Our systems people were doing some work overnight.

He's doing a report on several species of rhinoceros.  All I can offer is Grzimek's Animal Ency., our reliable fall-back.

There, do you see?  I've use two print reference works in the last 30 minutes, and was glad to have them!

DC says all working now.

Old woman with no teeth wants a telephone book, wants to know if tote bag at Florida Dept. of Health "Food Safety and Temperature Control" display is free to take.  Yes.

Phone:  R. has bought me a sandwich at Crispers, is about to bring it.

Copy tarantella article to mail.  Also mailing haiku poem, Springtime in Edo, to Ann P.  Was published 2006 in Japan in a limited ed., but no libraries own it, so can't ILL it.  Poem commemorating 300th anniv. of death of Kikaku, disciple of Basho.  Found it online in the journal, Simply Haiku.

Today's paper?  Sorry, was not delivered this morn.  Takes Friday's.  We've called the delivery man, should be here later.

11:36  Quiet.  Here's the deputy.  A little schmooze.

Process some requests.

Phone:  number for Mike Shannon's Steaks and Seafood in St. Louis.

Phone:  She wants video, Helping Your Child Sleep Thought the Night.  Not on file.  Try author search.  No.  Is she sure?  She checks, it's Baby, not Child.  Yes, is on shelf, transfer her to Media desk.

12:11  Lunch.

12:59  SE gone to lunch, DC sitting with me at the desk.  It's cleared some outside.  Sunny and still cool, a perfect day for a game.

Quiet, do some requests.
Explosive Eighteen, place hold.
Smokin' Seventeen, place hold.
Ego, Hunger and Aggression by Frederick Perls, place hold.


Today's paper?  Don't have it yet.

Phone:  how to renew her books with the new catalog.

He wants books on the mysteries of the pyramids.  Have several, take to shelf.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, place hold.

Magic Graves by Jeanine Frost & Ilona Andrews; is e-book only, can't supply.

Two ladies, elder mom & middle-aged daughter want Kill Shot by Vince Flynn.  Release date is Feb. '12, but can place request.  Also want to know about getting library e-books on Kindle.

Can he get PC 64 again?  No, give him another.

His computer shut off on him.  Give him another.

Where does this computer print from?

Curran by Ilona Andrews; is e-book only, but send her link for free download.

Fathers and Sons by Ilona Andrews; is e-book only, but send her link for free download.

On Sparrow Hill by Maureen Lang.  Send to Purchase/ILL.

Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly, place hold.

Break a $5 for Gene the Englishman.

PC for James.

House of Secrets by Tracie Peterson, place hold.

Sweet Sanctuary by Sheila Walsh, send to Purchase/ILL.

Phone:  ILL renewal request for The Chief: Art Rooney and his Pittsburgh Steelers.

Pale, mumbling high school boy wants something about the "end of days"  The end of days?  "The popolips", he elaborates.  Ah, the Apocalypse.  We look at several titles, and he settles on Tim LaHaye's Are We Living In The End-Times?


She's writing a report on the Wesley brothers and the Methodist reforms.  Give her a biography of John Wesley.  All of our books on Methodism are on its history in the United States.

Copier is out of paper.

She wants Halloween Cookbooks.  Surprised to find hardly anything in the catalog.

Fade to Blue by Julie Carobini, place hold.

The Herodian dynasty, show him entry in Ency. Judaica and v. 2 of Graetz's History of the Jews.

There's a problem with a woman's place on the reserve list for a book.  She is sure she was next in line, and now she's number 64.  She's upset.  Call Super to hear her story.

PC for Eric.

Phone:  it's DT in Youth Services.  Is Super still there?  No, she's gone away now.

3:16   PC for Dexter.

Facing the Giants by Alex Kendrick, send to Purchase/ILL.

Courageous by Randy Alcorn, send to Purchase/ILL.

PC for Jim.  He can't believe they are supposed to get snow in the NE.  And they just had a hurricane not long ago, I add.

Born to Die by Lisa Jackson, place hold,

PC's for Andrew, Marcus.

Where are vegetarian cookbooks?  Take her to shelf.  She has been diagnosed with gout, she says, and can only eat four ounces of meat per day.  What else is there, she wonders?

Do we have today's paper yet?  Sorry, no.  Takes USA Today instead.

Hush by Nancy Bush, send to Purchase/ILL.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, place hold.

Where can she get library card?

He says the urinal's not working in the men's room.  Seems ok.  It flushes somewhat weakly, and complaints are not unusual.

Make copy for him from the World Aircraft Ency.

Standing Against the Wind by Martha Lou Peritti, place hold.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan, place hold.

Mudroom by Hillary Jordan, must mean Mudbound, place hold.

World Aircraft boy:  may he take scrap paper home to make paper plane models?  Yes.

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman, place hold.

The School of the Seers: A Practical Guide on How to See in the Unseen Realm by Jonathan Welton, send to Purchase/ILL.

I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella, standing order author, send to Purchase.

Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult, standing order author, send to Purchase.

4:17  He wants books on "corporate governance, boards of directors."  Show him business management section.

Where can she get a library card?

One Summer by David Baldacci, place hold.

The Book of Mahjong by Amy Lo, send to ILL.

Show her how to renew materials online.

Show her the quilting section.

30 min. to closing.  Signing off.

Back in the Land of the Living

I got sick while I was in New York at the end of September.  A cold, allergies, "The Crud", as local doctors name it.  It's been going around Tallahassee in a big way lately.  Only this week have I begun to really feel better, apart from a lingering cough.  Sitting on the front porch with my coffee this morning, with the rising sun shining through the pines, I was thankful for the new day.

With the two new library branches opening up, promotions have meant a round of interviews for positions vacated.  I am on the hiring committee for a part-time Sunday IP position in Youth Services.  We interviewed three candidates today, and will interview another three on Wednesday.  We are fortunate to have some good applicants.

Sitting at the reference desk with MK this morning, I heard  a strummed guitar from the first floor.  It was the Story Time Halloween Parade, led by Gary C.!  I called M. to the stairwell to watch as moms & tots processed.  We saw a monkey, a bee, a princess.

I have been reading through Barbara Cleverly's Commander Sandilands mysteries.  They are set in the 1920's, in India at first, and moving to England and the Continent.  They are very well written, with an impressive depth of background and strong characters.  I found I would have to wait for Folly Du Jour, and I had "cannibalized" a dog-chewed copy of Patrick O'Brian's H.M.S. Surprise, applying its bar-code and cataloging label to a donated copy.  So I took the old copy home to read again.

I read the whole Aubrey/Maturin series a few years ago.  What a pleasure to revisit O'Brian.  I used to have a patron, a man who would only read Louis L'Amour westerns, over and over again.  Maybe this is a particular pleasure for old people?

In a similar vein, I was rereading my Winged Chariots: The Popular Art of Early Flight post, which continues to get hits, and I thought it was time to revisit Red Baron 3D, a flight-sim game I played some years ago.  I fired up my old Windows 98 Athlon PC, which I had fitted with a Voodoo 5 graphics card specifically to accommodate RB's Glide graphics, whereupon I lost interest in the game around 2006.  The sound and modem didn't work, and I had to re-seat the sound and modem cards to get them working.

Red Baron 3D opened fine.  There was was my last campaign, just as I left it.  Of course, I've forgotten the keyboard commands, but I tried a "Fly Now" mission, flying a Nieuport 17 against a German Halberstadt D-II.  Oh well, I am no better a pilot than I ever was...  

Manhattan Trip 2011

 Our flight was delayed for several hours in Charlotte due to the weather.  We landed at LaGuardia at sundown.

 A little park we found on the way to the High Line.  Washington Common Park, I believe.

 It was a good thing we did the High Line on Friday, as the rest of our visit was cloudy and wet.

 R. shopping at Anthropologie in Chelsea Market under the High Line.

 Pigeons roosting in the trees behind Abingdon Guest House, where we stayed.

 Looking toward the Upper West Side from the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park.

 Attractive gate to a children's playground by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We spent our time in the galleries devoted to 19th and early 20th century European paintings.  Lovely to see the Cézannes.

 The Elephant & Castle, where I love to have breakfast.

Union Square.