Blogging Reference...Sort Of.

Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.  My Saturday to work.  I've got my voice back, but I'm in a thick-headed stupor that a shower and cups of coffee do little to dispel.  My lungs ache and tingle.  Riding to the library on my Vespa, I see trees that have put out tassels.  Are they sycamores, sweetgums?  Not pecans, yet.  Is there a Patron Saint of pollen-sufferers?

It was an extraordinarily windy day.  In the northeast, rain and wind caused power outages for hundreds of thousands.  A blustery March day, too hot in the sun, too cold in the shade, as I tried to read and smoke outside at lunch, with my Pepsi and tuna sandwich.

I wasn't up to doing a live reference blog post.  Our new librarian, who was with me today, is still in training, so that took priority.  So many things can't really be taught until they come up in real time:  interlibrary loan renewals, what the cut-off time is to spend with a patron when the desk is busy with no back-up, the enduring importance of print sources for ready reference.

We had several inquiries about Ancestry, a genealogy db that the library has had to drop, due to budget considerations.  It is still available at the State Library, down the street, but one patron complained that printing there costs 25¢ a page.  We are using the LDS site Family Search instead for Social Security Death Index look-ups.

A man wondered where our Map Center had gone.  We dismantled it long ago, as use of it declined to  zero and gps maps went online.  He wanted to see railroad lines east from Tallahassee.  The Atlas of Florida had a plate illustrating rail lines in Florida c. 1995.

We had reheated chicken jambalaya for supper, settling into our comfy chairs afterward to zone out and listen to Prairie Home Companion, followed by the conclusion to the very moving film, Pope John Paul II, starring Jon Voight as Karol Wojtyla, on EWTN Cinema.