Blogging Reference

Rain early this morning.  It's clearing now, in good time for the Art In The Park festival downtown.  I had to detour around it to get to the library.

Two weeks smoke-free, and I still feel like Gollum without his "precious".  Shouldn't be surprised.  I smoked for years and years.  Sigh...

10:00  Open

Is the book shop open today?

Where is tax help?

PC for Josh

Here's Ron K., retired colleague.  Needs help copying entry for Reds from The Motion Picture Guide.  Says, "Don't ever let them get rid of this!"

Where is tax help?

Woman says man has USB device plugged into back of catalog PC, thought I should know.  I go to look.  A man is charging a phone and an iPod.

Where is tax help?

Where are tax "booklets"?

Deputy sheriff stops by to ask how my quitting smoking is going, gives me a thumb-up.

Man has read Mr. Hooligan by Ian Vasquez, wants author's two previous books, Lonesome Point and 2008 Shamus Award winner In the Heat.  Place ILL requests for him.

Police officer asks for deputy.  They take a young man at an Internet PC into custody, walk him downstairs.

Today's paper.

Couple of women looking for The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene.  Take to shelf.  She asks me to show her how to use self-check machine, but her card's expired.  Have to send her to circulation.

"Could you direct me to the tax assistance?"

11:18  Make round of floor.  All is well.

Police officer goes back out 2nd floor exit,  Young man they were talking to comes back up, gets back on Internet PC.

"Do y'all have a stapler?"

"Yeah so where's the Henderson Room?"

Go to pull more humor for my display.

11:50  S. goes to lunch.

Phone:  Darlene wants Bullet by Laurel Hamilton.  Find on new shelf, put on hold.

DT from Youth Services asks who on staff does the African-American BookLetter.  I say I believe it is done by BookLetters, is not a staff production.

Phone:  Jolene wants to know what was the sitcom with Kevin James.  Was it King of Queens, 1998-2007, with Kevin James, Leah Remini, and Jerry Stiller?  That's it.

Where are meetings rooms A and B?  Tallahassee Authors Network is meeting there now.

Where is tax help?

PC for Sadie.

12:18  Watching people going about using the library:  browsing, working at tables.  No one seems to need my help at the moment.

Phone:  The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.  Circulating copies are lost, but have in reference collection.  Can he photocopy?  Yes.

PC's for 3 boys.

Phone:  He needs a couple of tax forms, schedules C and SE, will come in.

1:04  Back from lunch.  Sandwiches in the gazebo with David Downing's Zoo Station, a very readable suspense story set in Germany in 1938.  It's got that feeling of creepy paranoia and danger, like Philip Kerr or Alan Furst.  Great atmosphere.

Woman wants to know more about how she could listen to the OverDrive downloadable audio book of Suze Orman's The Money Class.  Could she download it to a floppy disk?  How about a USB drive?

Dad w 2 girls wants The Greek Way, Emerson's Essays, Robert Lowell.  Take to shelf.

She wants geometry, trigonometry.  Take to shelf.

Christy from tax help stops on way back from restroom."Only one more day!"

Help girl restart her PC session.

Baseball books, take to shelf.

Here's Jerry to research online racing forms.  A betting man.

Help w printer jam.

Her reservation expired while PC was hung rebooting.  Persuade man to let her have his reservation for that PC, get him another, thank him, get her logged in & happy.

2:22  We got off easy today.  A lot going on, Art In The Park, the Garnet & Gold game over at the stadium.  Tomorrow's Palm Sunday.

Phone:  She wants Atlas Shrugged.  Can't find our copy.  Checked in from "Discard" on 1/3, which is odd. Is copy at branch.  she asks me to reserve it, she'll pick it up there.  Call branch, they trap it.

Phone:  S's husband.

Ruby walks up.  Called yesterday with unemployment questions.  I had printed out eligibility requirements for her.  Says they told her she couldn't draw unemployment and go to school, but wouldn't give her chapter and verse to support it.  Get her to WorkForce Innovation and Florida Statues sites on PC.  Ruby can be demanding.  I always feel a shiver of dread when I see her coming.

Woman needs to see the Florida Statutes and Administrative Code.  We have the statutes in print, but she'll need to go online for the Administrative Code.

3:17  PC for Kendrick..  PC for Kometrius.

Do three more things for Ruby, who wants to get her nephew a Bright Futures scholarship.

Woman complains about guy next to her watching music videos.  She's trying to work.  Give her another.

Where is PC 45?

PC for Bryan.

Couple of young black men wearing rosaries around their necks ask for PC's.  I've been wondering what that's all about.  Found a number of forum discussions, often heated.  Catholics don't wear rosaries as necklaces.  Found a story about it from 2008.  Apparently they are worn for protection.  But police have been finding gang-related signals in them as well.  The first story is three years old, but I didn't start seeing them here until last year.  Possibly adopted from use by Hispanic youth.

4:05  GRE test prep book.  When she tries to use the self-check machine, her card is blocked.  She must go to circulation.

Phone:  Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown.  Hold for Kevin.

4:30  30 min. announcement.

Help w copier.  Help w self-check machine.

Refill humor display.

Books about Stonewall Jackson.  He hasn't been to the library since he was in middle school.  I say, "Welcome back!"  He's been watching the PBS series on the Civil War by Ken Burns.  He takes Stonewall Jackson:  the man, the soldier, the legend by James I. Robertson, and Henderson's Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War.

5 min. announcement.  Time to go.