Blogging Reference

It's been ages, dear reader, since my last one of these.

The Springtime Tallahassee festival is underway today downtown.  I had to weave around and between Springtime 10K runners to get to the library on my Vespa.  Some staff were here early to help the Friends of the Library with a book sale in the park.  I expect people who come to the library by car to stay away today unless they are coming to the festival.  Traffic will be pretty tied up with street closings.

Barbara H. called about requests for books by Alex George, a British writer whose 2012 book, A Good American, has made a splash in the U.S, but whose earlier novels are not generally owned by U.S. libraries, and so difficult to get through interlibrary loan.

A patron is looking for Debra S., who is helping with the library's "Springtime" presence.  We can't find her.  It turns out there's more to it than just the book sale, which is in front of the library steps on the park side.  We apparently have two information booths, one for children, with free stickers, and one for adults, up by the DoubleTree Hotel.  It's thought that Debra may be there, but no one knows for sure.  There was no mention of the booths in our advisory about the book sale.

A man wants several titles by Elaine Pagels: Beyond Belief, which is on-shelf, The Gnostic Gospels, which is in transit, and for which I place a hold, The Origin of Satan, copies of which are lost, and for which I send a request to purchase/ILL, and The Secrets of Mary Magdalene, which is on-shelf.  Also, The Fifth Gospel, by Robert Winterhalter, which is on-shelf.

11:42  Very quiet.  Donna C. comes by, asking whether we found Debra.  No, I say.  She says she will be back at noon to relieve me for lunch.

Susan E., with whom I am working today, asks me to look over the new version of our Popular Authors bibliography.  I suggest Gilbert Morris for the historical fiction section, and question Stephen Crane's listing there.  Susan has been passing the quiet morning cleaning old tape and goo off of a large book tape dispenser.  We agree that it must be very old, possibly from the days when the library was in the Northwood Mall, pre-1991.  I started there in 1989, when it was on the bottom floor of the former J. Byron's department store.

Where is the stapler? She didn't recognize our new "plier-grip" stapler as a stapler.  It's been working out very well, and is holding up.  One woman has been asking for our "desktop" stapler, complaining that the new stapler is hard to use with her arthritis.

12:39  Back from  lunch.  Our Internet volunteer, Nellie, is here, hallelujah.  It has picked up considerably, though it is still quiet at the desk so far.

Phone:  it's Jolene.  How old was Andy Griffith when he made the Matlock television series?  Did he have children?  Sixty, two adopted children by his first wife.

A woman with 10K Run bib on sets the security alarm off at the second floor exit.  She says she checked her CD-book out.  I have her go back through, passing the book around to her.

Phone:  She wants Susan E., probably about an exam to be proctored.  She is rescheduling due to the traffic/parking situation.

Here is Nitza, our cheerful shelver, who has arrived in one piece.

1:15  Quiet once more, with several available computers.

Cay, our director, is fussing with the "Bridging Cultures Bookshelf:  Muslim Journeys" display in mid-floor.  There was a presentation for it Thursday night, with scholars from FSU.  She gives a wave, has on t-shirt and jeans, which I don't think I've seen her in for a very long time.

D., from Blessed Sacrament, wants Sacred Darkness:  Encountering Divine Love in Life's Darkest Places, by Paul Coutinho, S.J., for the book club at the Neumann Center.  The library doesn't have it.  She'll order it from Amazon.  Also The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri, She-Wolves:  The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor, and A Long Way from Tipperary by John Dominic Crossan.

Donna C. asks how we are doing.  Susan has already gone to lunch, but we are not busy.  Donna has been soothing an old woman who received a bill for a lost interlibrary loan book.  The woman is devastated at having lost a book.  I remember how patrons at the retirement communities would feel so guilty about having a late book, when I drove the bookmobile. I wish more people were so scrupulous, but we don't want them to die a thousand deaths.

Phone:  do we have Vietnamese poetry in translation?  Nothing in the catalog, nothing, even, in any Asian poetry anthology on the shelf.  No.

Where can he apply for food stamps?  Access Florida.  They do not actually issue stamps or coupons anymore, but rather a sort of grocery debit card.

2:17  Susan is back.

Someone from the Academia Society needs the conference room opened.

Phone:  She's having trouble with her school's ProQuest database, can't get many results about the International Monetary Fund.  I begin to help her, but she says she will have to call back.

2:30  I'm going to end here.  Enough for one day, and for you, I'm sure.