Mr. Mustache, another librarian blog

I am a Luddite

2011-12-08T19:45:00.001-05:00

http://hardtimesmrmustache.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-am-luddite.html may be of interest to librarians.

A busman's holiday

2011-07-17T10:15:00.004-04:00

Last week a fireman knocked on my door and told me to vacate the building because there was a gas leak. I asked if I could put on my sneakers and luckily, he said yes. I got in my car drove around the fire truck and went to the local library. I figured it would be an hour or so (I was right) and that I could hang out at the local library, read my e-mails, etc.

The library is relatively pleasant. Lots of parking. The fact that fiction is on the second floor and non fiction is on the first floor has always led me to believe the library was designed by reference librarians. The public computers had some free ones (it was a summer evening) and it allowed me to log on with my library card. They also allow guest access. My only complaint is that the Internet starts up with the library web site. From there there are no apparent search engines. It has been my experience that a Google, Yahoo or Bing icon should always be on the desktop of a public computer. I had to go to the http bar to find that someone else had put in Yahoo and I clicked on it. I could even access Facebook, albeit without the chat feature.

After a while I went home, waited twenty minutes, and then was allowed into my unit. They are doing repair work and the workers hit a gas line.

New one coming

2007-04-15T18:32:00.000-04:00

I will be posting a new blog The Sixties, Another Mr. Mustache blog. Starting May 1. The address will be http://sixtiesmrmustache.blogspot.com/

Mark Twain

2007-03-01T09:23:00.000-05:00

Mark Twain ends Tom Sawyer with…
“SO endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a boy, it must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming the history of a man. When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop -- that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can.”

And so with this blog. I wrote much of a few years ago when I was in the trenches of a public library and now that seems a different world, a world to which I will never return, unless as a retired part-timer in my dotage.

So fair reader, you now know all there is to know about library work. You know about patrons, volunteers, library directors, cataloguing, documents and most importantly, the politics of the break room. You can move into your own professions and careers now with the assurance that comes with having a virtual second masters degree, one gained by blogging. If you browse this blog, I recommend starting at the earliest postings. Men in libraries is a personal favourite of mine.

I will write another blog, or perhaps do a podcast someday. I think I shall call it Mustache Wax. The subject to be determined when the frost is on the pumpkins. In the meantime, you might enjoy the Yahoo group, Freddie and the Fellas. Til that time.

E Government

2007-02-22T07:07:00.000-05:00

An article in Library Journal on line shows legislation for making libraries government via the web access centers. Didn't we used to call these government depositories?

Valentine's Day

2007-02-12T08:25:00.000-05:00

For my entire childhood and on into early adulthood my father and I happily strolled through February with a smile on our faces, never having to think about what to give Mother for Valentine’s Day. My girlfriend, when I had one, might have gotten something but that was as far as it went. The thing that ruined it was that darn beauty parlor.

One February 14 Mother went to the beauty parlor and all the customers sat in their chairs bragging about all the things their husbands and their children were giving them for Valentine’s Day. One talked about the beautiful roses her son sent here from Florida. Another talked about the cruise her husband was taking her on for Valentine’s Day. The hairdresser was so pleased with the chocolates her son had given her that morning.

That night at dinner boy did we get it. “This one is getting a cruise. That one got an expensive watch. This one is going out to Le Freup a Tell in Manhattan. And what are you giving me?” My father looked surprised. He didn’t know he was supposed to give her something. He never had in the past and they all had been happy as clams at high tide.

He put his arms around her and said “All of my love”. That didn’t work. She looked at me.

I tried to rescue the situation. “But mother, Valentine’s Day isn’t for your mother! It’s for your girlfriend or your mistress!” That didn’t work either. From then, every year, we had to give her something for Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day. You’re just getting over the Christmas bills and along comes Valentine’s Day. And you have to give candy to your secretary and the ladies at work. More money coming out of the poor man’s pocket. Happy Valentine’s Day to all.

Tax Season

2007-02-04T09:02:00.000-05:00

I was just installing a new zip drive that I was reusing after it had sat in my closet for ten years. On it were library files from those golden years when I used to bring work home. Oh the elegiac moments it brought home to me. Reference orders. Government document discard lists. And a cute article I wrote for the local paper. This is a draft before the Director saw it so all of the little asides are intact at this point.

"Death and taxes and childbirth. There's never any convenient time for any of them, quoth H.L. Mencken. And while it is never convenient, tax season has begun at the Library. The Aardvark Public Library is a US and state tax center. This year we have ordered more tax books and forms so we should not run out as quickly. We will also have the Reproducible Books so pages can be copied. The Internet will also be enlisted to search for forms that we do not have. All IRS forms and almost all state forms can be downloaded and copied from the Internet or from our new CD ROM.

The Internet was just coming into its own then. Little did we know that most people would be getting the forms online and bypassing us ten years later.

Free tax assistance will also be available this year from both the AARP (Tax Counseling for the Elderly or TCE) and VITA program volunteers. These volunteers receive training every year from the IRS. The numerous changes this year on both the state and federal level make this a necessity.

What a pain in the gonzolas coordinating the AARP volunteers was. We had to make the appointments at the Reference desk. One year they tried putting volunteers on the phone. What a double pain in the gonzolas that was.

The AARP sessions are open to older Americans and are by appointment only. They started recently but we expect the allocated slots to run out quickly this year. Please call the Library for an appointment. The VITA volunteers are State accounting students and teachers and they are available to walk ins on Saturday mornings after 10AM. If you avail yourself of these programs, please bring as much information as you can. Any W2 forms, 1099 forms, end of year bank statements, SSA forms you received will be needed to fill out the information on the tax forms. Also bring last years tax forms. The library staff is not prepared to answer tax questions.
The IRS can also be contacted directly concerning tax related queries. Their number is 1-800-xxx-1040. They have customer centers in Oinkville at 910 Broad Street. Their number is xxx-xxxx. These offices are open 8:30 to 4:30 weekdays.
People often wonder why IRS publications are different at the Library than the forms they receive at home. At home the books have colorful covers and include the tax forms inside the books. The tax forms we receive are loose sheets and the instruction books are battleship grey and include no forms. New Jersey booklets are identical to the ones you get at home. Go figure. At any rate, have a happy tax season!

Happy tax season my aardvark. The staff hated tax season. Getting those pesky books that Mr. Mustache hid in back in those awful file draws. Having to change Mrs. Boxworth's appointment five times. The fist fight they had one morning waiting for the VITA people to come in. There were never enough volunteers to handle all the people that wanted their taxes done.

Instructions in filling out Appointment Book
· Remember that the AARP volunteers are there to serve older and retired taxpayers only

Tell that to the patrons!
· Take one appointment for each line in the book in pencil
· One name only for each appointment with the exception of couples filling out joint returns
· Put the phone number of the person next to the name
· Remind the clients to bring with them their returns from last year (state and federal) and any income information (ie 1099 forms, W2 forms,1099-SSA, and any other information on for 1996 income)
· Give reminder slips to walk in clients with the date and time of the appointment

Although we weren't supposed to give tax advise I sometimes would tell people what forms they probably needed. Logically the 1040 form would be the easy form and the 1040 A and EZ forms would be the complicated forms since they had suffixes. Not true.

Nostalgia. Putting out tax forms during my lunch hour. Making tax appointments when I was supposed to be at break. Still it was great being important at least a few months of the year. For many people the one time of the year they go to the library was tax related. April 15th was a day full of excitement and there was a let-down wn on the 16th of the month when taxes were gone for another year. Finally the boxes could be be sorted and excess forms could be thrown in the dumpster. Gone until those boxes started arriving again in January.

I always took my vacation in March.

Typewriters in libraries

2007-01-21T11:34:00.000-05:00

The young librarian takes a position on the reference desk of a public library. Equipped with knowledge and enthusiasm of her new profession and ready to explain Flikr, YouTube, Ebsco and Linux to the eager patrons she gets her first question. "Where is the typewriter?"

Typewriters? She has to run to the circulation desk. "Does this library have typewriters?" The answer is that way in the back, between the potted palm and the men's room, is an old IBM Selectric. A vestige of an earlier age, but alas, people still ask to use it.

There they sit. Old, fat, expensive to maintain. It's difficult to load ribbons, it's horrendously difficult to load the correcto ribbons. The typewriters. Every library director would like to throw them into the trash. But, alas, people still come into the library to use them. And if they are not working correctly they will let you know.

The library typewriter stands as an example of the dilemma of what libraries should provide. Some say give the adults their Rachael Ray cookbooks and their "how to beat the odds at the casino" books and the kids their books on pit bulls and numb chucks. Others say the library is a place where the public should be encouraged to gravitate to higher things, ie. haute cuisine, the stock market and Japanese Reiki.

Typewriters are a classic example of recycling. Technical services dump their typewriters and the better ones go in the public area. Then those break down and people donate their old typewriters. Typewriters are constantly being recycled partly because it is woefully difficult to find people to repair the contraptions.

I remember one day after spring cleaning, opening the storage room in the basement and there was a convention of a dozen old typewriters. I guess they were waiting for the word processing fad to pass.

Today I work in a government library. I am amazed how many people want to use our typewriter. It is one of the hottest commodities in the library. Admittedly, it is perfect for filling out forms with carbon copies (yes we still use those). I have gotten to be a good typist. Last week the correcto ribbon broke and I am now typing "without a net". Just like the time I saw Miss Dizzy Heights at a Rolling Stones concert. Well, not exactly.

An attitude

2007-01-13T10:35:00.000-05:00

Many of us have attitudes. Having an attitude is one of the pleasures of work. Like wine, however, it must be rooted in genuine grievances, and must be aged and corked sufficiently to be justified and respected.

New employees, especially pages, who walk into the library with attitudes should be avoided. Many of our younger friends who have attitudes from day one are like the six month old wine being advertised as fresh fruity reisling in the liquor stores. No depth, no true resonance.

The doctors on MASH had attitude, and deservedly so. Civilians giving up lucrative medical practices to work in the field at twenty hour shifts saving lives. Just let some general try to take away their still.

Children's librarians sometimes have attitudes because they usually do more work than the rest of the staff and they know they could leave on Monday and have five job offers on Tuesday. At higher salaries. At least that's what they believe.

Clothing can be used to express attitude. An invaluable employee who wears a t-shirt and jeans tells his supervisors not to mess with him. The rest of the goody two shoes envy the t-shirt wearing employees but stick to their ties and heels because they lack attitude.

Computer specialists often develop attitudes in libraries. Surrounded by staff who think bios is a term used in civil rights cases they can solve your problems but they will do it if and when it suits them. I knew one librarian who smirked "I'm the only one on this staff who knows beans about Windows. I'll feel sorry for this staff if I ever leave." When he left they replaced Windows with Linux.

January statistics

2007-01-06T12:56:00.000-05:00

Now it’s January and all the Christmas stuff is being stuffed into boxes or thrown out. I have a crummy storage closet in the basement of my building that I have to use my flashlight to maneuver in. Today I deposited two bags of Christmas stuff. A similar process is taking place in the working world.

I remember one Christmas we had some extra kids in the house and we all sang Christmas songs backwards while we disassembled the tree. “Night Holy…Night Silent …..yaw eth lla elgnij slleb elginij.. Well you get the idea. That was when the Beatles were doing songs backwards.

But there’s nothing remotely funny about the horrible thing awaiting librarians on January 2. Year-end statistics. Year-end reports. State required year-end statistics. Yuck. Even the head of the tiniest department or the tiniest library has to fill out perplexing and difficult forms or at least compile some form of statistics.

Conversations at statistics time:

How come if you take the total of books in the collection last year and add your totals for last year, it’s off by six hundred books? Oh that’s supposed to be volumes not books. How many volumes do we have of Newsweek? Is a year a volume? No, because they start a new volume in July.

Computer stats are even more fun. Does a search on Google mean a reference question? Why are the Ebsco figures so high? Do we count hits that were rejected? Is a dedicated OPAC computer a computer even if it can’t get the Internet? Then why were those kids playing games on the OPAC last week? Should the square footage of a library count the garage?

Library directors also finagle statistics. A patron session with the VITA volunteer becomes a library program. The children’s library is a branch library because it is in a separate building and has it’s own furnace.

One fun thing about compiling on-line statistical forms is understanding the difference between hard and soft errors. A hard error is rejected by the program and can not be entered. A soft error seems suspicious to the program and can be entered but you should know why you are giving a weird answer to a question.

The results are posted in things like Annual library statistics of Ohio. Yuck. Not nearly as much fun as singing "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" backwards.

My Christmas cards

2006-12-26T17:18:00.000-05:00

I want to thank everybody for all the cards and letters that are masking taped to my bathroom walls. Britney, I still think you're cute. Thanks Howard. Our senses of humour are similar.

A special thanks to Laura Bush. As a former librarian, she wrote that she can fully relate to the anecdotes about the library world that I feature. Jenna and Barbara enjoyed the piece on the Day After Thanksgiving. Jenna was disappointed a few years ago when the Crawford Library was closed the Day After Thanksgiving when she was hoping to get some ideas for her anthropology mid term paper.

Not surprisingly, Dick Cheney liked the recent piece on Christmas in libraries. He also thinks putting lights on one's cubicle is an unnecessary use of public money. Madonna, Opra, Rosie, a high five again. And a special hello to Hillary and Al Gore. They both have "men in libraries" thumbtacked to their office corkboards. Well happy new years to all. Mr. Mustache.

My Christmas letter

2006-12-20T19:16:00.000-05:00

If I was a library director, every December 1 I would give every staff member a letter accompanied with a small chocolate truffle with my docs and don'ts for the holidays. This is a fantasy incidentally.

To our dear staff:

Just a few reminders for the holidays:

Holiday parties are wonderful and we all enjoy them but the planning and execution of such events should only be done during our lunches and coffee breaks.

We can put one or two momentoes of the holiday season on our desks and workstations but more than that is excessive.

Administrative assistants do not look cute in Santa hats.

If you make candies and cakes for the season remember they are for everyone on the staff, not just the people you like.

Taxpayers should not be charged for electricity for Christmas displays they cannot enjoy. Electric lights around one's cubicle are fire hazards and are not appropriate.

You may celebrate the holidays in song, if need be. But songs and caroling should be done during one's breaks only and not during working time. And the lyrics should be of a non-sectarian nature.

Santa Clauses look ugly when sported on a woman's blouse.

Fir sprays can be disagreeable to some people. They should not be used in the library.

Your schedule of holidays indicates when you may leave the building. Just because it is December 23 you do not have the right to cheat the taxpayers out of an afternoon's work.

Older people do not generally like to travel on holidays by themselves. They like their loved ones to be carted to them. Hence we will not believe you when you leave early to pick up your grandmother at the airport.

That being said, have a happy and healthful holiday season.

What to do with union stuff

2006-12-12T20:36:00.000-05:00

Many people don't realize it, but librarians are often members of unions. And as members of unions we often are involved with picketing, rallies, and the other exciting activities that a union card entitles one to participate in.

Today, rallies are much better choreographed than the days of yore when hand written signs and tattered jeans served as the accoutrements of a demonstration. Today we get sandwiches (bread and cheeses from union shops one presumes) and "stuff". Presumably to wave when the tv helicopters hover over us.

My problem is what to do after the event. A loyal union member acquires a full assortment of hats, cheeseheads, hands (note photo) fire engine red tee-shirts, and the like. They could conceivably be all worth a fortune some day, like old Beatle wigs, but I tend to doubt it.

You have to be careful where you wear such things. A tee shirt emblazoned with "We earned our benefits" may not be well received in a bar full of Rush Limbaugh or Jim Gerhardt fans. "Support workers rights" may hit the wrong note at a four star restaurant.

One possibility is to put them on our children. However, a young tyke with a red tee-shirt saying "hands off our pensions" may seem threatening to a grandparent as the child crawls out from under the Christmas tree. There must be a cottage industry of people who convert union slogans to sports slogans. A little spray paint and "don't touch our benefits" becomes "we love our Jags".

The best idea I could come up with for getting a second life out of the hands (see photo) is to use them at church services. When the priest says "We offer each other a sign of peace" we can put on the hand and shake hands with everyone in the next pew.

Civil Service Tests

2006-12-07T20:12:00.000-05:00

Civil service tests have a close relationship to libraries, whether it is in public or governmental libraries. Libraries are expected to have the books that go along with the tests that the patron is interested in taking. Since civil service book publishers (we use NTC a lot) have national audiences and civil service tests are usually state specific, this can cause a number of wrinkles.

One wrinkle is that if the test numbers the difficulty of the test and the level of hierarchy of the position with one being low and four being supervisory. Some states, however start their titles at 4 and work up to one. Then there is the test title. Sometimes a test title sort of sounds like a match to a test, but it really isn't . Having the patron thumb through the books and see what sounds like a match to his/her job title can be a good idea.

Of course some test booklets have questions that are so general a social worker and an administrative assistant could be taking the same test. It is always good to remind the patron that civil service tests are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get when they finally hand you the test packet.

There is always the problem of supply and demand. A civil service test that has languished on a shelf collecting cobwebs suddenly becomes popular after a test notice is posted. Like school assignments, the third person to show up at the desk on the same day that the notice comes out will inevitably find that the book he/she really wanted was leant out an hour ago and is not due back until the day after the test.

I have a solution to the problem of civil service tests. The librarian would rank and evaluate the patron asking for the test booklet, thus eliminating the need for the test altogether. This would save a lot of money and time for both the librarian and the patron. For starters, the librarian would judge the patron by his use of the OPAC. The vocabulary and social skills of the patron would be scored. The ability of the patron to successfully retrieve a civil service book would then be rated. At the end of the encounter the librarian could tell the patron whether he/she passed or failed the civil service test and give the patron a score. The librarian would be escorted to his/her car by an armed guard.

The Day after Thanksgiving

2006-11-26T15:30:00.000-05:00

In 1975 when I had a CETA job working as a library assistant at a public library I was introduced to the event known as the Day After Thanksgiving. I was told that it was the busiest day of the year and working on the Day After Thanksgiving was a treasure and created memories that librarian's looked forward to all year. For this was the day that the kids in town, now in college, were all home, and visited their old high school friends, went downtown, and visited the public library to do a little research for their college projects.

I remember pulling magazines all afternoon on that sacred day. I never got to do that before, but even a lowly CETA worker was valuable on the Day After Thanksgiving.

Now I notice that public libraries are often closed on the Day After Thanksgiving. Instead of going to the library people are expected to go the malls and large discounters, often at six am in the morning. Buying x Boxes, Playstations, and camel hair suits (my brother bought a camel hair suit at Sams at 5AM) is now a tradition but the library is no longer part of the day.

I hate to be a troublemaker, but I think libraries should be open on the day after Thanksgiving. It is a library tradition that I think should be continued. Did I have to work? No, but that is besides the point. Do as I say, not as I do.

More work

2006-11-16T18:03:00.000-05:00

When we went to library school we became (hopefully) excited about entering a profession that combined service to the public, an opportunity to dabble in the arts and literature, and the chance to bring new technologies and services to the library world (ie. the Infotract and an on line catalog) The concept of service made our fingers tinkle with excitement. The thought that we might get to use computers in our jobs. How exciting!

The future librarian is interviewed (and interviewed and interviewed) and is brimming with the thought of what the new profession means. Finally (often years after graduating from library school), he/she gets that first position. The staff is happy to see a new face. "Finally someone to work on the number two Saturday." "Thank goodness I can go back to working one night a week."

As the years progress and the librarian becomes older, wiser, and accumulates more sick leave that initial enthusiasm wanes. The cute puppy is now an older dog that takes worm pills and is grouchy in the morning.

Now the experienced librarian is at a meeting where the director is happy and excited. (that is usually not a good sign)

The director wants to change a service or put in a new service.

The eyes drop. Oh NO!!!! And what happens when someone calls in sick? And what happens when someone goes on vacation? The eyes tell the tale. What is being proposed could conceivably result in more work.

Oh NO!!!! More WORK!!!!

And the people excited and smiling about the new project won’t have to do the extra work. I WILL!!!!!

It happens to us all. Our boss, the Director, even the Library Board went to a meeting or saw a tv show that suggested something new that might conceivably mean MORE WORK!!!
And we could think of nothing but service and the thrill it would provide so many years ago…..

Library weather

2006-11-12T10:16:00.000-05:00

When architects design libraries, they try to design them so that a walk through a library brings to mind the many different climates that one may find on earth. That is why a library will often remind one of a trip to the Epcot Center. First you go through the tundra, then the arctic, then the Sahara, the rainforest or the mountains of Ecuador.

Often the temperature in a library is perfectly heated or cooled for the previous day’s weather. Faulty ceiling and roof construction often results in a rainy atmosphere. Most libraries have a bucket somewhere collecting water, if one is willing to explore.

The constant complaining about the temperature in a library is a mainstay of conversation. “It’s too hot in here!” “It’s too cold in here!” “How can you wear a sweater in this heat?” “You must be freezing in this office!” I personally am so involved in my work that I never notice the temperature until someone complains about it. After being told that I should be cold or hot I then notice the weather.

My answering machine

2006-11-03T17:43:00.000-05:00

I can tell election day is nearing because when I come home from work everyday I get a recorded message, usually asking me to vote Democratic. The last three days however, I have been greeted by an Italian American society I can't identify. It sounds sort of like the Sol and Gerry Society for Justice and Good Government. Somehow they found out I was Italian. Well I guess they guessed from the name.

The gist of the message is that we Italians need to stick together and be grateful for Tom Kean's support for Joseph Alito for the Supreme Court (how he supported him as a State Legislator I don't know). Anyway at least he didn't oppose him like Mendendez. Today Joe Piscopo came into my home and made the pitch. At least his bit was funny. So from now on I will base my vote on what politicians will do to help well placed Italian-Americans. Us Italians have to stick together.

The patron who comes in to use the Internet

2006-10-25T09:11:00.000-04:00

With the advent of computers, public libraries have seen the exponential growth of the patron who comes in to use the Internet. In the past, this person would not have been a library user, since the library would have had nothing to offer him. In American society, although the world of reading and learning is extolled by every politician, most people only read books during that brief period of youth when the schoolteacher has a gun to their heads. Afterwards, their careers as library users came to a happy and fruitful conclusion.

In the past, young juvenile offenders were not library users. If you watch West Side Story you see no reference to libraries. Neither the Jets nor the Sharks would have any interest in coming to a library. That was before the Internet.

With prodding from the Federal government, libraries geared up in the 90’s to become computer centers. The Internet was going to fill libraries with a world of information and communication only dreamed of before. During those heady times it was never envisioned that the Internet would become a form of mass media, sort of a mixture of a telephone, cable television, a pinball machine and a peep show.

Today you walk through the modern public library and you see people of all ages and dress staring at computer terminals. What are they all doing? Let’s take a closer look. One woman is sending e-mail to her girl friend. A man is searching for a wife in Indonesia. A young student is playing what looks like a video game. The girl next to him is using Instant Messenger. A man in a t-shirt is looking at wrestling scores. A woman is shopping on E Bay for tights. Those giggling young things are looking at myspace.com.

Suddenly a popular destination, the Internet rooms stretch library budgets, and take up increasing per cent ages of staff member’s time. Extra chairs must be provided to allow for seating for the waiting to use the Internet area.

Recently libraries have been putting in wireless Internet connections. Sort of like a restaurant with a byob policy, the theory is that the patrons will bring in their own notebooks and simply use the library’s broadband connection. The electronic equivalent of corkage. However most people who own notebooks (they are still expensive) also have their own Internet connection at home.

Perhaps its good that libraries are no longer the cloistered repositories they once were. First came movies, then the Internet. Many librarians now find themselves in the real world. Even when they are at work.

the Zeitgeist of the Gilmore Girls

2006-10-19T08:55:00.000-04:00

I was telling someone on the phone that I was looking forward to seeing that night's installment of the Gilmore Girls and she said "I can't believe you watch that thing."

Truth to be told I can think of no other vehicle in popular culture that better defines the zeitgeist of the modern American experience better than the Gilmore Girls. All of the conflicts in modern American society, young vs. old, working class vs. upper class, authority vs. Bohemianism, male vs. female, and certainly that of mothers vs. daughters can be examined within the borders of Stars Hollow.

In some sense the show can be described as a bildungsroman on both Rory and Lorelei's emotional and intellectual development. At the same time is serves as a gestalt for phenomenological experience as seen through the prism of small town in New England.

The show this season is moving in parallel evolution of two of its' main characters. As Lorelei is now about to have an affair with Rory's father it is inevitable that Luke will have a relationship with Anna by season's end.

So now here is the solution to the college Freshman's need to write a college essay that will be guaranteed to bring in a high grade. College TA's are inevitably impressed by fancy German literary terms.

The Halloween Parade

2006-10-11T08:49:00.000-04:00

One of the fun things about working in a public library is being on duty during the Halloween season. This is one of the few times in the year when spillover from the Children’s library is allowed to encroach upon the dignity of the Reference room. You are trying to explain to a patron why he needs a book on Windows XP not a book on Dell computers. “It’s the software that matters not the brand of the computer”. Suddenly the door springs open and there are tambourines and bells and a hundred kids in costumes with a few adoring parents and amateur photographers.

The patron who has taken an hour to find the price of General Electric on March 4, 1973 finally has found the stock price. He gets out his pen and suddenly loses his train of thought. The Halloween parade! They are marching through and the atmosphere of the entire library changes for ten minutes. You can’t hear yourself on the phone. You can’t get at the photocopy machine. There are witches and goblins and Harry Potter imitations blocking the aisle.

Some of the costumes I can’t recognize. All the years I have wasted listening to public radio on Saturday morning. Had I been watching television instead I would know who these kids are trying to be.

A woman I know gave me a loaf of pumkin bread that she baked after reading the blog on the interns. Thanks and don't be shy about writing comments!

Nooks and crannies and special collections

2006-10-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

The Nicholas Baker book had a point. In the desire to put a library's entire collection on the OPAC, some libraries resorted to dumping books and manuscripts in the trash. This is because many libraries didn't have the mechanism to do original cataloguing and having materials in a library that are not catalogued is messy and against the current trends in the profession.

In the good old days, a book came in. The Librarian looked at the book and then wrote a catalog record for it, using library script, and the record and it's corresponding added entry cards were interfiled into the card catalog. It didn't matter if the book was Gone with the Wind or Grandma Nettles cake recipes, they were treated the same.

One of the first stage towards standard cataloguing began when libraries started purchasing Library of Congress cards. A box of cards came in once a week and somebody (this was my first job as a CETA employee) weeded through the cards and extrapolated the cards for the books the library was buying or might be likely to purchase. These cards were copied and eventually edited and found their way to the card file. Other standardized services came along, but for books that existed in the Library of Congress, the cataloguing became more or less standard. When a local resident donated her manuscript of cake recipes, the old system was used, this time with a clerk's typewriting replacing the library script on the cards.

As services like OCLC and regional cataloguing services took hold, the Librarian was faced with a dilemma. How do you handle all of the materials that have no standard cataloguing records? The correct answer is that you do original cataloguing. The Librarian said, "But when Jenny retired she wasn't replaced. I don't have a tenth of the time it would take to do original computerized cataloguing."

And it is a dilemma libraries have been facing ever since. How do you handle the materials that are not catalogued? Hence the growth of nooks and crannies and special collections. The high school yearbooks, the locally produced cookbooks, the manuscripts, the postcard collection, the historic house collection. Stored in nooks and crannies and special collections. My advice is to index (I did not say catalog) as best you can. A database program like Microsoft Access will do the trick. Even Microsoft Word has a feature called "table". A list produced with "table" can even be searched by keyword and sorted alphabetically. And don"t throw out the cardexes either.

One library I worked at developed a collection of the paperbacks that are always on the reading lists but were too flimsy to catalog. The paraprofessional who developed the collection was severely reprimanded for keeping this "underground" assortment of books. Truth to be told, during summer reading season, it is worth its weight in gold. Sometimes I"ve resorted to hiding discards in my office, but this practice is not recommended.

The man walks through the library with a carton of momentoes from his attic. They include fishing scores from the 20's of a club that existed at one time. The momentoes are probably one of a kind. They'll never be catalogued but at least you can sort of index them in the special collections area. The old fisherman will probably never know that the scorecards don't have mark records attached to them.

I actually do original cataloguing now. I definitely should have taken that course in Library school.

Would you like an intern

2006-09-29T17:16:00.000-04:00

As the leaves start to change their color in the fall, one of the questions a librarian may be asked is "Would you like to take in an intern". It is a question fraught with pitfalls. If you, like most librarians, are constantly complaining about being short-staffed, saying no can make it seem like you aren't as short handed as you say you are. After all, you turned down having an intern. And you don't look like much of a team player, do you?

On the other hand if you say yes you are at the mercy of whoever comes knocking on your door. You will have to train them. Do they want to learn? You will have to supervise them. Do they want to work? Your hours must correspond with their limited schedule. You can imagine yourself coming to work on your day off just so you'll be there for the intern. And what will they do? Something not too difficult or too boring. And where will they sit? Can you find a computer for them to use?

You remember the intern from a summer or two ago who completely disarranged the reference collection. It was Christmas before you could find the Bartlett's book.

But let us be positive. My eyes close. I see a sweet young intern with her cute short skirt and her cute poor-boy haircut. "Would you like some banana bread, Mr. Mustache? My mother made them."..."Don't make coffee, sit down I'll make it in a jiff". And you have an audience for all your wisdom and anectodes about your years in the profession.

Of course you could get a disappearing intern. "She was here a minute ago. I don't know where she went". Turns out she is smoking cigarettes outside with the male intern.

The biggest problem with interns is that you just get them trained on something and it turns out to be their last day. ....Still, it has been a while since I had homemade zucchini bread.

The end of the Day

2006-09-22T17:51:00.000-04:00

The end of the library day with Fred on the reference desk:

The patron comes into the library accompanied by three children and her grandmother. The time is twenty minutes before closing. She has a rather complicated assignment and needs sources from periodicals, books and reference materials. She may not use encyclopedias or the Internet.

Fred sprints from the desk like he is on “The great race”. He bounds upstairs and picks up three books. He then rushes over to the computer and logs onto a periodicals index. He rushes to the periodical and reference areas. The grandmother helps with picking out appropriate pages from the magazines. The children start screaming.

At about this time the staff at the circulation desk turns off the house lights and all of the copying machines. Fred turns one of them back on and grabs his pocket flashlight to start with the copying. The staff hates when Fred does that.

The children are crying. The grandmother is exasperated. Finally at precisely closing time the patron goes to the circulation desk. By the portable light on the desk, the paraprofessional tells her that she owes fines. The patron presents a twenty-dollar bill and has no smaller currency. Alas, the cash register was closed for the night. She cannot borrow the books but she may take the photocopies if she promises to pay for them tomorrow. The staff goes home late.

The end of the library day with Sharon on the reference desk:

Same patron, same assignment, same kids, different grandmother. The time is twenty minutes before closing.

Sharon checks the on line card catalog without leaving her desk and recommends some titles. The patrons navigate their way to the non-fiction collection. On their way down the stairs with two of the books, the house lights go out. The patron has no magazine articles or reference book copies. She cannot borrow the books because she owes fines. She has a twenty-dollar bill but the cash register was closed five minutes ago.

The patron is disappointed but her and her family agree to come back tomorrow night. No the library is not open tomorrow night. They agree to come back Saturday. At least the staff can go home on time and the patron has learned not to wait til the last minute before coming to the library.

Alas, Sharon notices in her closing rounds that there is a man sleeping in the men’s room. The same man the Fred chased out last night, half an hour before closing. The man must be woken and guided out the door. Otherwise the police must be called. Again, the staff goes home late.

The beginning of the day

2006-09-15T22:13:00.000-04:00

When I was a Freshman at Rutgers, sometimes the instructors would come in late. The students sometimes wondered when they could safely leave the classroom. I was told that it depended on the status of the instructor. You gave a TA five minutes, an assistant professor ten minutes and a full professor fifteen minutes before bolting for the door.

In the library world a similar order of appearance is maintained as people congregate inside of and outside of a public library. The patrons who want to use the Internet are there twenty minutes before you open the door. The older patrons who want to check their stocks in the newspapers are there ten minutes before you open. At five minutes before opening, the volunteers arrive. If they are lucky they will be rescued from the hordes by the custodian who will allow them to pass through the door, like a celebrity at a hip nightclub. The paraprofessionals arrive at the circulation desk at two minutes before the library opens.

Junior professional staff arrive five minutes after the library opens. They rush to their office and take off their coats. Now they are at the Reference desk. Since the library has been opened for five minutes, there is a queue of patrons who want to use the Internet or do a reserve. The senior professional staff arrives at about ten minutes after the library opens. Department heads get in by twenty minutes after the library opens. The director comes in about half an hour after the library opens.

This system works well all around. The secret is to get to the library and have your coat off when your supervisor arrives. That way it looks like you got there on time even if you didn’t. Always be nice to the paraprofessionals at the circulation and periodicals desk. They carry the secret of who came in late with them and that little smile they greet you with when you come in betrays their knowledge of your little tricks. The people who were there before you and got other jobs did the same thing.

America is not a meritocracy

2006-09-13T09:46:00.000-04:00

Ever since I was a kid I believed that America was a meritocracy. It didn't matter who you were, where you came from, how much money you had. America was the one place where only ability and your intelligence and hard work mattered. Now I have read that America is not, a meritocracy.

I know this now from the place in America where all truth ementates. That's right, from the Wall Street Journal. The September 9 issue had a huge article based on a book by Daniel Golden on how people like Walter Cronkite's son and Jane Curtin's daughter got into Brown only because they were children of celebrities and not because of their SAT scores or their grades. Their parents were not even alumni of Brown!

Brown did this because they thought they could get legacies from the rich Daddy's. America is not a meritocracy. I wonder if things like this ever happen with hard to obtain library jobs? And until yesterday I thought America was a meritocracy.

Unpaid overtime

2006-09-07T17:30:00.000-04:00

If a lawyer has a busy case he/she thinks nothing of working well into the evenings. If there is a fire in town, doctors know they will be working late with little commiseration. Teachers are expected to tutor and grade papers after 3PM. However, librarians traditionally are of the belief that they are strictly tied to a schedule and that is not permissible for staff to give unpaid overtime. The sad truth is that unpaid overtime and out of pocket donations in supplies (cash is never unacceptable) are the grease that turns the wheels of the modern public library. Here are recommended donations:

Title, Weekly unpaid overtime, Annual financial donation:

Library director: 10 hours $1,000

Department head: 5 hours $500

Division head: 3 hours $300

Junior Professional staff: 2 hours $200

Children's librarian 12 hours $3,000

With paraprofessional staff this is much more difficult to navigate. Generally paraprofessionals should not work any extra unpaid overtime or make any financial contributions to the library, especially if the staff is unionized or is possibly ripe for unionization.

There is the exception, however. The doctor’s wife, the retired heiress, or the retired businessman working as a paraprofessional may donate time and supplies discreetly, provided there is a logical reason for the munificence. For example the doctor’s wife can donate medical publications when her husband is through with them. The retired engineer can donate monitors or computer expertise on his/her own time.

However, if a paraprofessional is clearly supporting themself solely with his/her salary, resentments will build very quickly if such a person is asked to donate any unpaid overtime. Such people should not be expected to work "off the clock." Unfortunately to the Library Board, staff who come in early to shovel snow must be given comp time.

Government documents

2006-08-28T19:41:00.000-04:00

When I moved to Denver Colorado in the late 70’s I got a job working in a giant office office park as a contract worker. I always remember it took ten minutes to get off the exit ramp of I-25 in the morning.

The job was to put together the key words and subject headings for an index of state documents. We did this without having access to the original documents themselves, so with a bit of imagination we figured out that the annual report of the Montana Milk Commission could be categorized under “milk”, “dairy farms” and “agriculture”. That was probably accurate but I’ll never know if “What the blazes do we do now” had to do with fire prevention or existentialist futurism. The job was a contract job, no health benefits, and no unemployment benefits. That was a shame since I was laid off early the next year, apparently the audience for such an index being elusive.

That was my only experience with government documents but eleven years later, still looking for a professional librarian position, the line on my resume must have tweaked the interest of a library directory in New Jersey for I was hired as a government documents librarian. Thankfully, the fact that I had never taken a government documents class was cleverly glossed over in my interview, and I learned documents by what we shall call, the seat of the pants.

Part 1 on a series of pieces on my life as a government documents librarian. To come are the sequel, the return of government documents and the bride of government documents.

Efficiency

2006-08-26T09:47:00.000-04:00

Computers and the Internet can add great efficiency to many library processes. Unfortunately, sometimes another person doing a task, even if the task is done in an inefficient way, is a more efficient use of my time than me doing a task efficiently. This issue inevitably has confronted many librarians as computers and the Internet has woven its tentacles into every aspect of our jobs.

One example. A volunteer has been doing the obituary index on file cards for years. A library manager decides that the index should be done on a database. The volunteer can’t use computers so she leaves. Suddenly a staff member is doing the task, albeit more efficiently.

Another example. Someone from another department has been printing out reports using an overpriced service. The department supervisor decides we can save money by eliminating the service. Of course the change means our department inherits the job since it was our idea. The next week I find poor little me doing, albeit more efficiently, what the other guy from another department had been doing. Not to whine but me doing a job that I didn’t have to do before doesn’t seem efficient on my part.

Before they computerized the taking of reserves, Mrs. Krufuldt could handle the reserve cards. After computerizing the process, someone else had to take over the task. The job is done more efficiently now but on the human level, it means a task that dear Mrs. Krufuldt was doing has been taken away from her and another over taxed staff member who knows how to use computers has a new job.

Before the New York Times was put on-line a patron could wade through the microfilm on his own. Now the librarian has to find the article on the computer.

Before the library had an on-line catalog the patron could find the book
she wanted in the card catalog. Now the librarian has to find the book in the OPAC. Bu bup bu bup bu bup……..I guess I need a second cup of coffee.

Book Mooch

2006-08-25T18:14:00.000-04:00

I need to write a blog on the library or at least book world or I may lose my 025 status. Book Mooch looks like an interesting site. On the honor system, although one is rewarded for good behavior, one can get rid of the books that are filling one's bookshelves and get books that one wants.

Of course, sending books by mail is part of the equation. I know other blogs have talked about this first, but I have a theory that my blog is read by people who don't normally read blogs.

Collards

2006-08-22T17:28:00.000-04:00

Last spring in a spirit of jeu de la vie, I decided to help a woman I know plant a garden. We went to the local big box store and got 100 pounds of topsoil, several cartons of tomatoes and, on impulse, a sixpack of collards that cost ninety nine cents. It gave me a chance to talk about my Southern heritage and how my mother used to make collards. After an hour and a half and fifty mosquitoe bites, the job was done.

My friend admitted she had never tasted collards, her being of Yankee extraction, so this would be her chance to taste some good old collard greens.

Today she looks out at her garden. The tomatoes are puny and when a tomoato does sprout she has to rush off to capture it before the squirrels do. But there are rows upon rows of huge, bushy collards. She has tried the collards in salads, fried, steamed, and boiled. She has decided she doesn't care for collards.

Tomorrow she will wake up and turn to her garden. Those *^#%&* collards! And that darned Mr. Mustache. I should never let him plant those blasted things.

Here's a nice web site on collards.

The Sharon Syndrome

2006-08-19T09:09:00.000-04:00

Someone asked me why I hadn't published the Sharon essay to accompany the Fred essay. Sharon being the lackadaisical employee that is the counter-weight to Fred's. I'm afraid I can't publish it. Librarians must present a united front to the public and never admit for a moment some of their collegues are second rate.

Just like your doctor won't say anything bad about your other doctor and your child's teacher won't tell you that the reason he is having trouble in math is because of the teacher he had last year.

We must stand united as worthy underpaid martyrs. I will put the Sharon syndrome in my safety deposit box to be opened at the reading of my will.

A barrister from Newcastle

2006-08-15T18:09:00.000-04:00

I was sitting in my desk when Mrs. Blantosky came into the library and addressed my boss while I hid in the seat trying to look inconspicuous. We all know Mrs. Blantosky's in the field, the older patron who wants you to read her prescription or give her medical advice. I was scrunching in my chair then retreated to the bathroom.

Later the head librarian gave me the printout from Mrs. B. Apparently, a well loved Englishman from Newcastle had passed away and Mahmud Kasinki, a barrister, wanted to have Mrs. Blantosky's passport information so he could help the beloved widow of the beloved Englishman find his death certificate.

I put on my library scowl. It's a scam. I could not find the barrister listed on the Internet and his e mail was mahummadbarrister@yahoo.com An English barrister who would use Yahoo.com as his e mail address.

My boss informed our patron that she thought it was a scam and advised against sending a copy of her passport information to the barrister in England.

They should have a class in library school on developing the library scowl. It also comes in handy when you are trying to look busy. One web site on scams is this one. One thing librarians should be good at is advising vulnerable people of internet scams. We get enough practice.

Sweaters on chairs

2006-08-11T09:22:00.000-04:00

One blog I always read is Librarian etiquette. It reminds me of some of the issues I have experienced as a librarian. For many years I was the computer guy on staff. Often I'd have to go from desk to desk testing something or fixing something. Inevitably I'd face the dilemma of what to do when the chair in front of the computer had a sweater draped around it.

I suspect this is a female thing. Men, to my knowledge, never wrap sweaters around their chairs. I suppose it makes the desk seem more cozy or is a way of establishing territorial rights to the chair.

The problem occurs when someone else needs to sit in the chair. I never know the proper thing to do in the situation.

Should I stand instead of sit because there is a sweater on the chair? Can I tactfully remove the sweater? Should I try to find another chair and move it over? Can I sit on the sweatered chair leaning forward so as not to touch the sweater?

When librarians go on vacation why do they always leave their sweaters on their chairs?

World Cat

2006-08-08T18:10:00.000-04:00

I just discovered World Cat. Fascinating. Just think how great it would be if they included Marc records. But then they probably don't want to give away the store. And the part about any registered user being able to add comments and even subject headings. Interesting. You do learn things from blogs.

the Smokers

2006-08-07T19:30:00.000-04:00

I've worked in three types of places. The places where you could smoke at your desk. The places where there was one restricted area of the break room you could smoke. And the modern age of outdoor smoking. I don't remember anyone saying smoking at your desk was wrong back in the olden days. But then, I was young and had more to worry about than second hand smoke.

I remember my public library days and the break room with the six feet of table territory where the smokers sat. The smokers would shout their opinions to the non smokers at the other end of the table and the non smokers would then give their opinions on the other. I remember the smokers being the Republicans and the non smokers being the Democrats.

Today the smokers have to smoke outside. The workplace is otherwise banned for nicotine. The smoker looks at the clock. "One hour til I can get a cigarette." Misery. Then he brightens up. "Half and hour til a cigarette." "Holy Mother of Mary! Ten minutes til break." And then break.

The smoker runs to the elevator, notifying even the non smokers that it is break time. The smoker caresses his cigarette thinking of the pleasure that the object will give him in the near future. He gets his lighter ready. A rush at the door. The doors are open. Ecstasy. The first cigarette of the morning coffee break.

The smokers are hardy souls. They assemble in the cold of winter, the heat of summer. They sit on broken down benches. And then they tell the jokes of the day. Gossip and the latest news. Nothing is ever more truthful than the words smokers exchange during coffee break while they create a cloud of smoke; competing with the construction crews and their jackhammers with their own industrial smoke.

Sadly, break is over. They slowly troop upstairs. Two hours til the next cigarette.

Incidentally I have received so few comments that I have changed the restrictions so you can leave a comment without signing a registration form. Let's here those comments!

Masculine and feminine tastes

2006-08-02T08:21:00.000-04:00

Men and women have different tastes. Men watch Die Hard movies and are lining up to see the Miami Vice movie. Women like the Devil Wears Prada and the Lake House. Men read Tom Clancy novels and women read "chick lit".

Recently I was debating what movie to see with a female I know. I wanted to see the Devil Wears Prada and she wanted to see Superman. We saw Superman in imax, 3-d glasses and all. Later I saw the Devil Wears Prada. I liked it better. I even thought the cinematography was better.

I like Sex and the City. I even watch the Gilmore Girls. I now know that if you wear a baseball hat backwards make sure it is a fitted cap or it looks really bad.

This problem can be traced to the fact that as a kid I watched television with my mother. I saw Arthur Godfrey every morning before I was whisked off to kindergarten. I watched Merv Griffin. Once my mother and I were walking in New York and they were giving out tickets to see the live show. It was a treat to see Authur Treacher give the pre show monologue.

The first adult book I ever read was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I suppose would now be considered an example of early chick lit. One good thing is that I developed good verbal skills young in life. The bad thing was that I was nobody's early choice in picking teams for baseball games.

The greatest compliment that can be given to a boy is to say "he's all boy" when he's not supposed to be listening. To say a man is a "man's man" is a distinguishing thing to say about a fellow.

Of course now boys are said to be in academic trouble. Boys who are "all boy" are falling behind academically to their female classmates. Our president is a "man's man" and we all know what kind of trouble that can lead to. Perhaps what we need is "chick lit for boys" programs in public libraries. And the boys could wear baseball hats backwards.

Wikipedia

2006-07-30T17:10:00.000-04:00

The October 31 issue of the New Yorker has a good article on Wikipedia. Their articles have a very short shelf life on line so you may want to have a look while it's there.

The Fred Syndrome

2006-07-29T07:45:00.000-04:00

Most library staffs consist of two types. These two types are completely different in their work ethics and general attitudes on life. They are the Fred worker and the Sharon worker. Sharon’s outnumber the Fred’s numerically but the Fred’s have more political power. They can be men or women, paraprofessionals, or may possess MLS degrees. They dislike each other but in the end they need each other and the library inevitably needs both of them.

Today we will deal with Fred. Fred is the overachiever. The one who comes in early, stays late, and never takes a coffee break. Fred will work at home and come in on his day off to finish a project. Fred will spend his/her own money on supplies, if need be, and he makes the library director look good.

Fred is the audiovisual head who will come in during his vacation to show the Monday night movie. She is the Children’s librarian who buys her own supplies for her craft programs, which she assembles at home. Fred allows the library to offer services that it would otherwise not be able to offer. He makes the Library Director look good to the Board. When the Board says, “I don’t know how you do it, Sarah”, the Director knows it is because of the Fred’s she has on staff.

All is not paradise with a staff that has Fred’s. There are pitfalls. It is difficult for a supervisor to criticize an employee on a project he/she did at home. If she antagonizes Fred he may quit or just start working with library funds or at his/her assigned hours. Then the library director might appear to be less effective as an administrator.

Fred breaks union rules and is resented by the staff. A staff member who is financially strapped and is raising a family cannot do what Fred does and hates looking bad because of it.

Personal changes can affect Freds. Someone who didn’t have a life may suddenly have one. The Children’s Librarian who runs a popular Saturday story hour when she is not scheduled to be there finds a new boyfriend. The Saturday story hours abruptly end.

“But why did you end the Saturday story hours?” asks the troubled patron. “Funding cuts,” the patron is told.

Finally, when Fred leaves, his successor will be put in a terrible quandary. No one will tell his successor this, but eventually a patron will make a remark about a service that they miss. The new employee finds out that her predecessor spent his/her own time and money out of his/her own pocket. That’s why the craft programs were so successful.

Why did the book sale used to have such a good selection? The previous employee picked up books for the book sale on his weekends. Why were the tax forms always so well arranged? Because the former staff member used to fill up the tax boxes during his lunch hour. This blog seems to have a lot of references to food.

New York ain't the same no more

2006-07-26T17:47:00.000-04:00

My father said, "New York ain't the same no more. His father said, "New York ain't the same no more. And his father said, "New York ain't the same no more."

I have been reading one of the library blogs I read and saw a criticism of some of the blogs that are both a little on the cynical side and promote negativity. Admitedly, there are more than a few that wouldn't exactly be described as boosterish and I suppose mine is one of those.

I know I hinted in one of my postings that children used to have more respect for their elders in the old days. When I was a kid, my parent's friends always said. "When I was a kid we had respect. Why if I had said half the things that kids say nowadays, my mother would have slapped my face." I heard that all through childhood and always felt vaguely guilty about all the things I was doing that I should have had my face slapped for.
Ten years ago I was at a party of people my age and someone in my group said, "When I was a kid we had respect. Why if I had said half the things that kids say nowadays, my mother would have slapped my face." At the time that scared the bejessubs out of me. It meant that I was finally an adult. It meant that I had become my parents, or at least that my friends had become my parents friends, which is even more scary.

Judging from the only documentary evidence I could find of children's behavior in the 40's, Our Gang, and teenager's behavior during that time period, the East Side Kids, I guess I will have to say that young people's behavior hasn't changed that much, except for the obscenities.

But the truth about work is that chronic complaining and bellyaching is the supreme pleasure of having a job. And talking about how things used to be better than they are now is a hard won pleasure that can only be gained with years of service to the profession.

At least now we know that such talk can frighten potential librarians in graduate school. Well, they'll find out anyway. Why in my day...

Technology

2006-07-23T10:37:00.000-04:00

Technology is a double-edged sword. For the new librarian it is a wonderful thing. When I started as a librarian I had many advantages over my colleagues. I knew who David Bowie was. I knew how to fix a paper jam in the Apple II computer. I had used an OPAC computer in my life.

Many a lunch was interrupted in those early days. "Oh please, Mr. Mustache I know you are at lunch but we have been trying to get that computer to work for twenty minutes. The patron has to have her report ready this afternoon and the computer ate everything!"

I would put my cape on and come up to a weeping patron and her report which the Apple II printer had shredded and not only that but she hadn't saved her file. I would fix the jam, even find an earlier copy of the file and than walk non chalantly back down to the break room to my cold cup of tea.

But now, I find it is hard to keep up. I have tried. I am writing a blog, but I have yet get the hang of how to put it in RSS. I know what Flikr is and have even downloaded pods and blogs. I like browsing Flikr but sometimes I wonder how many library patrons want to look at librarians eating chicken and potato salad on paper plates. And are they that fascinated with story hours featuring other people's kids?

Now there is Joomla! Suddenly I am struck with the realization that I may retire from the profession without ever having used it. I've looked at it but I can't quite figure out what it's supposed to do. And I used to be so complacent. I was the only person on the staff who had listened to the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.

Volunteering 2

2006-07-18T19:38:00.000-04:00

We are a nation of volunteers. Volunteers teach adults to read, help senior citizens with their tax forms, deliver groceries to the home-bound and umpire Little League games. Parents with children in school know that they will have to stand in front of the supermarket two Saturdays a year, selling candies in the fall and wreaths in the winter, so their children can have uniforms for soccer and band. The amount of volunteering done in this country is quite impressive.

Soon to be part of every social science lexicon is Mr. Mustache's theorem on volunteering:

The pattern for volunteering is as follows. A small group of people set up a program to volunteer in one way or another. In the beginning all the volunteers are enthusiastic and the roster grows quickly. The people who actually take advantage of the service is relatively small in the beginning so it is a rewarding experience all- around.

Slowly word spreads. People who want to learn English are routed to the new volunteer groups. People who need someone to help them with their taxes are told of this new service. Slowly the group of people who want the service increases.

During this time the amount of volunteers remain stagnant and eventually starts to decline as the volunteers find that more and more demands are put on them and what started out as fun becomes a chore. Parents who sold candies when their older children were in high school feel they have already done their part by the time the baby of the family comes of age. Popular tutors realize they could get paid for what they are doing.

Inevitably, volunteers move, have declining health or have new responsibilities added to their lives and the pool continues to decline. At about this time the media writes about the project and more and more people request help as fewer and few volunteers participate.

The Mr. Mustache theorem on volunteering is that the amount of people wishing to volunteer to perform a service is inversely proportional to the amount of people needing a service. Hence, volunteering can never replace government-funded programs. Volunteering requires novelty. A paid worker will continue to work after the novelty is gone. A volunteer oftentimes does not.

The patron comes up to the Reference desk, ablaze in smiles. "I've been trying to get a tutor to help my aunt from Lithuania with her English for months. Finally my next door neighbor told me that the library offers learn English classes and tutors. And it's all free. I apologize for not coming to you first."

The Reference librarian hates this type of question. Although they had a good tutoring program last year, Jack Sullivan moved to Arizona, Cyndi has coronary thrombosis and Linda Jacqumeir recently got a job at the community college teaching English and has a new boyfriend that takes up all of her free time.

The Librarian raises his/her hands like a bird. All flown away like the birds he/she thinks but does not say. Into the rolodex looking for the usual suspects the fingers fly.

Volunteering 1

2006-07-15T16:12:00.000-04:00

I have a few essays on volunteering. This, from the vault, is my first.

Public libraries, like hospitals, museums, and other agencies, rely on volunteers. There are volunteers who do their work faithfully and silently and deserve all the accolades. However volunteers should be selected with care and be treated with a certain level of firmness when needed. Because their skills and schedules come as a ready-made package, they pose some disadvantages as well as advantages. Here are some of the problem volunteers you will encounter in your career.

1) The volunteer who parks his/her car in a bad spot. Since the volunteer is giving freely of her time, he/she feels that one little perk, free parking, should be theirs. The attempt to accommodate this space sometimes results in staff members being “boxed in” or sanitation trucks being unable to pick up the trash.

2)The volunteer who comes in at a bad time. The staff member has a number of tasks that Sarah could do if only she could come in on Fridays. Instead Sarah comes in like clockwork on Monday morning, when there are no obvious tasks or staff to get her started on anything. Many a Library Director on an appointment filled Monday morning has fumbled around trying to find a volunteer something to do.

3)The volunteer who cannot shelve, use computers, answer a switchboard, or photocopy. Often this volunteer is given tasks like book selection since that is a task he/she can do while sitting at a desk.

4)The observant volunteer. This is the volunteer who likes to bring to the attention of the staff what are essentially minor problems that the staff has already noticed but has not gotten around to fixing.

5)The talkative volunteer. Volunteers do not wish to chat with each other. They prefer to talk to the employees. Often a tired staff member retires to the staff room meeting a volunteer who wants to pass the time of day when the staffer wanted to take a nap.

6)The volunteer who comes in on time. Volunteers and part timers sometimes make the mistake of arriving precisely when assigned, while the staff people they are working with tend to come in late. A children’s Librarian who sneaks in at 9:20 does not like having her volunteer wondering around the library at 9:10 in the morning asking if the Children's Librarian has come in yet.

7)The volunteer who makes too many copies.

8)The volunteer who drinks the last cup of coffee in the staff room.

Meetings

2006-07-10T20:07:00.000-04:00

Librarians are highly communicative people and are constantly going to meetings. There are the national organizational meetings, the state meetings, and there are the county or regional network meetings. These meetings allow the staff to get out of the library, have a nice lunch, network for new jobs and gossip with other librarians. They also allow for a new source of complaints when one gets back and notices how much better off the people in other libraries are.

In-house meetings can be task oriented, departmental or staff wide. In the task oriented meetings a lot can be accomplished if the leader keeps the topic at hand. People attending these meetings should remember that it is not always necessary to inform everyone at the table of your knowledge on every topic.

Departmental meetings are often whining sessions with the agreed cause of most problems being the inflexible policies of the other departments.

The staff-wide meetings provide the best theatre because practically everybody attends them. I have noted, however, that the issues raised there are usually the primary concern of someone who is not in attendance. A staffer is rude to a patron. The staff is lectured on library courtesy. The staffer in question is off because he/she is working on Saturday. A staffer calls in sick five days in a month. The staff is lectured on the importance of attendance. The staffer in question calls in sick. I also have a theory that the person with the least amount of relevant information on a topic is the person who will usually have the most to say at meetings.

Critical meetings between the director and senior staff are the most important ones, since this is where many decisions are usually made. To allow for full attendance at such meetings, at least one person in the group will be donating unpaid overtime.

The End of the furlough

2006-07-07T13:31:00.000-04:00

It has been in the news all day. State employees will be back to work, hopefully on Monday. It has been thrilling being part of history. A news story that made its way to the BBC World Service and probably Radio Havana. Being part of history means that I will be the star at all of the holiday parties I'm invited to this year. I can see it now.

Relative: Well, Mr. Mustache. What was it like being furloughed?

Mr. Mustache: Well it was strange. It started with the floods when all the office buildings were closed. Then came the furlough. Yes I'd like a slice of cheesecake.

Relative: Were you paid for your furlough?

Mr. Mustache: Yes and Yes, I'll have some more coffee. Half and half will be fine.

Relative: What did you do all day?

Mr. Mustache: Well I never knew from day to day whether I'd be called back to work the next day so I couldn't make any big plans. It was like being retired. I'd go to the park. Go to the public library. Take the train to Philadelphia. Rent a video. Go out for a falafel (There are good ones at the Olive Delicatessen in Princeton on Witherspoon). The monotony was broken up by a trip to the Kutzville German Fair (worth doing, at least once) going to two farmers markets and seeing fireworks.

Relative: What did you get out of the experience?

Mr. Mustache: I never knew how many courtroom shows were on daytime television. I've learned a lot about life and relationships from watching them.

Relative: Were you happy going back to work?

Mr. Mustache: I'll say. It gets expensive being home all day!

Incidentally, a Mr. Mustache feed is now on Bloglines if you would like to subscribe and punch up my numbers a bit.

Tips for the New Librarian

2006-07-04T09:44:00.000-04:00

One of the books that is mouldering around on my C drive is a guide for new librarians. Here is one of the chapters (updated a bit):

Congratulations, you have your first professional position. Everything is new now and a blank slate, unless you have worked in the library before as a paraprofessional. Even then it is different because now you are in a leadership position. You are enthusiastic and should know all the new techniques and fads in the profession. Reading blogs is a good way to do this. You should know all about flikr, podcasts, and all of your library’s databases. Your co-workers may think a Black Berry is a purplish fruit but you will be relied upon to be up on the latest technology and fads. Podcasting story hours, for example, is big right now. After a couple of weeks in the job you can take the quiz to see how you are doing in your new chosen field.

1) Who on the staff sells beauty products?
2) Who is the library gossip(s)?
3) What is the marital status of your co-workers?
4) What three staff members have special privileges?
5) Who calls in sick a lot?
6) How long are morning coffee breaks?
7) At what time do you really have to come in every the morning? (It is always a good idea to look like you’ve been there awhile when your supervisor walks through the door).
8) What is the best place to go for lunch near the library?
9) Who do you have to look busy around?
10) How do you do a keyword search on the OPAC?
11) What is the actual turn around time for new books from the original order to when they turn up on the shelves?
12) In what part of the collection does your library deviate from standard book locations?
13) Who is the staff member who will help you the most?
14) What library organization do you have to become active in?
15) Can you use your cell phone during the day?
16) How do you add toner to the computer printer?
17) How do you fix paper jams in the copying machines?
18) What patrons do the other staff members avoid?
19) What staff members do the other staff members avoid?
20) What is the closest to the in crowd in the Library staff?
If you know the answers to these questions you are on your way to being a successful librarian.

Librarian action figure from Archie McPhee :

Of bagels and donuts

2006-07-02T08:09:00.000-04:00

One of things I've gotten to do since working for a governmental library is peruse some of the economic reports that are out there on a variety of topics. One of the more interesting authors I've encountered is the Professor from the University of Chicago, Steven D. Levitt. His book Freakomonics has its own website. He writes about things the economics of abortion, elementary education, and the report I recently read, " White-collar crime writ small: A case study of bagels, donuts, and the honor system" ( American Economics Association, May 2006, v. 96 no. 2). This report proves what a lot of us have believed all along, namely, that people who eat bagels are more honest than people who eat donuts. So now you have a recommendation for your students who need to read an article in the economics field.

The college student with a syllabus

There are two disappointments in store for the freshman in college. The first disappointment is that the local public library will probably not have the books on his college syllabus. The second is that he won't meet the love of his life during his first semester at school.

No work today

2006-06-29T10:03:00.000-04:00

One of life's unexpected pleasures is to unexpectedly find yourself with a day off. A snow day, or in my case a flood day, means you have your lunch packed from the night before, you're just about to take a shower and you get a phone call. "The boiler bursted and the library is closed today." Suddenly you have a day where you can mouse around the house, clean the kitchen floor, send e-mails and watch courtroom shows while lounging around in your sloppiest clothes.

Snow days are long anticipated and don't always happen. After watching snow fall all evening the phone call doesn't come. You have to go out to your car with a scraper and scrape ice and snow off of your windshield and drive through the icy streets to work. But sometimes you get that call and you are happy as a clam at high tide. Just like a kid waiting for the radio announcer to announce your school there is the eager anticipation of a day off, the only real work being clearing the snow from the car and shoveling the snow off of your driveway, if you are fortunate enough to have a driveway.

Snow chains can be perilous things. I, for one was not called this morning. I got suspicious and read a news story on the internet and woke up my boss. "Sorry xxx was supposed to have called you." But he didn't. Thank the Lord for the Internet.

Then there is the overeager caller. I used to have a director who would call the staff an hour before they normally got up to tell them they didn't have to come in.

There is always the person who doesn't get a call and comes into work. Poor Mrs. Crabapple is a seventy five year old volunteer who always comes in on Wednesdays. She waited an hour for the bus, came to the library and was greeted by the maintenace man using the snowblower on the sidewalk. "You mean nobody called you?' he screams over the sound of the dastardly machine. "That's terrible!"

Always remember to call the volunteers on snow days. Staff will remember to call you or check the radio, but not always so with volunteers.

The Regular patron

2006-06-28T10:19:00.000-04:00

Public library users consist of occasional users and the people who are there every day. The new Librarian soon notices that he sees some of the same people frequently. In the beginning he thinks they are scholars. Then he finds out they are not, for the most part, scholars. These are the regular patrons. They are the people who get to the building before the staff does, and they keep the staff honest by refusing to leave the building until the exact minute of closing.

Often their presence is an enigma to the staff. Too young to be retired, too old to be still in school, they are there every day. They know when the periodicals clerk is late in getting back from lunch. They know when there is a staff birthday party going on in the building. They know the staff by name and often have better attendance records than the employees. Sometimes, the level of service they receive is different than the level of service they feel they should receive. Because they are in everyday and know everyone by name they feel their needs should be put first over other patrons.

Often staff member can feel the opposite way. The Librarian may feel that it is the occasional user, who has the truly legitimate needs, who should be given first priority. The staff may ignore that person who has nothing to do all day but sit in the library. Neglected at home, friendless and sometimes poor, the regular patron feels the need to “throw her weight around” when she is at the library. Here she is known and respected. And in a battle with a staff member she has the advantage of time. She wants something and she will wait there until she gets it. She knows the magazine she wants was just delivered by the mailman. Her time is too valuable to wait until the clerk gets back from lunch and finally puts out the new periodicals. She wants to read her magazine now. She wants the Reference librarian to go to the mailroom, pick out the magazine and hand it to her, right now. Not when the clerk gets back from lunch or wherever she is. She knows that if she is persistent, someone will give in to her because it then means they can then be rid of her, at least for a while. And she knows what type of cake waiting in the lunchroom.

The Old Guard

2006-06-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

The new librarian soon meets up with "the old guard" in the staff. These are the people who have been there for twenty years or more. They were there before computers, the Internet, the OPAC, and still remember fondly the days of the card catalog when a librarian had to get up and help the patron and wasn't just a computer jockey. They also remember those halcyon days before teenagers had "attitudes".

The stories you will hear from the old guard are priceless if you can catch them in a chatty mood. The old days of the bookmobile, how the bookmobile driver used to park at the A and P and do her shopping on library time and other anecdotes will stay with you always.

Sometimes you might resent "the old guard". They get twice as many vacation days as you ever will. They get to use "the traditional plan" for health insurance and you were dumped in the ppo because you are new. As a new employee you will work the worst shift, be on duty when there are no periodical clerks and have to work with the most difficult paraprofessionals.

You will be mentored to a certain extent by "the old guard but you will find that, with meetings, doctors appointments, health problems et al. that you will spend most of your days with the other new employees and do a lot of "covering" for "the old guard".

However, "the old guard" will occasionally teach you invaluable lessons. On my first day on the Reference desk I told someone on the telephone that another staff member was at break. I was quickly told we never say that word in a public area of the library so that others may hear it. We say that they are can be reached through "extension 26". On my gravestone it will say, "he is not gone, he is at extension 26".

One day there is a retirement dinner. Then a retirement luncheon. My favorite was the retirement hike. It happened so quickly. Within a year, "the old guard" was gone. Then I became part of "the old guard". "Why in my day we had to go to the card catalog and weren't just computer jockeys....."

The Coffee Break

2006-06-19T17:28:00.000-04:00

The one indispensable part of the day is the coffee break. Well actually there are two of them, morning break and afternoon break. The break room is where gossip is exchanged, rumors are started, coffee is drunk, complaining is done and where all the staff members actually see each other. The break is theoretically fifteen minutes long but the typical break goes from twenty to forty five minutes in length. Like praying to Mecca or an English tea, it is the most important ritual in the life of the library. The staff room is the chapel dedicated to this institution. Surprisingly, telephoning and looking at pictures are tasks that are rarely done during break. These tasks are normally performed during the working part of the day at people's desks.

Sitting in the staff room is one of the most enlightening experiences you can achieve as a librarian. Always pay attention to the older Para-professionals at these times. Here you will learn anecdotes of the past, who dyes their hair, who is older than they look, the way things used to be done and why things should have been kept that way.

The staff room is often a source of dispute in a library. Dishes are left in the sink. The refrigerator needs cleaning. Tables need to be wiped. The staff room has its overachievers and its underachievers. Some people make coffee. Some people don’t. Some people clean spills, theirs and other peoples’. Some people don’t. Some people clean out the coffee pots. Some people don’t. Reminders to some people can result in “you’re not my mother” and other such rejoinders.

There are always signs in the break room reminding you that your mother doesn’t work here and that it’s bad manners to leave the microwave dirty. I wrote a sign once explaining how to clean out the microwave. When the microwave was stolen they also stole my sign. To this day I wonder what ever became of the cute cartoon I drew, Mickey Microwave.

Cleaning out the refrigerator is always a big project and the source of multiple signs and (today) e-mails. Some people clean out the refrigerator. Some people don’t. Someone’s lunch inevitably gets thrown out when the refrigerator is cleaned.

The young librarian is smiling. He doesn't know yet that he threw out Mrs. Bueschlecher's lunch.

t shirts and sandwiches

2006-06-16T19:26:00.000-04:00

Demonstrations. Most of us have gone to them. When I was sixteen years old and visiting my big brother at college in Boston I sneaked off and joined a demonstration that was going on in front of his fraternity house. "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh NLF is gonna win", I shouted along with the college students and eventually the NLF did win. I was so proud.

Senior year in high school I went to the Vietnam Demonstration at Van Saun Park in Paramus and the following November I went to the moratorium in Washington on a creaky Newark bus. At college, I slept on the floor of the University president's office. I ended the war in Vietnam and I was happy to know my demonstrating days were over.

Then through a series of events I was nominated to be a shop steward in a public libray. Soon the negotiations were going bad and CWA proposed having a demonstration on the library lawn. We all walked around singing "15 cents don't pay my rent" to the guitar chords of our custodian. Then a bus came up Broad Street and we were joined by "ringers". CWA activists and Bennet Zurofsky playing the guitar. What a memorable evening.

Now I am working in State government and Monday there will be a major demonstration. Somehow I feel old. In the sixties I was protesting for Ho Chi Minh and truth and justice. Now I am protesting for my pension. According to the grapevine, the union will supply t shirts and sandwiches. I hope I can still fit in a large and they don't put too much mayo in the sandwich.

The summer reading list

2006-06-10T07:55:00.000-04:00

Libraries are seasonal places. There is tax season, Black History Month, DAR assignment month, look up your birthday on the microfilm month. As the lawn mowers are whirring in the distance, the librarian becomes aware that we are entering summer reading list season.

One day you notice kids coming into the library at odd times. It must me exam time. Then you see those green lists in one of the students hands. Booway the librarian says, a summer reading list. The student is in possession of a list of books supposedly to keep his/her reading skills up over the long doldrums of summer. The astute librarian runs over to the copy machine to copy this list which will be as much a part of the coming months as iced tea and air conditioning malfunctions.

There it is, a seemingly random list of books, some good, some bad, and with a few of the authors names badly misspelled. The student goes to the librarian with the list. Some of the books will be in the library, some will be in the non-catalogued paperback collection, some will be in nearby libraries, and some of the books will be nowhere to be found.

The parent has a problem with this situation. To the parent, the school and the library are one and the same. Both fall under the category the government. The parent assumes the library has fifty copies of each book on the reading list, arranged by teacher's name. That the library does not have the summer reading books in such a format or may not have the books at all is often one of the unpleasant surprises of summer.

Sometimes the librarian gingerly suggests that some of the books might be in paperback at the local book store. This annoys the parent. The parent feels If the gument wants him to read the book, the gument should supply him with the book.

About summer reading lists

The Illness blackboard

2006-06-07T23:01:00.000-04:00

One thing that takes up a lot of time in libraries is explaining to staff members and patrons the status of a staff member's illness. At eleven the assistant librarian gives a long account of an employees illness to one of the volunteers. Then at 11:15 one of the patrons comes up to and says, I just heard Jack is sick. How is he? and the same employee has to give another account of Jack's illness while the patrons are all waiting patiently in line. My proposal to this problem is for all libraries to have blackboards similar to the ones fancy restaurants use to name the specials of the day.

They would give the name of the ill staff member, his/her current status, location, prognosis and be it good or whether it's time to bring the dark suit to the drycleaners. The illness blackboard would be located in front of the circulation desk. This way a patron could come in, look at the blackboard, and be brought up to date on Henry's operation or Mary's by-pass surgery without taking up the staff's time.

With the shortage of librarian positions, such a blackboard might also be helpful to the job hunter who wrote in the etiquettetiquette blog.

The secret all librarians share

2006-06-06T19:34:00.000-04:00

Since the beginning of time, libraries have been putting their newspapers on poles. Why this practice has persisted I don’t know since the poles are difficult for patrons to handle and a pain for the clerk that has to assemble the product. Occasionally the professional staff is called upon to do this task.

The secret is to look at the last page of each section. If it is divisible by four, the section can be easily installed on the rod. If the section is not divisible by four the section will have an orphan. This is a newspaper sheet that is half sized and only contains two readable pages, the front and the back. It cannot slide over the pole, because it is too small. You should tape the orphan to the page behind it, so it fits in with the rest of the section in terms of pagination. Otherwise when the patron lifts the pole, this orphan will fall onto the floor.

The Job Market

2006-06-05T06:53:00.000-04:00

Another link I use. If you like public radio, a nice way to download files of shows is available through Pubcaster, available through at WNYC http://www.wnyc.org/podcasting/ You can download shows as mp3 files to play on a computer as well as a pod. This is especially handy to locate NPR and BBC programs that are not available on your local public radio or only available at weird hours.

I was reading about the job prospects for librarians here, http://community.livejournal.com/libraries/591575.html and here, http://www.librarian.net/stax/1706 and unfortunately, the job market for librarians is not as rosy as some of the news stories would lead one to beliveve. Apparently, in the fifties and sixties there was a real shortage of librarians, partly caused by the miserable salaries the field used to pay. It's been a tight field for years though, although children's librarians seem to be able to glide from job to job easier than most of us.

I had an English degree and couldn't find a job. Finally my mother's friend pulled some strings at the local library where she was a board member and they created a CETA position for me. I did everything from ILL to working on the Reference desk to pulling catalog cards from boxes that used to come from the Library of Science. I thought it would make a nice profession at the time and I got my MLS degree. After looking for a job in the northeast for six months I moved to Colorado and found an indexing job within a few days. When I got laid off I got a job working at the night crew of a title research company, where I stayed ten years.

Hearing there were librarian jobs opening up back east, I moved back to New Jersey where I lived with friends and got a part time job through the employment agency Gossage Regan. Then I finally landed a librarian job. My secret was that they couldn't find anyone to take the position because the salary was so low. So I always bragged that it took me eleven years to find my first librarian job.

Recommendations

2006-06-03T19:04:00.000-04:00

Today we are going to do some of the things that all blogs do. Make recommendations. First, two entertaining websites where you can look at and submit original movies. From New York there is http://www.blip.tv/ and from California there is http://www.youtube.com/index You can look at videos that people are making. Bloggers are already obsolete. It's video bloggers that are now on the cutting edge. Boo hoo.

For librarians, this is a nice site. http://www.popgoesthelibrary.com/ It was part of my inspiration to try the art myself.

If you want to meet people online and off, this free site has been good to me. http://icq.com and if you are over forty, a nice news board is the 40 something group, http://www.icq.com/boards/browse_folder.php?tid=339 (You do have to register first)

Well that's it. I have a nice cynical column for next week. So long

The Perry Street Irregulars

2006-06-02T06:45:00.000-04:00

On my first day at my new job I had to go to an all day orientation session at the Personnel office on the 15th Floor. After filling out forms and told to avoid sexual harassment if we could, we were handed out bus schedules. I remember thinking; “It’s great they push mass transportation at the Department”. Then came the bombshell.

Told delicately in the way you would inform a patient that they had incurable liver cancer, my trainer announced “I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you all have a parking space provided by the State. The bad news is that is on Perry Street, sorry guys there are no spaces at the main lot. But there is a free shuttle you can take to get here, the Statehouse Shuttle. That’s why I’ve given you all bus schedules. The shuttle also goes to the train station. Just show your badge to the driver and the fare is free.”

Upon further questioning our hostess told us we would eventually be given spaces at the main lot as they opened up. After all, people die and retire. And if we were desperate, we could always do what she does, since presumably she was new too. That is, you could park at $7 a day at the hotel across the street.

What a surprise! Nowhere at my interview was this little factoid mentioned. I wanted a job in State government. I got a job in State government.

So now I was in my new condo and ready to embark on my new adventure. Taking the car to the Perry Street lot and then taking the Statehouse Special to the main building. I got out my maps and figured out a way to get to the lot. As drives go, it wasn’t bad. I got to go through the three great regions of our country, all within twenty minutes. I drove through the great-extended suburbs of America, where you go 45 on residential streets. Then I drove through blue-collar suburbs. Soon I entered urban America as I turned and drove on the last leg. The part that passed through tough streets and bad traffic congestion. I passed by the Trentonian guy. A guy sixty years old who sold the Trentonian on the streets (he literally sold papers on the yellow line of the road). Then I passed the great offices of the Trentonian itself and later the entranceway to the great road of the eastern seaboard, Route 1. A tricky turn to the lot and I parked. There were plenty of spaces. And I met up with a unique species of State employees. “The Perry Street Irregulars.”

The Perry Street Irregulars mostly worked at Motor Vehicles, Personnel and Labor. They all knew each other and chatted about the weather, their mothers, their health problems and other matters which my ears could not hear. Of course they complained about work, especially their co-workers. Some of the ladies were young and comely. Most, sadly, were not. Men were outnumbered 3 to 1.

Although the Statehouse Special was technically a public bus, it was filled mostly with State employees and so became, de facto a charter. The bus drivers were friendly! They would wait for you if you were late. They would pick you up if you waved. Once one of the sweet young things asked the driver to wait. She ran to her car, rummaged through the back seat, got her hero sandwich, and ran back to the bus, much to the amusement of her girlfriend. It reminded me of summer camp. It was a treat being one of the Perry Street Irregulars.

Then things changed. Romance and the green-eyed monster of jealousy entered the club. Like an Arthur Miller script, the bus had one really cute young lady. She always wore sunglasses, which added to her allure. Then they had a new employee from Motor Vehicles who rode the bus back one day. He was maybe 22 and had a cute face for a guy. He started sitting next to the cute young lady. She started laughing at his remarks. She had an annoying laugh. Then they started driving in together to the Perry Street lot. Then they skipped the lot altogether. Maybe with two of them they were chipping in on parking. She and the rest of the girls were like a family and the new guy broke up the family like an unwanted brother-in-law. The spell was broken. The gang stopped sitting together. It was a dark week on Perry Street.

The week passed. June turned to August. The gang started uniting in the back of the bus again. The green-eyed monster had temporarily been pacified. If not forever. There was peace again on Perry Street.
One morning I got the letter from the Department. I had been given a space at the main lot, or the Rutgers equivalent, “on campus”. I was going to leave the club. I had moved up in the world. I was no longer one of the Perry Street Irregulars.

Now I am like everyone else. I take the thruway to work. I park in the lot. I exit the back way to the parking lots. And I will never know what happened with the Perry Street Irregulars. I will be left out of the news of marriage, babies, and retirement that they will all share. Like being let out of the Army, you never really return. Now I am in lot A6.

Library Directors

2006-05-30T16:30:00.000-04:00

Although they have been slow in coming, I'm starting to get some comments. Yes, I know most of you have lives. This blog tries to be a different. I won't unnecessarily bore you with new trendy software or hot meetings to attend. I plan on writing about the things librarians need to know and maybe don't need to know. Today we are going to discuss Library Directors.

There are many types of Library Directors. There are first name directors; there are Mr. and Mrs. Directors. There are hands on Directors and there are hands off Directors.

All of these Directors possess unique problems and situations. A hands on Director may not like the cataloguing records that are being produced in Technical Services. A hands off director may not know that there are cataloguing records being produced in Technical Services.
Someone who comes up the ranks may still retain his old alliances and friendships from the old days and this may cause resentment among some of the staff. A first name Director may tell an employee about the fight he had with a department head, the employee's boss. A hands off Director may not realize that a department head is allowing volunteers to input cataloguing records. A hands on Director may want to rearrange the display cases where the tax forms are kept, annoying the Head of Reference in the process.

It is permissible for a Library Director to take lunch with his department heads. However if he/she has lunch with the Head of Technical Services one week he must have lunch with the Head of Adult Services the next week. He should not divulge his feelings about other staff members unless he knows that staff member very well, and even then he does it at his own peril.

One of the problems that staff have with Library Directors is that Directors do things on their own time with their own priorities. A grant proposal is prepared in April, ready for the Director to review. The information is given to the Director and the Director puts it on the back burner. Two weeks before the grant is due in July, the Director suddenly calls down and wants to discuss the grant. The staff member must quickly review the grant, update any vendor prices, and be ready to work in a rushed environment to get the grant in on time. Since the Director is away the next week and the employee is going to a meeting on Friday, the staff member must stay late with the Director on Thursday night to finish work on the grant.

Here are a few general rules for working with Library Directors:

Never reveal something in passing that may suddenly tweak a director's interest unnecessarily. A casual remark that the patrons are using up a lot of paper with Internet printing can turn into a series of prolonged meetings and policy changes.

Always copy everything that you give to a Director. Don't assume a Director has a piece of paperwork no matter how many times you have put it in his/her in box.

Things that happen on the Reference desk can get back to a Director. Always put requests from political figures in town as well as Board members on the highest priority. Putting the mayor's wife on hold can get back to a Library Director.

Don't assume that a Director has read a memo or is aware of a procedure. Be wary about revealing rules that don't make a lot of sense at first glance but make life easier for the staff. Just because a previous Director allowed something doesn't mean the present Director would allow it, providing that he/she knew about it.

Remember that public relations and dealing with the Library Board are a Director's first priority. Department heads and senior staff members should take care of internal issues before they get to a Director's ear, if at all possible.

Get to know your Director's personal habits. Custodians learn which stairway a Director uses so that he cleans that one daily, if not the other ones. A staff member may allow her son into a staff office in the afternoon. She learns to put the child in a room that is out of the normal line of sight of the Director. A Children's Librarian learns which programs the Director's niece will be attending, so she knows to give that program a special polish.

Do not be complacent about a Director's habits, however. Be aware of situations that may bring a Director in at an unusual time or into an office that the Director does not normally see. An administrative assistant may be accustomed to getting to work at 9:10 in the sound belief that the Director will come in at 9:20. A breakfast get together for a retiring staff member brings in the Director at 8:50. The Director suddenly is furious to find out that the staffer she assumed was coming in at 9 all these years actually has been coming into work ten minutes later.

Sometimes a Director may change a procedure or configuration that works but looks bad to something that looks better to the casual observer but causes problems in the implementation. This is a common problem in the military and perhaps, an acquaintance with standard military operating procedure can be of help. The General issues an order. The order does not work. The enlisted men try to make it look like they are obeying the order when in reality they are not.

Likewise in a library, it is usually possible to alter a bad decision for the better without a Director noticing. This should be done slowly and cautiously. Many big picture Directors do not notice minor changes in their directives. Directors like knowing they have instituted change for the better. However, sometimes it is only an superficial change. Like the Inca's wearing traditional totems underneath their Christian crosses, the clerk in TSD continues to maintain paper shelf list cards after being told to discard them, but takes off the labels of the drawers.

The school assignment

2006-05-26T19:35:00.000-04:00

Occasionally a teacher will give an assignment that involves a visit to the library. Although the student can, theoretically, use the school library, that often is inconvenient and less fun than hanging out, gossiping, or playing skin the cat during the school day. Hence, the student waits until the evening before the assignment is due and casually mentions to the parents at dinner that a visit to go the library that evening is imperative if a decent grade score is to be maintained this semester.

Unless the student has a driver's license, the parents will have to take him there. An evening pleasantly spent watching America Idol or the Kings of Queens or going bowling is suddenly changed. The routine is broken, much like a child spraining an ankle and needing an emergency drive to the hospital for ex rays would change an evening. And like a trip to the hospital or doctor's office, the trip takes longer and costs more money than originally anticipated.

The parents arrive at the library with the child in tow and drag the poor miscreant to the Reference desk. Well, barks Papa, tell her what you need! The child, now close to tears, gives a mumbled account about needing to write about a true hero of the Korean War and how this hero showed bravery and acted upon a situation in an original way.

The Librarian grunts. Those teachers and their &*^$# homework assignments, the librarian thinks. Naturally there are no books in the circulating collection on the Korean War. These were borrowed the day the assignment was given. The librarian, fortunately familiar with the topic, goes to the Encyclopedia of the Korean War (if somebody had the foresight to order such a thing) and finds a few names that he/she remembers using last year for this assignment. The librarian trots the books over to the copying machine, which, God willing, is working tonight.

The parent is bewildered. The eyes tell the tale. Money! This is a free public library. I didn't know this was going to cost me money! I thought we were going to borrow five books and go home. Nothing is ever easy. Fortunately the Mrs., a veteran of such expeditions, remembered to bring some change and the photocopies are made.

The next time you get an assignment you better not wait until the last minute! scolds papa. The family goes home and the student stays up late to write her paper. The student gets a B.

Days

2006-05-24T10:36:00.000-04:00

Like elementary schools and nursing homes, government agencies are filled with "days". This fulfils the tedium of being too young to change classes every hour, or get out of the recreation area because they are cleaning your room. There is secretaries day, government employee appreciation day, hispanic heritage day, take your child to work day, homemade cookie day, take your dog to work day, sloppy dresser day, recycle day, mustache day, May Day, Cinco de Mayo, left handed day, handicapped day, dayglow shirts day and more.

Then there are days that are there to accomplish tasks like cleanup day. This is the day when everyone comes in dressed like slobs and tries to clean up their offices with limited results.

There are days to fund raise for one cause or another. There is homeade cookie day, bagels day, apple pie day, egg sandwich day, streudel day, muffin day.

Government workers, like second graders and the elderly, have short attention spans and the novelty of having "days" keeps morale high. When I realized I was looking forward to bagels day, I realized I had a dull life. I hope my sesame bagel is fresh.

Lives

2006-05-24T09:39:00.000-04:00

Library staffs are just like staffs in any field. Some of them have lives and some of them don’t have lives. There are advantages and disadvantages in having staffs who have lives. People who have lives are generally more stable and are less apt to snap at you or become difficult than people who don’t have lives. People who have lives are more flexible in terms of procedures (if not hours) than people who don’t have lives. On the negative side, people who have lives hate to work evenings or Saturdays. They must have Christmas week, the day after Thanksgiving and several weeks off in the summer to be with their families.

People who don’t have lives are more likely to be willing to work multiple evenings, stay late, work extra weekends and around holidays. A life can be more than just a significant other and a family. A single person whose sister has a baby may suddenly have a life. Someone who must care for an ailing parent has a life. A well-rounded staff consists equally of people who have lives and people who don’t have lives.

Having a cat does not, in and of itself, give someone a life.

In the diaspora

2006-05-21T07:58:00.000-04:00

The major change in my professional career has been moving to working in a public library to moving to a government library. In effect I have moved from the community of librarians, paraprofessionals and volunteers to the diaspora where only a small percent of the people in my workaday world are librarians or library people.

The change in my environment has been immense. The most notable thing is that I no longer have the men's room to myself. I could rest assured that in a library, the employees rest room would inevitably be empty. I could have my choice of stalls, sing if I wanted, do push-ups if I wanted and no one would know. Now, in the diaspora, I notice that there are men in the men's room. Sometimes all the toilets are occupied.

Vocabulary is different also. In libraries, people use terms like OCLC, OPAC, and patron all the time and everyone immediately knows what they are talking about. My first day in a library, many years ago I found out that library users were called patrons. I was a library user since childhood and always thought we were just the people in the library. It was a surprise to know we had a name. Patrons. Why library users are called patrons I don't know. The term implies that they are benefactors of largesse. Anyone trying to collect a fine or a fee from a patron must wonder how these parsimonious souls got to be called patrons.

I have not experienced break room conversation among men before. Men don't talk about sports like I expected, but they also don't talk about families and children the way women do. If they mention their families it is in reference to something else. "I was visiting my daughter in North Carolina and you wouldn't believe the size of the golf course they took me to." "Military engineers make good money. I can't believe the way my son is treated."

Computers have in some way brought libraries closer to the diaspora. Librarians have to mouse around with web pages, word processing, Windows stuff. They also do this in the diaspora.

Librarians are preocupied with their pensions. So are government employees. Librarians are preoccupied with how many days they have coming. So are government employees. Perhaps I am not in the diaspora at all. I am only in a larger cloistered environment. I'm still a civil service employee. I am even in the same union as before. I look out the window and there is a hot dog stand. He doesn't have beneftits and a pension. Now that is the diaspora!

Men in libraries

2006-05-20T08:08:00.000-04:00

Today we are going to talk about the issue of male employees in libraries. In the old days men’s roles in libraries were well delineated. A male was either the custodian, the Director, or – in a large public or academic library, the Head of Reference. Staff knew to be nice to new male librarians because they knew they would be the Director someday. Women did everything else.

Now the roles are less heavily delineated. Women can be Directors as well as custodians. Men can work on the circulation desk (which would have been unheard of in the distant past). Men can work as clerks as well as in professional positions. It seems the only task that they are not permitted to do is act as the Children’s Librarian.

Even today, though, men are the minority in all but the most technical libraries, and men must realize that they are working in a woman’s world not a man’s one. A man must get used to listening to women talk about their children, their relatives and their health. Sometimes women will talk about things that are not intended for a man’s ears. A man must know when his presence is not desired. For example it is acceptable for a man to look at pictures of a newborn. However when the conversation turns to the more stringent aspects of labor and delivery the man must vacate the room.

Having men in a library can be burdensome.The custodian has to maintain the men's restroom. They can monopolize the break room with talk of the deck they are hammering together or the time they rebuilt their carburetor.

Technology is the best thing that ever happened to men in libraries. Technology in libraries make the work seem less sissy. Men can do mannish things like carry boxes containing new printers, and installing drivers, USB lines and formatting new hard drives.

Women can install software but usually it is a man who installs the hardware. Men can add toner and fix paper jams. Women can add paper and edit documents. The age of hunters and gatherers is still with us. Men are hardware people and women are software people. Hardware people who can pop the case of a computer make more money than software people. One caveat however. Men don’t like to fill out warranty cards.

An informative article on the topic

Another librarian blog

2006-05-19T22:12:00.000-04:00

So somebody told me i should write a blog and so here it is. My blog. Well, it's actually another of the countless librarian blogs out there, and it's blocked where I work ( I know this since the Librarian ettiquette blog is blocked) and that was what I couldn't read at work so home alone on a Friday night decided to read it and then the message came up, "would you like to write a blog?" so I said yes. Nobody knows I am doing this so it will be our little secret. I am a working librarian in a Northeastern state so more details later. Hint: Well my father sent me to dear --- in the hope that I would be a man.... and there it's stood since the time of the flood on the banks of the old Raritan -- is where I went to Library School. I constantly bore people with anecdotes with my many years in the field along with other adventures from that world outside of these grey buildings called life. So now I have a place to put my thoughts and opinions and other stuff too.

Enjoy.