March 13th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Here’s a good example of the danger of jargon.
We have one semi-regular patron who often appears to be drunk when she’s in the library. Despite our suspicions, as long as she doesn’t violate our general behavior policy*, we treat her like any other patron.
One day this week she came up to the desk and asked if I could help her on the computer. Back at her workstation, she was on the website of a heavy-duty makeup product she said she wanted to purchase. They had an online order form, but since she didn’t have a credit card, the patron wanted to find a list of local stores carried it.
I helped her navigate around the website, but there was no link to or listing of local retailers. There was an email contact form, and I said the quickest way to find out where she could buy it was to fill out that form and ask them. She said okay, and I went back to the desk.
A little while later, she came back up to the desk and asked if I could help her print something. When I got to her workstation this time, she was on the same website, except the right-click menu was popped up. The patron pointed to it and said,
See, right there, it says “Copy Link Location.” You print out a copy of their location list, because that link goes to their locations.
For being under the influence, even partially, I thought this was actually a very astute connection. It took me a good five minutes to explain to her that “link location” was a computer term meaning the address of that web page, and not the physical locations of stores. Reluctantly she accepted this, sat back down, and I went back to the desk.
A little while after that, she came and got me again, saying she found a list of the stores and needed help printing. This time when I got to her computer, the Print dialog box was up, and she said,
When I clicked that this box came up, and it has a button you click to see all their properties. When I click it I don’t see the stores they own, so you print out that list for me.
Again, I have never thought about the use of this term in that context, but I can see why it made complete sense to her. But, again, I had to explain to her that the Properties button didn’t refer to real estate properties, but the settings of the printer.
By this time she was exasperated at my total inability to print a list of stores for her. We clicked around the website again, but still there was no list of retail outlets to be found. I asked if she had submitted the Contact Us form, and she replied with something indecipherable.
It was almost closing time then, so she gave up and left**. I feel bad I couldn’t find what she wanted, but that product was definitely geared for online sales. Hopefully the company will write her with the information she needs.
*Which has happened, and in those cases we have called the police.
**On her bicycle.
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March 6th, 2010 Brian Herzog
I only got involved with this towards the end, but in plenty of time for the punch line. A woman called in to reserve a meeting room for later that day, and during the process, apparently she asked:
Can the ceilings of any of your meeting rooms be raised?
I didn’t hear about this until the next day, but it should have been a tip-off that trouble lay ahead. However, she was told there was an available room, and she would need to fill out our online reservation form to reserve it.
That night the woman came in with her group, which is when I got involved. It turns out she never did actually reserve a room, but just showed up expecting one. All our rooms were in use by then, so after much scrambling around trying to find an available space, I ended up dividing our large meeting room with the movable wall - then I went back downstairs to the Reference Desk feeling satisfied about accommodating a patron’s request.
About ten minutes later, the Children’s Librarian came down to see me. Our Children’s Room is right next to the meeting room, so she can often hear what’s going on in there, even at moderate noise levels. I thought she was going to commiserate about our online room booking system or not having enough meeting space to meet community demand, but instead she asked:
Did you tell that group they could use a catapult?
Ha. Apparently, this group was a school group, and for a science project they built and are experimenting with a catapult. It wasn’t quiet as large as the one in the picture, but still it was too big, too loud, and too dangerous for us to let them use it in the library. I’m actually a little bit in awe of them for apparently thinking it would be perfectly okay.
Now, you know I like medieval siege weapons, but perhaps this is a good rule of thumb: if the library’s ceiling is too low to do something, then that is something you cannot do in the library.
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February 27th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Once again, heavy winds and rain has been knocking out power to most of the area (especially yesterday), so this question of the week is a repeat:
Hey, are you open?
My library had power all day, but most of the town and other nearby libraries did not. The library was packed, and more than a few times I was asked if I knew when power would be back on at a patron’s house.
I think the power companies learned a public relations lesson last year, and have been more proactive in providing information. In searching the internet, I found some helpful National Grid storm resources:
When I asked my Director if we’d be staying open late to serve as a shelter for people without power, she said we officially cannot do that. Apparently there are strict certifications necessary for a Town building to function as an emergency shelter, and the library is not certified (neither is our Senior Center, which did stay open last year, but was closed when someone noticed the lack of certification). Granted, this week’s outage (and weather) is certainly not as bad as last year’s ice storm, but I really don’t know how involved certification would need to be. We wouldn’t be providing food or aid or beds for people, just heat and power and chairs and internet, which we already do every day. Of course, we’d have to pay staff to stay open, and that is tough with our budget situation.
So, not a very inspiring reference question, but it’s been that kind of week. For a real Reference Question this week, check out a great transaction from The Surly Librarian.
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February 20th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Sometimes I can’t tell if patrons asks for something because they think we actually offer it, or if they just figure there’s no harm in asking. To wit:
Patron: You know how when I have a book on hold, someone from the library calls me?
Me: Well, yes, but it’s not a real person - we have a computer system that automatically makes the calls.
Patron: Yeah, exactly - since it’s a computer, can you set it to call me really early to be a wake-up call?
Me: Um, no.
So I can go two ways with this. First, I mean, yes, technically, we could absolutely do this, without really any staff involvement. And when we could do something, I feel bad saying no - but really, we have to draw the line on the services we provide somewhere, and here be that line.
But since he actually was looking for a free wake-up service (and didn’t necessarily need someone from the library to do it), I searched around to see what I could find. I knew that hotels offer this for their guests, and have never thought of this in any other context before - but plenty of people must:
Some of these are free, or at least have a free trial (which would be good enough for a one-time call). Lifehacker also has suggestions for free wakeup calls from Telepixie and automating calls with Skype. They also reference combining Skype with Google Calendar - so many options.
Happily, I never need to be to work before 9am, and my house has lots of windows, so I generally just let the sun wake me up. Ah, the blissful life of a librarian.
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February 13th, 2010 Brian Herzog
For all you Valentine’s Day sentimentalists out there, here are two questions that came in about a week apart, but from the same patron:
Did Eric and Donna from “That 70’s Show” end up getting married?
and
Does SpongeBob like Sandy?
I used to watch “That 70’s Show” but apparently stopped watching before the last couple seasons, because I had no idea what happened to the characters. Nor, now that someone reminded me of it, did I particularly care, but this patron seemed very concerned.
Apparently, many other people are too: when I searched Google for an answer, the auto-complete showed other searches for this question.
But from what I could find, it seems that no, they never did get married, and the series ended with ambiguity as to what their relationship was like.
There is also much curiosity about SpongeBob’s relationship status. But again, what I read indicated there is nothing going on between SpongeBob and Sandy. In fact, there’s speculation that SpongeBob is gay and has a somewhat romantic relationship with Patrick.
My favorite comment on the idea of “Sandy SquarePants:”
“I’m sorry i don’t see a sponge mating with a squirrel under the sea. its just not happening. and i don’t think its biologically possible either.”
But really - does such cold logic have any places in matters of the heart?
Tags: couples, donna, eric, libraries, Library, love, public, Reference Question, sandy, spongebob, spongebob squarepants, television, that 70's show, tv See Also
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