Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

RIP Capt. Clarence Oveur

Forget his work in "Mission: Impossible" or on A&E's "Biography," I'd like to think for my generation, Peter Graves will always be a friendly old guy wanting to know if you've ever seen a grown man naked.

Not really library related, but suddenly everyone wants to put Airplane! on hold. (No requests yet for the less loved Airplane II: The Sequel)

National Reading Month

March is National Reading Month, but I only realized it because ModLife, another blog I follow, happened to mention it. How sad is that?

Actually, the branch I work at seems to be celebrating everything but National Reading Month: we have displays and programs for Women's History Month and National Craft Month. There are posters and shelf displays of Irish authors for Saint Patrick's Day and books getting ready for spring. We have the bloodmobile parked out front regularly to celebrate that it's American Red Cross month.

All of this is in addition to all the other non-national-whatever-month stuff we have going on like the home selling workshop, junior science club, toddler university, teen anime club, computer lab tutorial, and family movie nights. I guess we are just assuming everyone is reading too.

Libraries in the media - both pertinent and irrelevant

While channel surfing the other day I came across two different representations of libraries that I thought were interesting. The first was search engine Yahoo!'s 15 year anniversary where they conducted a U.S. survey from users asking them how the internet has changed their lives since 1995.

The results showed that several activities are down, including library visits being down by 59%, though the Yahoo! rep and interviewer seemed to feel a nostalgic loss more than anything else.

The other item was a new show on NBC, brought over from England called Who Do You Think You Are?, a reality tv show that researches the genealogy of a celebrity. I was bored and switching back and forth from other channels while waiting around for my night to begin, but the premier episode focused on Sarah Jessica Parker, following her cross country as she learned more about her family tree. As easily accessible as the internet makes everything, it was interesting to see the visits to different library's archival records for primary sources and information not yet digitized. We have a genealogy database at our library, but it doesn't get used very much from what I've seen and I've only played with it here and there without any major results, but I wonder if interest in this type of information can be renewed by the public thanks to shows like this? Maybe, though I noticed they did not make Sarah Jessica Parker wear gloves to handle her 10th great-grandmother's arrest record in Salem.

Found photos at the library

Many people use photos as bookmarks that aren't discovered until long after the book has been returned to the library and cannot be reunited with its owner. More often people donate books that have photos wedged inside, further complicating the reuniting possibility, so it's safe to say I have quite a lot of found photographs -- and I didn't even collect them the first two years on the job!

I used to post them on a found photo community on live journal that unfortunately disappeared, but at the same time I can't stop collecting them. I now have an entire photo album full of other people's memories that I can't throw away, so I thought I'd start posting some of them here.

There are no stupid questions, but...

Sometimes the questions that come in from our virtual reference service are amusing, but on days when the phone is ringing off the hook, people need help with using the computer or looking items up I just want a feature on the inbox that deletes certain questions or maybe a virtual hand to smack the senders into their senses.

Message: My history teacher brought up a person that was the only first guy that they cannot prove isn't a socerer. She said his name is Rass Putin. Do you happen to have any books referring to or about this person?

Message: It says there are 5 books lost. What are the 5 books?
Note: This user did not leave their name or library card number and the return email address bounced.

Message: Hi, I'm looking for any books that would help me with my topic for my science fair project. Also, is there any information on other studies that have been done by other scientists that would make good science fair projects? ~ Thanks! Reagan

Answer: To all of the above: Ahhhh!

The library goat

Because of the snowstorm (which I will not refer to as snowpocalypse, snowmageddon, or the snotorious B.I.G.) patron activity has been picking back up, but on Tuesday when our county made the poorly advised decision to stay open, very few members of the public were willing to step outside much less risk driving in the new storm that had already begun, leaving just us library staff chickens to look at each other and stare, knowing that we were only there because we lived within walking distance or didn't have enough leave to call in.
All day long I answered the phone ("You're open? Really? No Really?! Well, I'm just calling to say I won't be coming in today, but will you hold my copy of New Moon until Saturday?") and answered the chat and backlog of email from the weekend of when we were closed ("Why is the library closed today? I spent two hours digging my car out to drive over and return my late DVDs and you aren't even open!"). While I was talking and typing away I kept hearing this noise:
Be-uhhh! Bee-ah-ahh!
I would twist in the desk chair and try to look around for what sounded exactly like a goat in the library. While few people were actually in the library, we did have some of our regulars like Homeless-Poetry-Guy or Pretending-To-Job-Search-But-Really-On-Facebook-Guy, but none of them seemed like the culprit. But after it happened a few more times I began to wonder if Pen-Stealing-Grandma had smuggled a baby goat in her purse.
Bee-ahhh! Be-ah-ah-ahhh!
The sound was coming from right behind me and I realized it was coming from one of our regulars: Lady-Who-Hacks-The-Card-Catalog-So-She-Doesn't-Have-To-Wait-To-Use-The-Internet-Even-When-There-Are-Computers-Available! The sound was hacking lady hacking up phlegm and clearing her throat constantly in a way that sounded just like a goat bleating. This went on for three more hours. Not as much fun when the mystery is solved though.

"You're pretty cocky for someone whose job is obsolete thanks to the internet."

As much as I love my Parks and Recreation with its smart "dealing with the public" humor, I couldn't help but notice in this week's episode when they go to the library, the circ clerk swipes a supposed library card with a magnetic strip through one of the DVD unlocking/locking mechanisms -- which is not a card reader.



In fact, most library cards that I've encountered all use barcodes and not magnetic strips, and would need a barcode scanner (though my very first card, which I still have somewhere, was printed on cardstock and had a metal plate in it). In the closing credits, the show thanks LA County Public Library, since I assume they taped the library scene there instead of building a set, but none of the library staffers showed them how the desk equipment actually worked? Look at me being all nit-picky!

The library scene fun starts around 7:58: