Slow week in my liberry world

Sorry readers....nothing new to report.

OOooo la la

Professionalism requires that I not flinch, laugh, make a face or otherwise blink in response to a liberry patron's requests. Today a man called and asked for a wide variety of books: "Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens" (yawn); "Best American Erotica 2004" (me wonders why that year out of any year he could have picked?); "How wars end : why we always fight the last battle" (I shrug, no biggie); "Orgasmic: Erotica for women" (and he sounds rather old on the phone. I wonder what he's up to?); and last but not least "The happy hooker's guide to mind-blowing sex : 69 orgasmic ways to pleasure a woman"....Oooola la....

Ring ring ring

My liberry does not have an official use of cell phone policy within the liberry. I ask people if they need a private place for their phone call that I would provide one...outside usually. Sometimes they say they don't need a private place so then I say, your call is disturbing people around you, please take your call outside. Well yesterday, this man's cell phone kept ringing and ringing. Every time he answered it he'd say "Hello? Hello? Hello?" then he'd hang up. Seconds later the phone would ring again! And he'd say "Hello? Hello?" and each time he said Hello louder than the last. After the 4th or 5th time of this (I kept thinking he would figure out that maybe, just maybe he should turn the phone off. But nooooooooooooo) I walk up to him and say, "Sir, please turn your phone off, or turn it on vibrate." He starts yelling at me..."I don't know who it is that keeps calling!" I say, "I don't want to know who is calling, I want you to turn your phone off so it will stop ringing." He says, "I wait and wait at home for someone to call and the phone never rings, when I get to the liberry, the damn phone won't stop ringing." "That is precisely why I want you to turn off your phone!" Sheesh! I don't know what he did, but it didn't ring anymore after that.

Testing, testing...Passed!

I think that the man was testing us to see if we bought the books he thought we should have. I don't really think he wanted them at all. He asked if we had "Deconstructing Obama". We own several copies, all checked out, with 6 peeps on the waitlist. Did he want to put his name on the reserve list? No. Then he asked for a new book that is coming out soon, "Where's the Birth Certificate"? hmmmmmm, me thinks, I think I know where this is going..... We had several copies on order, with a waitlist on it already, 4 or 5. Did he want to put his name on the waitlist? No.... I wonder if we passed his little test?

Kindle and liberry books!!! Finally!

Wow. This is very good news! When our liberry customers ask about which e-reader device they should get that is compatible with our liberry e-books, I always told them NOT to get Kindle. But now, just in time for those Xmas gifts....very smart business decision, I'd say...

What were you thinking?

Do you think you can always get what you want when you want it? A lady came in asking for a copy of "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese. Even though it was published in 2009, it remains extremely popular, and currently our 94 copies has 200 people on the reserve list. "When do you need this book?" "I need it next week for my book club." Oh geez.... fat chance!

Tax form headaches

Lady patron: I need a tax form.

Liberrian: Which one?

Lady patron: I don't know, just give me the tax forms.

Liberrian: Sorry, I am not a Tax professional. If you know which form you need, I can help you find it.

Lady patron: I'm not sure, I think I need WD1040.

The Liberrian showed her where the reproducible tax forms were. She looked at the notebook, made a call on her cell phone, then she left without any tax form at all.

Who knew?

A liberry patron went to a local bookstore to get a copy of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin, an autographed copy. The bookstore didn't have any, but they suggested that he look on the web to locate a copy. Who knew that the bookstore wasn't allowed to look that up for him? That's what the patron told me. So we, me and the patron, found copies of signed copies of Going Rogue that would cost from $100 to $500 per copy!! *faint* He had no idea her signed book would cost that much, and neither did I. I got him the mailing address for Sarah, he's going to write her and ask her for a copy. He was happy with that and he said "You do good work, inspite of what your mother told you." Now why'd he have to bring my mother into this conversation?

Later on in the day, a man wanted a listing of used bookstores in two neighboring communities. So I printed the list of bookstores, came out to 4 pages, which I didn't even charge him for. OMG when I went downstairs to the checkout desk, my colleague said that the man was "ecstatic", "overjoyed", "just beside himself", and "downright giddy" over getting those print outs. Who would have thunk a liberrian could make people so happy?