Patron stories: Laying down the law

A Wisconsin woman was arrested for failing to pay her library fines. Apparently her fines amounted to about thirty dollars, but she ended up having to pay for bail in addition.

Thirty dollars? We have some patrons who owe us more than $100! We need some of those Wisconsin cops to show Connecticut cops how it's done.

Ex libris,

Marissa

Teens and tweens

I was shelving over in the teen library today and I was overwhelmed by all the materials available. When I was growing up (which wasn't too long ago but things change so quickly) there was not really a genre for teenagers. There was Judy Blume and that was about it. Now there is so much available for so many reading levels and interests. I like to think that adults and their older kids are reading together and some dialogue is happening, because a lot of adults seem to like the young adult genre.

I sort of skipped from younger books to adult mysteries. I remember picking up a Mary Higgins Clark book in the sixth grade. Once high school rolled around, I was in honors and AP English, so I read the books for those classes, and in college I read just about every genre of literature for my English major. I wish there had been the teen/young adult genre when I was younger. I am reading these books now in order to make up for lost time, I suppose! I read The Book Thief last winter and it was so excellent. Another good one was Life as We Knew It. Teenagers now seem so much more worldly than they were ten years ago, and literature has adapted to them. It sounds old-ladyish to say it, but I hope they appreciate all the materials available now. It will be interesting to see how things change in the next ten years.

Ex libris,

Marissa

Blogging librarians

As I troll around the interwebs, I keep finding more and more blogging librarians. I love it! My blog list keeps getting added to. I love to hear other people's patron stories and other ridiculousness. I think working in a library still has this quaint image, but man, it isn't true. It is a busy, hard, noisy job. That is why everyone blogs...because if we didn't, we'd kill the patrons and maybe each other. (I still want to get a blow gun with poison darts to take people out.)

If the patrons only knew, right?
We judge you by the books you read.
We have heard every story about why your books are late.
We know you took the book to the beach because it is full of sand.
We know you let your kids use our DVDs as coasters because they are sticky with apple juice.

We talk about you behind your backs.

And we blog about you, too!

Bwahaha.

Ex libris,

Marissa

Librarian - My Morning Jacket

I first heard of My Morning Jacket when I picked up one of those free iTunes download cards at Starbucks a few weeks ago. The song was "I'm Amazed" and I liked it. I thought, "Good choice, Starbucks." I always pick up the free download cards but this was the first one I'd actually downloaded, so I was happy that it was a good one.

Then last night, I was searching around for a pair of librarian glasses. I was several pages into the Google results when I saw the result for My Morning Jacket's song "Librarian." I thought, "Aren't those the free iTunes download guys? They have a song about librarians?" So I read through the lyrics and I downloaded the song and let me just say...wow. It is such a resonant, beautiful song. I fell in love. Take a look or a listen and discover it for yourself. I won't go into deep song analysis because I think you should hear it yourself first, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Now I have to check out the rest of their tunes. Good job, My Morning Jacket! Bravo! (And aren't they lookers, as well?)

Ex libris,

Marissa

Book explosion!

I got to work today and WHOA! The carts were overflowing. I freaked out a little bit because this is the fullest they've been since I became shelving supervisor in June. Everything will eventually get shelved, but it is a big mess right now. I put out an APB for all my shelvers to come in and help if they can. Everyone is returning from vacation and dropping their books off, and summer reading is winding down also. The children's carts are the worst because people take out tons of books at a time.

In other shelving news, one of our shelvers resigned on Saturday, so we're down a pair of hands. However, we'll be hiring two new shelvers for the fall, so that is great.

It ebbs and flows.

Ex libris,

Marissa