There were actual people in the library today, when classes aren’t in session yet. I decided that they were all:
- dedicated grad students working on their dissertations
- random people using the internet
So, a Friday Refgrunt:
- I’m sorry the web catalog is down. But you can use this telnet version!
- No one has any questions. I have a long conversation with Librarian X about about the political aspects of library web page design. I look at one of her projects.
- I manage to locate an obscure Russian book on Worldcat with a garbled citation. The grad student looks so happy, and I e-mail him the WorldCat record so he can request it through InterLibrary loan.
- Where is your theater section? I can point you to where it is, but were you looking for anything in particular? Plays by Joe Orton? Ok, we have several of his plays, I can write some call numbers down for you, were you looking for a specific play or did you need some of his collected works? I need the play Funeral Games! I write down the call number and give her directions to the area of the building where she can find it.
- Library catalog seems to be back. The grad student is very happy.
- A girl needs to print things from a CD, all of the computer labs are closed, and our computers don’t have a cd-rom drive, so I let her sneak behind the desk to use my computer.
- Systems dude appears to tell me that the catalog is indeed up. I wish him a stress-free weekend.
- He needs to look at the MCAT book in the ready reference section.
- Joe Orton girl comes back and asks how she can apply for a library card. Yikes! I didn’t even think that she wasn’t a student here. I tell her that she could try requesting the book she needs via her library’s interlibrary loan service, but she can’t check out a book from us if she isn’t attending our school. She can come in and study, use the computers, read books, and photocopy books, but that’s about it.
- I look up a couple books for the industrious grad student, and tell him that he will have to recall them, as someone else has them checked out.
- She needs to use the three hole punch.
- Is the catalog up? It should be, let’s check. Yep, there you go!
- Librarian Y comes along and we discuss Librarian X’s elite web design skills
- Librarian Z comes along, time for me to leave the desk!