More on that

So yesterday's events were fun--especially having to repeat the whole series of instructions to the same woman so she could set up her own email address after having been so nice to help this man set up his.

Her: I think I've done something wrong.

Me: (looking at page that says, Error) Yes, you have.

Her: So what I do?

Me: Go to yahoo.com

Her: (Types www.com) like that?

Me: No ma'am, yahoo.com (looks at her sheet of paper where she has already written instructions). It's just like you have on your sheet.

Her: Oh.

My boss described it as a scene from 50 First Dates. The woman was especially proud when she saved her website on a disk.

Smart Rocks

I have met rocks smarter than many of the people I deal with at the library. Today's story is a tale of the ever popular Yahoo! Mail. I can't think of an easier way to set up email than Yahoo!, Gmail, or Hotmail. There is no money involved and the boxes are to be filled out with information that only the user knows. My boss has already shown this particular man how to set up an account. Unfortunately his time on the computer ran out and he needed some help because he didn't know a thing about email addresses. I explain that they must leave the library's home page and go to www.yahoo.com. They type the address with all sorts of random capitalizations. (Www.YAHOO>Com) I'm sure when their time is up in about 10 minutes I'll be called back to help them because the computer kicked them out.

The beauty of all of this is, they will never be able to check their email and will the claim that Yahoo! or Google deleted his account. Always Google's fault.

Bathing should be required

As I type this I am being attacked by one of the worst smells ever to enter a human nose. It is a patron with horrible hygiene. At least he has cut his hair since the last time he was in here. It was very long and greasy looking (trust me I'm not touching!). Today he is wearing a t-shirt that does not cover his belly. It's truly disgusting and I don't think he has bathed in a week or so.

To make matters worse, he is talking to another patron who loves to hang out here because we have air conditioning. We have a lot of them. What can you expect in the middle of a record breaking heat in a record breaking drought? The second patron doesn't smell too bad (that I can tell but I'm not going around to sniff him either) and he generally does take a bath before coming in (I think).

It's going to be a long week and it's only Monday.

Our old friend the Internet

I might be addicted to the internet. I check my email many times a day. I have a virtual pet that I log on enough to collect points and food for each day. I don't subscribe to a paper because it takes me too long to read the articles I want to when I can browse the entire paper in an instant online. I'm more likely to email you than I am to call you.

That said, I must confess I am also sick of the people who think their children are geniuses because they can navigate various networking sites and the schools must be wrong for not passing them to the next grade. You child is not a genius and must learn how to correctly add and subtract. I am sorry. I also don't think it is a priority for you or your child to check your networking account to see how many people think you are hot.

One parent came in and told us that the school had given out a list of codes that kids are using (ie...P911 meaning parents are coming). These websites are not evil. Evil people use them and try to hurt kids (which is one reason some of them are blocked at the libraries and schools). I think it is wrong to sue these companies because it is not their job to protect your child. If your child is using these codes you do need to be aware of it and what they mean.

Rules for using networking sites....

**Do the math...If you are going to say you are 18, don't post that your birthday is in 1986 or 1991. Anyone with a brain can figure out that you are either lying about your age or birthdate. In the case of one person I know, she lied about both and then posted her real age in her blog.

**Don't post your phone number. You are smart enough to use the internet, be smart and don't give out your real information.

**The more items (songs, pictures, etc...) you post on your site, the longer it will take to load your page. Hitting refresh 8 times will not make it load any faster. The computer has not frozen it just needs time to process all of the information it's trying to load.

Some Rules for Parents
**If you are worried about what your child is looking up, don't let them have a computer in a place where you cannot see it.

**You are the parent. Set rules, place filters, etc... on your computer so you kids can't access the websites you don't want them to see.

**If you are worried about what they are seeing at the library, come in with them and sit back there with them. It is YOUR JOB to protect YOUR kids. Not all parents feel the same about what children should be allowed to view so you need to be responsible for you children no matter where they are.

Baby-Sitter's Club (NOT!)

I'm not a babysitter. Please don't ask me to to watch your children. I love kids. I love to watch them play (and play with them) but I'm not paid enough to be a babysitter. I am not responsible for your children when they are in the library. I don't know you, your auntie, or your "baby daddy" so I don't know who your child is going with. I don't want to be sued because you don't want to be bothered with keeping up with your kids.

Some guidelines for parents:

**Keep your children with you. If you don't want the hassle of having them with you while you work on the computer then you need to hire a babysitter to take care of them while you are away.

**If they are loud take them outside and have a discussion with them. Please do this outside--we don't like hearing you yell inside.

**If you should decide to allow your children to roam the library unattended please do not expect us to keep an eye on them. We have jobs other than watching your sweet angels.

**Clean up after your child. We have toys here so they won't destroy our books and they can learn through playing. However, we don't enjoy finding them in the adult department or under the computers.

Finally, we aren't out to "get" your child or keep them from reading. We love them and very much encourage reading with children. However, if you are getting your child a library card, please don't run up huge late fees on them and then not pay them. You are not doing a service to your child. Own up and pay the fine. Your children can then read and not have to go through the embarrassment of having a huge fine when they didn't even know that they had a card because you got it for them when they were two.

The "Sorry" Library

We are now the "sorry" library. I may start answering the phone, "Sorry Ghetto Library, How may I not help you?".

I must begin by saying that our sign up sheets for the computer say in large letters "30 MINUTES ONCE A DAY." Since we ask patrons to sign in to use the computer and I specifically told this one where the sign in sheet was one would think that she might have read it.

She asked to get an email address. I directed her to a place to get a free email address and helped her in filling out the form. I then tried to help her recover her resume from a warped disc with no luck. When her time ran out I logged her back into the computer and showed her how to pull up her document. All of this and when her time comes close to running out she is mad because we have people waiting for the computer and I cannot log her back on. I patiently showed her how to send herself an email with the resume so she wouldn't have to retype it.

Yep, we are a sorry library. I was told that no other library in our system has this problem and she has been to others. If she had known we were this sorry she would have left a long time ago. I wish I had told her we were so sorry to save us both the aggrivation.

They're, like, real people!

Well, more proof that larger libraries have no idea how we smaller libraries have to opperate. We got an email forwarded to us from the "head" of our cooperative about library/teenage relations. Apparently we are supposed to be sweet and funny to obnoxious kids so that they don't get their precious feelings hurt. And we must treat them like real people. She feels they are simply wonderful, yet misunderstood and underserved, people. I have placed this email in a special file called, "Proof that Administration Does Not Deal With the Public Often." She basically tells us that teens are patrons just like everyone else yet we must speak their language. In my experience this means poor grammar, closed mouths, and run together words. (example..."y' lume on 'puer?" This is translated, "You log me on computer?" What happened to the other words????)

I have to wonder how often the author of this email has had to deal with being cussed out by teenage boys. From her library's website they obviously have more computers than we do so I doubt that they have as many problems with kids fighting over the internet. I love teenagers (for the most part). I don't mind working with them but I do mind working with anyone who is rude and tries to act big and bad and as if rules do not apply to them. Remember, I work in the "ghetto." I know where she works and it's not the ghetto.

I do believe this puts me at an awkward spot...as a Christian I should be reaching out to the world. I want to reach out to these kids. I want to befriend them. I want to share Jesus with them. I want them to do better for themselves than what most of their parents have done. However, I also fight the flesh. My flesh wants to yell and scream at them and kick them out. What is the boundary between showing love and being a doormat? You act nice to them and they walk all over you. Half the time I want to ask the police department to come and do fingerprinting during summer reading so that they will have the kids' prints on file for the future.

Not all teenagers are horrible. I have several in here at this moment who are getting books for the last minute summer reading that they have put off but they seem to be good kids. My co-worker is in high school and she is great. Teenagers like them are easy to get along with. The others.....I can't wait for school to start back when we will only have to deal with kids for about 2 hours a day.

Oh, when reading the email, FrogN removed herself completely from the teenage class...something most of us have already done.

Spilling Cownts

Contrary to popular belief the computer does not know what you are thinking. This is one reason you need to know a little bit about the computer before you log on. Another thing to remember in a small town library: we are not computer experts either. Nor is our job to type your resume, check your email, feed your Neopet, or help you find a date.

Somethings to remember:

**Google.com will not work if you do not spell the URL (or web thingy) correctly.

**www.yahoo does not pull up anything. You must remember the .com when typing a web address.

**It takes time to load pictures on the computer. If you are on a site (such as myspace) every comment, picture, song, etc...that is on a page is going to try to load. Be patient

**Just because it is a company or brand name does not mean that slapping .com at the end of it is the website of a company (and if it is it still might not be the intended website).

Last week my co-worker FrogN was entertained by women of extreme intelligence who did not believe in putting the whole web address in the address bar. I was later allowed to assist in the search as to why they couldn't get into their email. Apparently yahoo! or g-mail must have cancelled their accounts because the password was right because she wrote it down on something one day. They also tried searching the library catalog for their email addresses.

FrogN likes to address all computer questions to me if she can't answer them. I think she gets great delight in seeing me try to explain to people that know nothing about the computer how things work (or don't work).

Life does exist off of computers. The library is a place for research and, yes, we do like to have fun and surf the net but it is a lot more important for a child to research the history of the penny or an adult to type a resume than it is for anyone to pick up a date on a social network or stress about what Suzy's comment to Bill meant and why Jane didn't add me as a friend.

Required Reading (read this or else!)

I think summer is a great time to read. As a library assistant I think any time is a good time for reading (and IHOP) but that is beside the point. Anyway, this year the local middle school has assigned books for the students to read over the summer. The list was sent home at the end of May. Parents have been coming in with crying children because they have to read over the summer and it's sooo unfair. I would like to step back and make a critical comment on the schools for a moment. We received a copy of one list from a student. I called all of the schools to see if there were any more reading lists. No one answered. Finally other students from the school brought in their lists. TEACHERS: OUR LIVES (YOURS, OURS, AND YOUR STUDENTS) WOULD BE A LOT EASIER IF YOU WOULD EMAIL US OR CALL US BEFORE YOU START THESE PROJECTS! Luckily with having three months for us to order books we have been able to borrow other copies from other libraries. During the school year it's a lot easier for everyone if the kids don't have to go from library to library searching for materials for a project that is due in two days. By the way, it's always good to check and see that the books on the list are still in print or are available from the library. If you can't get them we probably can't either.

Back to the procrastinating parents...excuses will be made for the kids I'm sure. I've already heard how one kid was too busy visiting family to read. Funny too because my parents shipped us off to the grandparents' house and sent books to read so we wouldn't get bored. Many parents don't have a problem with the having to read a book over the summer, but they think they should just get to pick a book. I can't say that I agree with them though. Can we really consider Captain Underpants to be the quality literature that Number the Stars is? I think Captain Underpants has his place. Anything that gets kids reading is pretty good and I grew up on a steady diet of Baby-Sitters Club but I just can't say that I would place it with some of these other books on the list. Then comes the problem of an 8th grader wanting to read Froggy Goes to School because the list said he could read anything he wanted to. So stick with the list. It's easier. If you have a problem with the list call the school not me. I didn't choose the books.

So now here it is one week before school starts back. Parents, students, everyone in a frenzy because they have waited until the last possible moment for kids to have read five books. Bravo to the students who started when they got the list. Your teachers will be able to tell that you have put a lot more work into your projects than the kid next to you who still hasn't finished reading the books and is trying to fake it. Can I blame the kids? Not as much as I blame the adults. You are the parents. You set the rules. If you think they need to be reading before August 1 then you need to get them started on it and set a good example. If they won't then don't make excuses for them. That isn't going to help them in "the real world."

Reading in the library...what a novel concept.

Today our computers have already gone down and will probably be down most of the day. This is noteworthy because it is interesting to observe how few people actually read in the library. We have a sign on all three doors leading into the library and still people tell us they need to get on the computer. Journey back with me through the archives of my mind.....

Picture it... tax time (January thru April)...We have NO TAX FORMS plastered all over the library...one on each door....one on the display case...and one on our circulation desk. One day a man came in and looked at each sign and asked, "Do you have tax forms?". Not to be outdone another woman came in and looked at the signs which had the / and a circle over them (as in no smoking) and said that she thought it meant that we did have them. I guess she thought it was a double negative meaning that we do have them.

I have been in the library when it is closed and there have been signs up saying that we are closed. It's amazing to me how many people pull on the door anyway. What I want to know is what they would do if the door opened and no one was here.