Once upon a time, in a public library
Today you’ll hear the story of a little librarian, working in a magic place called The Public Library. This is truly a wonderland, not only in winter but all year round (being in Scotland, I will keep my mouth shut about the weather).
In The Public Library, you can find fantastic things: from advice to zoology, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to 20,000 leagues under the Sea, you wouldn’t even imagine what you can find here! Or maybe yes, you could imagine and even see it with your eyes. The Public Library, where the little librarian works, is in a beautiful building in a place not that far away. There are free books and Internet, there is an amazing archive, with Special Collections, a Reference Section and everything you could desire on the local history!
But The Public Library is also a place where you can meet other people because there is something to suit all tastes: board games sessions, book clubs (in mine, we have four), knitting and sewing clubs, IT classes, and these are all for free!
I know, it does sound like it is a fantastic place that doesn’t exist...but I’m telling you: it’s here!
The Public Library opens every day at 9:15 am (except for Fridays – 10 am), but I have to be at the reception desk by 9 am, to turn on the staff PCs and log onto our Library Management System. I then go through what it needs to be done with the Team Leader and the Librarian and we allocate the daily tasks: from monitoring books’ reservations, to stock rotation list and checking the diary for room bookings.
Only 15 minutes to do everything: it’s already 9:15am and we open the library to the public.
Everyday, we welcome our “regulars”, patrons who come to borrow books, and the ones who come to have a bit of time at a PC.
During the day, we take the time to tidy the shelves. In our branch, fiction books are sorted in sub-sections (Crime/Thriller, General Fiction, Science Fiction/Paranormal, Historical, Scottish Fiction), then by author, in rigorous alphabetical order, while for non-fiction we use the “good old” Dewey system. You would think that being able to read books would automatically mean that there is a knowledge of alphabetical order and maybe include a bonus of numeracy skills. Well, apparently this is something we take for granted. A book whose author’s surname starts with D can be lost among those whose authors’ surname starts with K, or a book from the C/THR section can be found in the General Fiction, or in Historical section. Crazy! And let’s not talk about all those numbers with which Dewey decided to catalogue all the knowledge available… I’ll just tell you this: the latest was a 920 book, meaning a biography, AKA non-fiction: there was a reservation on it, so my colleagues and I have checked the shelves for this book, but no one could find it. 4 members of staff, have been looking for this book over 3 days with no luck, so I mark it as missing. But then, the day after, I go to look for another book in the paperback General Fiction section...and there it is: The Missing Book! How?! Have no idea, but now it has been happily allocated to the requester and, since it will be back soon, I will make sure that it is put among other 920s, where it belongs.
Well, it’s good that I am a stickler for these things and I get some “Marie-Kondo-Esque” pleasure in tidying all this mess.
And after this digression, let’s keep going with this (extra)ordinary day at The Public Library.
The library email needs to be checked: not only for communications with the other branches, but because almost on a daily basis there are reference requests from patrons on a number of topics: from how to join the library, to checking books in the catalogue, and so forth. Here some examples:
Q1:“Why it says that such book is available, but I cannot reserve it?”
A: “It’s a reference-only book”.
Q2: “I ordered a book 2 months ago and still haven’t heard anything! Outrageous!”
A: “There is only one copy available and 3 other reservations before you”.
And the usual requests on PC and printing services, and many more.
As I have said earlier, borrowing books and use of the public PCs are the services most used, so every day there is someone asking to get access to one of the public PCs: they give you their library card and you give them the details to get into the PC. Well, almost every day there is someone who comes back at the desk saying that they cannot find the Internet or cannot enter their email address or cannot access their social media accounts. Information literacy, but not only.
Some of these patrons have problems when going to a public PC because they have learned how to use a phone, or a tablet (with Android) and they have to face a different OS, which is Windows. Or they are quite comfortable with Windows, but not with the version we have in the library, hence when looking for Internet Explorer at first glance they can only find ... Edge? What is that???
One of the worst scenarios is when they need to get into their email account and don’t know the password because on their other devices all the passwords are stored automatically, so why remember them?
But in the magical world of The Public Library, you don’t have to worry because we are coming to the rescue: either you have the chance to attend the IT classes (obviously for free) or you can ask for support from the knowledgeable fairy-Library-Assistants.
So you sit with the patron and try to explain the basics of Windows. And believe me that it doesn’t matter the age: I have 70-80 year old patrons using the public PCs with no problem, and 20-30 year old patrons that have hardly ever used a mouse before.
Surely though, is nice when that same patron is coming back, managing to get into Edge and, then, their email address without any extra help. Very satisfactory.
It is 5pm now, and The Public Library is going to close its big, magic doors to the public. Honestly, I don’t know what happens after this time, but I have the feeling that fantastic things keep happening.
In The Public Library, you can find fantastic things: from advice to zoology, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to 20,000 leagues under the Sea, you wouldn’t even imagine what you can find here! Or maybe yes, you could imagine and even see it with your eyes. The Public Library, where the little librarian works, is in a beautiful building in a place not that far away. There are free books and Internet, there is an amazing archive, with Special Collections, a Reference Section and everything you could desire on the local history!
But The Public Library is also a place where you can meet other people because there is something to suit all tastes: board games sessions, book clubs (in mine, we have four), knitting and sewing clubs, IT classes, and these are all for free!
I know, it does sound like it is a fantastic place that doesn’t exist...but I’m telling you: it’s here!
The Public Library opens every day at 9:15 am (except for Fridays – 10 am), but I have to be at the reception desk by 9 am, to turn on the staff PCs and log onto our Library Management System. I then go through what it needs to be done with the Team Leader and the Librarian and we allocate the daily tasks: from monitoring books’ reservations, to stock rotation list and checking the diary for room bookings.
Only 15 minutes to do everything: it’s already 9:15am and we open the library to the public.
Everyday, we welcome our “regulars”, patrons who come to borrow books, and the ones who come to have a bit of time at a PC.
During the day, we take the time to tidy the shelves. In our branch, fiction books are sorted in sub-sections (Crime/Thriller, General Fiction, Science Fiction/Paranormal, Historical, Scottish Fiction), then by author, in rigorous alphabetical order, while for non-fiction we use the “good old” Dewey system. You would think that being able to read books would automatically mean that there is a knowledge of alphabetical order and maybe include a bonus of numeracy skills. Well, apparently this is something we take for granted. A book whose author’s surname starts with D can be lost among those whose authors’ surname starts with K, or a book from the C/THR section can be found in the General Fiction, or in Historical section. Crazy! And let’s not talk about all those numbers with which Dewey decided to catalogue all the knowledge available… I’ll just tell you this: the latest was a 920 book, meaning a biography, AKA non-fiction: there was a reservation on it, so my colleagues and I have checked the shelves for this book, but no one could find it. 4 members of staff, have been looking for this book over 3 days with no luck, so I mark it as missing. But then, the day after, I go to look for another book in the paperback General Fiction section...and there it is: The Missing Book! How?! Have no idea, but now it has been happily allocated to the requester and, since it will be back soon, I will make sure that it is put among other 920s, where it belongs.
Well, it’s good that I am a stickler for these things and I get some “Marie-Kondo-Esque” pleasure in tidying all this mess.
And after this digression, let’s keep going with this (extra)ordinary day at The Public Library.
The library email needs to be checked: not only for communications with the other branches, but because almost on a daily basis there are reference requests from patrons on a number of topics: from how to join the library, to checking books in the catalogue, and so forth. Here some examples:
Q1:“Why it says that such book is available, but I cannot reserve it?”
A: “It’s a reference-only book”.
Q2: “I ordered a book 2 months ago and still haven’t heard anything! Outrageous!”
A: “There is only one copy available and 3 other reservations before you”.
And the usual requests on PC and printing services, and many more.
As I have said earlier, borrowing books and use of the public PCs are the services most used, so every day there is someone asking to get access to one of the public PCs: they give you their library card and you give them the details to get into the PC. Well, almost every day there is someone who comes back at the desk saying that they cannot find the Internet or cannot enter their email address or cannot access their social media accounts. Information literacy, but not only.
Some of these patrons have problems when going to a public PC because they have learned how to use a phone, or a tablet (with Android) and they have to face a different OS, which is Windows. Or they are quite comfortable with Windows, but not with the version we have in the library, hence when looking for Internet Explorer at first glance they can only find ... Edge? What is that???
One of the worst scenarios is when they need to get into their email account and don’t know the password because on their other devices all the passwords are stored automatically, so why remember them?
But in the magical world of The Public Library, you don’t have to worry because we are coming to the rescue: either you have the chance to attend the IT classes (obviously for free) or you can ask for support from the knowledgeable fairy-Library-Assistants.
So you sit with the patron and try to explain the basics of Windows. And believe me that it doesn’t matter the age: I have 70-80 year old patrons using the public PCs with no problem, and 20-30 year old patrons that have hardly ever used a mouse before.
Surely though, is nice when that same patron is coming back, managing to get into Edge and, then, their email address without any extra help. Very satisfactory.
It is 5pm now, and The Public Library is going to close its big, magic doors to the public. Honestly, I don’t know what happens after this time, but I have the feeling that fantastic things keep happening.
Comments
Post a Comment