October 31, 2017

 I forgot to mention yesterday that my first hour at work was spent doing the yearly survey. Well, I wasn't doing the survey, I was trying to get people to take the survey. Rather than asking them to take the survey, I went with the tactic of just handing them the survey and then mentioning that they could bring it back whenever. I only had one refusal and several people brought the survey back before leaving the library.

This morning I woke up at 7:55AM, five minutes before my alarm. I wanted to play Wolfenstein 2 but first there was a game update. And then I had to update my video drivers. That doesn't sound very bad but it was a really long thirty minutes. But then I got to play the game. And it was difficult stopping for work.

When I got to work I once again spent my first hour handing out surveys. And once again I only had one refusal. Several people also told me the library was great as I handed them the survey. So that was pretty cool.

It started snowing tonight shortly after noon and continued for at least four hours, occasionally with some really big snowflakes. Thankfully none of it stuck to the ground. I'm not ready for dealing with snow yet.

While doing the survey thing the one-on-one tech lady stopped by and gave me a Kindle that she had in her office and wasn't using. When things slow down a little bit for me I can use it to pilot the idea I had for taking Kindles to homebound patrons. That's pretty cool.

After the survey I spent about an hour helping the teen librarian set up and organize the four new Spheros the youth services department got. We made sure they all connected to iPads and we labeled them, and organized the drawer they are going to be kept in. I'll also be able to use them next week for my workshop, which will be nice because for the last one I had to use my phone because our iPad is old and the new Spheros won't connect to it. It will be nice not having to hand my phone over to strangers.

I then went up to the cubicle for an hour and a half. I used that time to catch up on email and staff blog posts and eventually got around to working on my presentation. The other librarian that was involved with the incident yesterday with the kid getting kicked ended up writing the report for it this morning, so I didn't have to worry about that. She had our perspective, the perspective of the tech center staff who were there when things started heating up, and one of our pages, who was coming into work at the time and took a picture of the two gentleman as they were walking away from the library. The next time the patron, who has had so many incidents recently, is in the building we are supposed to call the police and when they arrive we're supposed to go over with them and give the patron a letter letting him know that he is banned for a year from the library. In a year he will be able to write a letter stating why he should be allowed back in the library.

And on the subject, there is one of the siblings that we have been dealing with since the summer that has also been acting up a lot recently. He got asked to leave on Friday after I told him to stop rough-housing with his friend near the computers and throwing stuff, and on Monday he pretty much blew off and was disrespectful to two other librarians when they asked him to stop rough-housing. So we also have a letter to give him saying that he is banned for a week. My boss called the person he is staying with to let her know and there is a chance she told him and he'll just stay away for a week. Fingers crossed for that. It's a shame that these people who really need the library as a place to go can't meet the very low bar we set for our patrons. We just want them to be respectful of the space, the staff, and their fellow patrons, but that is too much to ask of some people.

I spent the evening continuing to work on my presentation and occasionally getting sidetracked by reading articles about fake news. It was a really quiet evening, most likely due to Halloween. I'm just glad it didn't bring out the crazies, because that's always a possibility.

When I got home I ate some cold spaghetti because a four o'clock dinner doesn't always get me to the end of the day. I then clicked around the internet, watched videos, and did a little more Halloween goodie bag farming in Terraria before the event ends. I've got forty-five unopened bags at the moment and I'm hoping I'll get at least one new costume out of them. If not, there's always next year.

My tweed cover for my new planner arrived today and my initial reaction is that I like it. The color is good and overall it is what I was expecting. Now I need to get in the habit of using the planner. It technically doesn't start until next year but I already know a lot of things that are scheduled for next semester so I can start filling things in while they're still fresh in my mind.

It's now midnight and I need to get this show in the road because I haven't gotten a full night of sleep since Saturday. And that trend will continue, unfortunately.