Another exciting week at our branch. Your friendly neighborhood Bookstamper was going to be administratively transferred to the ghetto branch--which meant that it was time to finally (after a year and a half) to pack up my balls and leave. You see, we're finally getting a new clerk. A woman. Another middle-aged woman. In a bizarre kind of departmental trade-off...get one new full-time clerk and sacrifice a half-time one. In the end however, after a couple days of wrangling/bitching by the Branch Manager (previously known as the Senior Librarian), I got to stay...small mercies. Ironically, I was actually excited about quitting. Time do something with those two degrees I reckoned...alas it wasn't meant to be. Soon.
You know there is a kind of reverse sex discrimination in the library department. While I don't know the exact numbers, the ratio of women to men in the department has to be pretty unbalanced. Take our situation, we've got 13 Women to 1.5 Men (okay, 2...I kid). 13:2. I don't think its much different at any other branch in the city. Two explanations--one, men do not wish to work for the library department. Two, men aren't hired to work in the library department.
Some history--as I understand it...the reason why more women traditionally became librarians had to do with the fact that it was much more difficult for educated women to be hired as lecturers and professors and therefore were offered nice quiet jobs sorting/filing/stamping books...seems like they are getting their revenge. But there is another way to look at this...if there is a problem with your local library--blame women ;)
Incident Report. Was a sad day today, and not just because I worked 7 hours on the circulation desk...friendly (elderly) regular library patron Frank, whom I help/teach to use the computer, had his beautiful new 17" Sony Vaio stolen from the teen room while he helped sharpen pencils at the reference desk. We were all shocked. I let him use my wireless mouse today since the expensive Logitech he bought came incomplete. He watched a classic Bogart film on his new headphones. We even put up a Craigslist ad so he could sell the brand new Winnebago he just purchased! I still can't believe someone swiped it. It was toward the end of the day, around 715pm. The suspects/culprits--two young men, whom I didn't see enter or leave the building. They even took the power A/C adapter. Spared his laptop case/wireless mouse. Poor Frank, he even brought me a bag Trader Joes extra large fancy salted cashews today because he knows I like them. I pray those punks find Jesus. Shame. Shame! No real recourse--tried to file a police report...
Complaint Forms. After attending our basic computer class one morning last week (before we opened to the public), a middle-aged woman, after perusing the stacks, came across a book entitled The Customized Body, a full sized photography book featuring graphic/explicit images of mutilated, pierced, tattooed "freaks". She opened up the book to a particularly graphic image featuring two naked men with several piercings on their...you know...petermans, and said, "Do you think this should be on the shelf where any child can get it?" I said...um...um...let me see that picture again! Seriously though, I had no answer for her. She left the standard CITY OF LOS ANGELES LIBRARY DEPARTMENT CITIZEN'S COMPLAINT FORM inside the book, but didn't bother to fill it out. I think she just wanted me to see it. Which didn't bother me as much as she probably hoped it would. So who decides what books end up on the shelves? The answer of course is...I won't tell you, it's a secret. There are tons of books at our library which I personally find offensive...like those damn Jenny McCarthy self-help books! Prose before Hos!
Notable Patron Quotes of the Week.
"If my library card expired, why didn't they mail me a new one?!"
"I didn't bring the movie back on time because it was broken! I didn't even watch it!"
"The Library was closed on that Mexicans holiday"
"I'm on reserve"
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