h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The silence that has fallen in the Guildhall is quite commendable

It won't last for long though, the builders are coming in next week.

Our till decided to make continuous beeping sounds last week. It drove us quite potty, so it got locked in a cupboard for a few days.

Now the lights have gone out in our "media resources" room, meaning people are squinting at the videos and CDs.

And I lost my marbles a couple of weeks ago and can't find them. I suspect a student has hidden them somewhere amongst the radiography books...

Someone's photocopy card got jammed in the feeder and it started beeping and wouldn't stop and I had to take it apart with the paper knife. Some clever **** had jammed chewing gum in it. I couldn't get the gum off. We had to turn it off altogether and then I had to put up with the eternal queues of students who all wanted to say 'Why can't I use the middle photocopier?' Answer, there's a socking great sign on it saying it is broken. Guess why you can't use it.

Speaking of ding bats, the best one this week was the earnest young woman who came up to me to apologize for not rewinding the film she was about to return. She hoped it wasn't broken or anything but she couldn't work out how to do it. Then she handed me a DVD.

Brilliant!!!

I've had a bad week with our laminator. I've taken it apart five times so far, and now it's stated making strange noises when ever it's used.

The DVD...

How do these people get into higher education libraries? Maybe we should install "thick" detectors, which bleep when a person of frighteningly low intellect walks in, along the lines of metal detectors but more useful?

The laminator - is it creaking noises like an old tree in the wind? Our one has been doing that for years...

David

Partly that kind of noise, but we also get a high pitched whine, a deeper rumble and the odd loud clunk.

I'd edge away from it, then !

Hi guys. I'm alive and well and bored to death in Middle America.

Loved the DVD story. That's priceless.

Hello
the DVD story is fine.
Sued

It's oh, so quiet...

Well, sometimes. We're in the midst of exams here, and it's most odd. Some days this week you could literally hear a pin drop in the library (we tested the theory with a drawing pin and we could!) while today, people will NOT shut up and allow their fellow students to study, no matter how many times you ask them.

I have to wonder whether the noisy ones are evil or if they've finished their exams. We have places in the library where they CAN talk, so it's most frustrating when the silent areas are anything but.

I sympathise. We have a quiet study area in one of our branches. A lady however, had decided to sit in the Young Adult area to study. She complained that the kids in there were too noisy. (I don't think they were actually, they were just studying.) We pointed out the quiet study area to her, but it wasn't good enough, she had to rant and rave anyway.
Why choose the kids area to study in the first place? Silly woman.

Talking about stupid people. The other day one of our staff put the override card in the copy machine (it takes cards not coins) and set it to do a hundred or so copies. She then walked away while the machine did it's thing. A borrower comes up to use the photocopier. It is still producing copies at this stage, by the way. She jams her card in over the top of our card, then can't work out why the machine has gone beserk! She then grabs another staff member, who has to try and figure out what's wrong, and the silly borrower didn't even tell her she'd put her card in the machine.

Oh, dear...

Amazing. Do you suppose the general public is as totally wacked as library users, or do we just attract them somehow? Wouldn't you think that library users would be ~more~ intelligent than the general public? Scary isn't it?

I've contemplated that exact question many times, and still haven't come up with an answer.

I try not to think about it, otherwise I'd probably

David

"Do you have any books?"





It's dead in here atm and it will stay like this until September. The few students that are still here and not off on placement are frantically working and have decided to call a truce on winding the library staff (aka me - I am the entire staff) up.

At least the builders have finished.

I hate it when it's dead. I have to bustle about and try to find things to do. Boondoggling I call it. Attempting to look busy while I'm really not.

Fortunately in a Public Library, it doesn't happen often.

I could use a little peace and quiet for a change. What ever happened to quiet libraries?

You know when I think things started going to pot in the library world? I'll tell yhou anyway. It was when we started having computers with free public internet access. Before that my patrone would come in, get their books and leave. Now I have people who come in and stay for hours.

Why is it that the length of time a person spends on a public access terminal is directly proportional to how bad they smell? I sure have to buy a lot of air freshener.

Make that patrons not patrone.