My monthly allowance of peevishness at librarians

Today I wanted a copy of The Fellowship of the Rings. They were all checked out. I flew into a rage, but all quiet like, inside, and plotted my revenge on my blog. Then I rubbed my hands together and chuckled maniacally. I have always wanted the librarians to pay for these sorts of things, but I never, until now, had such sweeping blog powers! And now I'm drunk on it. And now our Adult Science Fiction/Fantasy collection buyer shall rue the day she took her eyes off the Tolkien collection!

On second thought, I think maybe all those "If I were King of the Library" posts may have gone to my head. Perhaps I can instead speak of this civilly. Almost civilly? Only just a wee, tiny touch deranged? And if I'm a bit too tough on the librarians maybe we can chalk it up to a series of years, now almost long past, where I toiled in my library's wildly understaffed circ pit, while the librarians mainly got to surf the internet and do occasionally mildly interesting things. As a dear, but now moved on colleague of that era used to like to say, "Good times."

The main thing wrong here with the absence of The Fellowship of the Rings is one that I find librarians get wrong often. I call it "The Series Problem", which I just invented now to sound professorial. It is based on idle observation and surmise, which is way less tiring than the semi-related "Scientific" approach. It says that in any multiple book narrative series that is popular (and not primarily new), the first book will always get checked out more, way, way more. So much more that most librarians can't process it and so under buy it. Everyone who wants to try the series starts with the first book and many go no further. Most deep fans will go back to the first book to reread, but may not go on in round 2 or 7 of their rereads. And with all the heavy reads the problem is compounded as more of the first book is lost or read into pieces. On top of all this there is a good reason to actually overstock the first of a series. People tend to stumble upon the desire or recommendation for the series and so want that starting point right away, whereas if they find it engaging, they have time to plan out and wait for further books in the series, as they are still reading the first. All of this applies a little less strongly to mystery series which can have a tolerance for jumping in, and more thoroughly for the strong sequential narratives that tend to appear in fantasy. This is why we end up with zero The Fellowship of the Rings on our shelves, but six Return of the Kings. I went and did a random test of this and, I'm a little embarrassed to say, but not too embarrassed to say, it made me feel very clever. I sampled the Harry Potter series. My branch is hanging by a thread with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. There are 11 copies checked out and just one on the shelf. And of book seven in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? There are 15 checked in, and just four checked out. I don't shelve in the kids room so only go to those stacks if Juvenile fiction is what I'm reading or helping someone with, but my god, those later books get thick. There must be a wall of Harry Potters in there right now!

There is a curious corollary between "The Series Problem" and the chronic library problem concerning musical artists in regards to their early career recordings vs. their late career recordings. But perhaps I'll save that for another time. There is also the issue of what I call "Popular Classics" or "New Classics" of which I suspect Fellowship of the Rings is a slight victim. This has a lot to do with different kinds of popularity, but perhaps that too is a discussion for another day. The last problem is that I never seem to hear librarians talking about these problems, fussing, obsessing, asking. And so it raises my ire not just from the disappointment, but from the sense that it is less an accident and more an inevitable result of disengagement. I saw plenty of signs of that disengagement on my tour of Minneapolis Libraries, but it's another thing to see it in my own dear genre stacks. Luckily I had saved four whole weeks of my peevishness allowance for such an occasion as this. And now it's spent.

If I Were King of the Library, The Second Decree

Now that the King (me) has solved the shelving issue (see the first "If I were King"), what about the fun? 

Fun goes to the passionate! Every quarter (that's 4 times a year!) we fund pet projects. Who can apply? Anyone who works there! Hell, longtime volunteers can apply too, and my blog readers! What do we fund it with? Time and money and space. Oh, then hmph, grumble, and how do we pay for this?

Aha. The king puts his money where his mouth is. All the other functions of the library are hereby stripped to the bare bones. Acquisitions are greatly reduced. Classes are reduced. Programming is reduced. The library is simplified and reduced to its basics, and everything that it loses there is filled back in by these pet projects. How do we choose these pet projects? We vote, everyone votes. Everyone has to read every proposal and everyone votes on every project. So, um, can we see an example? Yes. We will pick something simple and basic lest you think the whole thing will be too much of a carnival.

Sylvia is a kids librarian and she likes being a kids librarian, but she loves jazz. She can't stop thinking about jazz. She listens to it for hours and hours every night with her cat Thelonious. She wants a jazz corner at the library. As befits a library she believes it should be materials oriented. There will be a deep, deep master collection of CDs, the best of DVDs, books and even some long forgotten record albums. There will be a detailed and heavily stocked "Suggested" section as well. She wants a largish chunk of money and the equivalent of 2 hours a day to work on it. She also wants the maximum time for it. 2 years. After 2 years she would have to apply for some kind of renewal.

Okay, there's your example. Let's say there are not a lot of super great projects that quarter (or, heck, there are other great projects, but this one is still very popular and people trust Sylvia) and Sylvia gets fully funded. What really does the library end up with?

Instead of a mediocre CD collection (like nearly every public library I have ever been to), we get, well, a little bit more mediocre CD collection, and one, ferociously beautiful, destination Jazz collection. The kind that inspires people to explore Jazz by its own radiating conviction. We get a happy employee contributing their masterful knowledge and deep energy, and we get personality and depth. And oh yes, we wake up! I just went to three Minneapolis libraries. They were varying degrees of okay to a little bit lousy but not totally terrible. But they were mostly so absolutely asleep! The staff was asleep! The collection was asleep! The libraries were asleep. Just, wake up! Libraries can be beautiful. They can be adventures! They can be quiet and studious and calm and keenly awake. Yes, yes, they can be partly responsive to simple popularity, they should be, responsive to their statistical measures and the pull, and even the wonders of Big Media, but they can also be personally curated. Museums of art. Places of personal conviction and insider knowledge, of mercurial and fierce fandom!, where items are part of the collection because someone in the system unreservedly believes in it. Places where the forgotten that should not be forgotten is held on to, and places where the luminous depths of our culture can emerge out of the flotsam and resolve itself into the amazed and enlightened hands of its constituents. We need only be awake, and free, and care.

I can think of 20 more examples beyond Sylvia's Jazz without effort. And though tempted to run on endlessly with my visions I believe, reluctantly, especially reluctantly if I get to be King, in Democracy. So I think you should think of some of your own simple or mad ideas. I think you could, if you let yourself. Leave them here with me. When I am King we'll see about getting them funded. I think your project will win the votes necessary to get you going on your mad or simple dream, and our library will be magic.

So it is decreed, this day, etc. etc.

The King.

Review Expedition: The Northeast Library

The original header here said this was a less exhaustive review than my last one, of Pierre Bottineau, which went on rather for awhile. But, as it turns out, this one rather goes on and on as well. So here is an exhaustive (but still idiosyncratic)... 

Review of the Northeast Library in Minneapolis Minnesota

Phase 2 of the Review Expedition

All categories get a score! They are out of 100, with usual school grading applying wherein 75 is a straight up "C" and everything under 50 is just there to express various levels of pique.

Preamble and Arrival

Dave and I drove back the way we came and headed north on Central. This is a very interesting street, not so much architecturally, as it's just big and retail, but it's super multi-ethnic and diverse and all that. There are quite a few Central American, and Middle Eastern restaurants, but also a very good Co-op. I had a wrong address for the library, but as the jeep gripped fanatically to the road surface Dave was easily able to adapt to our sighting of the library (earlier than expected, on the left) and get us into a parking lot in the back. The library was newish, with a pleasing enough contemporary industrial design. Dave commented positively on it inside which made me look more favorably upon it and all its metal beams and wood and skylights. I liked how the library just fronted right up on the sidewalk and I was aware how rare it is that I find a really urban library that fits well in a commercial district without setting back more from it. I guess I'll go swipe a picture. I'd credit the photographer but I couldn't figure out who it is.

For first impressions and all that:
81 out of 100

 Building and Public Art

That whole arrival thing covers a lot of the building. I'll add more about inside. The library was a very open plan, and there was something a bit static about its layout design, but this is something I feel a little ill-equipped to judge. I know there's that balance of needing to keep things very public and visible so that people are less able to get up to trouble, but the nooks and diverse spaces are what can make libraries so appealing and interesting. This library had a massive, not very friendly security guard roaming the space and a desk set up that really seemed designed for keeping an eye on things. So, while I was not keen on it, I also don't know what kind of chronic problems they've experienced there. The desks looked onto the entrance and the banks of computers that dominated the center of the library and caused me to coin the phrase "Computeraries" which my computer does not yet recognize as a word. I know internet access is huge for today's libraries but I'd love to see those growing banks of terminals integrated into the design better, perhaps more discreetly.

As to public art I didn't see anything of any note, which seems especially sad considering its culturally rich neighborhood. This had a surprising impact to me because it really made the building feel uninvolved in the community.

72 out of 100

Random Generic Library Measure

Number of Agatha Christie books on shelf: 36, really quite good for a smaller to medium branch.

88 out of 100 

Bathroom Check

 One wanders into the only thing that could slightly be called a "wing", sort of in the back right of the library, to easily find the bathrooms. From the security guard and the feel of the library I'd think they'd be combating junkies shooting up in there and that the bathrooms would thus be pretty rough, but no! These were individual use bathrooms in super nice condition. I was inspired to even use the bathroom! My only small complaint is that the Hennepin Library System apparently uses the cheapest, most flimsy paper towels ever made and their dispenser jammed after some strange partial piece of towel dissolved on my wet fingers. Ah well, it is more ecologically friendly to dry my hands on my pants anyway.
92 out of 100

 Can I hang my flier for my blog with a sticky note on it saying "this library to be reviewed soon!"?

 I got the exact same answer here as at the Pierre Bottineau branch, leave it with them and they'll check with, I don't know, their executive director of sign posting, who tours the branches to determine what signs can go up. I'd be happy to bump the score up a little if someone comments that they found this blog from the posting that was hung up at the Northeast Library, but for now
62 out of 100

Coffee Shop?

5 blocks south is a place called Diamonds which I am actually curious to try, but have not yet had the opportunity. For now this seems good enough. You can probably get fairly good coffee at the nearish co-op too.
83 out of 100

Librarian one: The Collection Question

Do they have The King of the Schnorrers by Israel Zangwill. First, I should say the librarian desk person was oddly at the side of said desk, like the desks were something to be avoided. She was working on a small laptop perched on a partition. To help me she moved back to the computer on the desk. I had to spell "Schnorrers", though I recognize this is not unreasonable. They didn't have it. I was offered no further options. Interest, Interlibrary loan options, and or commiseration all would have done much to improve the score here.

Score for library collection (and I realize this is a small fit of pique as the book has horrifically fallen into obscurity, but as we'll see they have over a million books!):
35 out of 100

Score for Librarian
60 out of 100

 Librarian two: The Reference Question

How many books are there in the entire collection? She sort of laughed and said "No." (I can't remember, was my question "Do you know how many..."?). Then, in that 'oh yeah, I'm supposed to be a librarian' way that was starting to become familiar, she added "There's over a million in Central."  So, a lot, but not King of the Schnorrers.
62 out of 100

Librarian three: The Free Form Question

What does she think of the Pierre Bottineau Library? She did pretty well here. She said it was quiet and quaint. We chatted briefly about its circulation, which was low. She had an opinion and shared it. I didn't get any inside scoops though.
84 out of 100

Circulation

Sadly Dave did not try again for a card and I didn't do anything at Circ either, so I am cautious about judging too hard. What I took to be the Circ Man was standing a fair bit back and sideways to the desk, in conversation with someone for what seemed to be the whole time we were there. Oddly the staff struck me as treating the desks, which seemed nice enough and well enough situated, as faintly contaminated. Circ may have been great if we engaged him, who knows. So keep in mind we go on very little here.
73 out of 100

Random Personal Search for Item

Okay, once again I'm going to get way too emotional here. I looked for Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan. This is arguably the greatest album by, again, arguably, but it's a good argument,  the single most important artist of any kind of his generation, who, it is important to note, actually recorded this album in Minneapolis, with local musicians. In Minneapolis! And they have like 3 or 4 copies total in the collection. Of course they are all checked out! Yes I am giving into a fit of pique once more, but geez, it's like if the Stratford upon Avon Library system didn't have Hamlet. "Yeah, but it's in a book of his collected plays, we've got a couple of those. But, hmm, looks like they're checked out." Actually, I wrote this, then went to the Stratford upon Avon website and checked, and I'm really not sure this isn't sort of the case. I can't quite tell, but if it is they get the same score here as below!
11 out of 100

 Summary and Final Score   

  
The Northeast Library in Minneapolis is a new, modern, clean building in an interesting and diverse urban area of Northeast Minneapolis. Its static and  prepared for the worst qualities are a little hard to judge without knowing just what issues they contend with. But the building did feel safe and clean if a little bland, which could conceivably be because of all their preparation. The library is a place you could hang out in, but with few extra incentives to do so. Casually, and possibly a little unfairly, the staff seemed at least somewhat disengaged, and fairly speaking this time, that was actually borne out in what interactions we did have. To my mind the library is haunted by collection issues that make me wonder exactly what librarians are up to. I find it hard, with all its moderate plusses and minuses here to venture anywhere away from a dead average score. But I am suspecting that is a bit high and reflects on my standard getting slowly crushed down, alas.
75 out of 100

If I Were King of the Library!

I like the sound of this title. This could be a handsome new series of blog posts. If I were king of the library indeed! I'm all for it. But, as befits a series, instead of getting all sweeping and exhaustive, I start out with one modest, well, almost modest, kingly decree, perhaps a bit mundane, but perhaps a bit foundational as well.

Here is my decree: 

Every employee in the building shall shelve materials for one hour every day they work.

Kings, Pages, Librarians, Board Members, Custodians, Computer Operators, Clerks, and Regional Managers all. It shall be the tithe and the fundament. So it is decreed this date etc. etc.

Here is the fine print and details:

1. This is prorated at a rate of 8 hours scheduled to 1 hour shelving. If, for instance, you work a 4 hour shift your shelving tithe will be 30 minutes. There is a minimum though of 15 minutes shelving, so if you are only coming to the building for an hour long managerial meeting make sure you still set aside 15 minutes extra for your shelving.

2. If you are physically unable to shelve you will work from a provided short list of mundane yet useful alternates.

3. No bartering away your shelving. This is soul work too.

4. If there is nothing left to shelve (something that never happens here, but could under this system) dig deeper. There are always things to shelve and a back up of shelving-like activities will be available if there really is nothing. However, on mornings where we are strongly caught up, the King, or a licensed associate, may declare a "Shelving Holiday" where all are released from the usual responsibilities of shelving for that day.

5. Shelving time is real time. Breaks taken during shelving do not count towards shelving.


Why I think this is an important and good idea: 

I don't have to say, for I am King!

Okay. I will say. It breaks down the overwrought hierarchy that I feel is slow poison to the system. It puts everyone in touch with the building and the collection. It's better socialism and Libraries are, well, Socialist, except with a King! And finally, most simply, many hands make light work.

So it is decreed again, this date, etc. etc.

-The King  

Review expedition: Pierre Bottineau Library

Exhaustive, (but oddly idiosyncratic) Review of the Pierre Bottineau Public Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Phase 1 of the review expedition.

Watch out, I score everything, out of 100. If you'll think grades, that will be appropriate; 90 is A-, 80 is B-, 60 is the D-, and so on.

Preamble and Arrival

Released from our closed-for-maintenance library for 3 hours (plus an hour for lunch) I climbed into Dave's jeep. It was very high up, but I managed, as I am nimble. Our drive was oddly like one on an uneven dirt road even though we were on well paved roads. Dave said that's pretty much how the jeep is. Dave does not seem to love the jeep. I have never been in a vehicle that seemed to be at such pains to grip the road tenaciously at every single moment. But this is not a review of the jeep! Onto the library.

We traveled a good distance on Broadway St. which was a boring street that seemed industrial but without conviction, and then, all at once, came upon the paradise of Industrial Retro Rehab Chic that was the complex of the Pierre Bottineau Library. I'll go see if I can fetch any pictures for you now.

Hmm, so, just, uh, sort of borrowed this from the internet. And I am not interested in providing historical perspectives and suchlike, but am grudgingly willing to say this is the Grain Belt Campus, which I think means it was a big factory complex now all redone for other uses. I am not even sure where the library is in this picture, so onto the next pictures. 

 Okay, so this is the gated entrance to a quiet and pretty little, not quite park, it's more like the front garden of the library. All that Grain Belt stuff would be to the right here, behind the library. We also parked back there. Actually, due to a small, insignificant navigational mishap, we parked in the lot for an Architectural firm that's in the main factory building. We actually had to walk out to the street through a lovely sort of brick arched tunnel to the street, walk up the street a small bit, and enter precisely at this above gate.

This is the library with the main building behind. That big building, where the Architects were, is not physically connected to Pierre Bottineau, but it is architecturally. This is opposite the previous picture, which would have been taken at the far right.

And lastly, a picture of the main stacks of the library inside. It's just as nice inside as out. But maybe it doesn't seem so nice to you outside? Honestly it doesn't photograph as nice as it is.

So, if it is not clear, I really liked this whole place. And it was a very auspicious beginning to our library expedition.

91 out of 100

Building and Public Art 

There are even more good things than is covered above. I liked how you walk in to staff, like, they're in the main entry hall behind a counter. You turn right to go to the room in the picture above and left to go to their kids room. But the lobby and service counters make a sort of integrated "T" (though the top of the t is wide, and the bottom is short). I think the staff person even said hi to us as we entered, which is not the sort of thing I care about much, but just felt natural here. The building had nice light and a nice feel. It was quiet and the ever popular internet computers didn't dominate the place. The kids room felt a bit muddled and crowded. They had loads of public art, starting with a modernist steel sculpture in the front garden, going to some big murals in the front lobby, to what was apparently a temporary show of acrylic paintings of local industrial scenes (by one artist) that was perfectly appropriate for the library and of a very high standard. There was an unnotable painting in their throwaway teen nook, and there was a small reading/research room devoted to local history that had some old photos displayed. They did not captivate me, but I loved the idea, and the room seemed thematically appropriate to the library.

93 out of 100

Random Generic Library Measure

Number of Agatha Christie books on shelf: 15, respectable though uninspiring for a smaller branch.

76 out of 100

Bathroom Check

It was clean enough, and pretty, quite in keeping with the building. It had one stall and one urinal. I strongly feel then it should be a single person bathroom. I am a private person! Cannot speak to the Ladies Room, but seriously, they could have done 3 unisex rooms in this space.

81 out of 100

Can I hang my flier for my blog with a sticky note on it saying "this library to be reviewed soon!"?

Can you leave it with us and we'll give it to someone to see if it's okay? I said yes instead of "Can you look at it and figure out if it's okay? How hard can this be?" because I am polite and rather too fatalistic.

a very pissy 62 out of 100

Coffee Shop?

No, and I didn't feel there was one super close by, but I don't feel I should be too hard on this.

75 out of 100

Librarian one: The Reference Question

Who is Pierre Bottineau? The librarian said he was an explorer in a way that was so off hand that I believe it may have been offered as a question. Then, perhaps thinking better of this, she remembered some free library printed material that had info about him on it. We looked for it and after a good bit of searching found a flyer that I noticed had one quite small bit of info on him. This all was a bit of a sad failure because typing "Pierre Bottineau" into her computer search engine would have easily allowed her to provide enough information to satisfy me. Here, this is clipped from wikipedia in less time than it took her to make the first search for a flier on the counter:

Pierre Bottineau (January 1, 1817 – July 26, 1895) was a Minnesota Frontiersman.

Known as the "Kit Carson of the Northwest", he was an integral part of the history and development of Minnesota and North Dakota.

I could easily have continued to show you his picture and provide his local context (he had a lot to do with founding the city of St. Anthony, near the Library, which was later annexed into Minneapolis), but I think you get my point. And besides all that easy stuff that was mere keystrokes away on the internet, this branch has, as I mentioned, a small room devoted to local history, which, unless it is so pathetic that it should be converted to a Video Gaming room, will undoubtedly have some of the best and most useful materials on Pierre Bottineau anywhere, internet included!
40 out of 100


Librarian two: The Collection Question

Do they have a copy of The Blue Sword? The Librarian said first "By Robin Mckinley?" By Robin Mckinley indeed. Well done! This pleased me much! Unfortunately they had only two copies in the system, both out. She did offer to request it for me. I didn't get any commiseration or alternate choices, just, to explain the touch of mildness in my positive score below.
90 out of 100 for the Librarian
50 out of 100 for the collection
(something like 41 branches and 2 circulating copies of this total, both out?)


Librarian three: The Free Form Question

What is her favorite book? She would have to pick Tolkien's Trilogy, which was chosen without dissembling, just straight up, something I appreciated, and it was a choice I liked too. Once again, to explain the limits of my fully positive score, her enthusiasm drew a line, and she did not feverishly say, when I spoke of my affection for Lord of the Rings, something like "Oh, but have you read the great Blue Sword? It is nearly as good in it's own way! Oh, but right, we only have two copies because our teen collection buyer is demented." which is the kind of color commentary I would have needed to score a 100 on this one.
90 out of 100 
 

Circulation

Dave, a St. Paul resident, asked if he could get a card. Asked if he wanted to Check Out today he said he'd like to, but he didn't need to (by the way, kudos to Dave, that was such a good answer! Enough to invite the clerk to screw up, but not unfair). They said it would be a lot easier if he went to St. Paul directly and left it at that. As your library savant I can tell you that, a. this would be a lot easier for the clerk, not really for Dave, who would have probably hardly suffered, and, b., this answer is only acceptable to "No, I'm leaving. I don't want to get anything now." In all other cases the clerk's response was awful.
50 out of 100

Random Personal Search for Item

I looked for a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. Like Dave's bait question above, this is just the sort of thing libraries screw up on, unsanctioned foundational classics that people are always reading. And they sadly failed the bait of my search. Certainly not checked in at Pierre Bottineau in any form. They had, actually, interestingly, a few audio books of it in the system, a reference copy, a few unavailable ebooks, the movie, and a paltry 2 physical copies, both requested because, well, of course they are.
60 out of 100

Summary and Final Score

Pierre Bottineau is a beautiful library in an unusual part of town. It's design is interesting and harmonious and the space is mainly used well and consciously. The collection seems adequate if uninspired. The staff seems to be, casually speaking, under no great pressure, and has sadly responded with sleepiness rather than inspiration. The delightful facility does much to save it from a far more middling score, but the failure of its great promise also tempers that score strongly.
80 out of 100

The Expedition

I woke up with a powerful sense of mission. I feel like I'm going on an expedition. This may have to do with all the sort of wilderness adventure books I've been reading (Tracks, Paris to the Pyranees, and Desert Solitaire). And that, as an analogy, is apt, except instead of crossing a large, Australian desert with a few camels I am visiting 3 Minneapolis Libraries with Dave. Instead of 2 weeks to travel down the Colorado River through Glen Canyon we have 4 hours, including lunch. And instead of financing by National Geographic we are underwritten by the library we work for. On the one hand, as proletarian clerks utterly starved for perks and largesse this underwriting seems positively lush. On the other hand the whole thing seems paltry, and 3 libraries far too small a selection for our very thorough ambitions.

Appropriately for an expedition we will travel by jeep. I have never been in a jeep, and this will be especially useful if any of these libraries are located off road, in trackless burnt out industrial areas, or deep in the lost wild sections that still hang on, unexplored, along the Mississippi River banks. "Watch out, Dave!" I will cry. "You almost drove into that School of Wolves!" 

"Better that School of Wolves" Dave will wryly reply, gesturing to his left "Than that Flock of Mooses."

"Gosh!" I'll enthuse, marveling at the Flock of Mooses in their comely forest glen. Then I'll add "Hey, Dave, what's that under all those strange vines and deep mosses? Is that stone or is it..."

"That, my friend" Dave will exclaim, pulling the car to a halt "Is indeed the Wild River branch of the Hennepin County Library System."

"The one that's seen only 3 visitors in 11 years?"

"So they say. No internet access in that building."

"So they'll know nothing of my blog in there?"

"You write a blog?" Dave will ask.

"Let's head inside."

The first library we plan to visit is actually quite near the river, Pierre Bottineau. Look for the first review soon.

A Bookmark From the Library

This bookmark was sitting, mysteriously abandoned, on a table in the back workroom, and I just love it. It's from the Minnesota Historical Society. It's a picture of a jar of sand. In the middle is a sand rendition of Minnehaha Falls that's nicer than most oil paintings I've seen of the falls. We get a lot of bookmarks at the library, lost and found, and like most lost and found items they never get claimed. I have several bookmarks at home, but I'm not so good at using them and end up going with a stray scrap of paper, or other methods I dare not mention. I should try to use some of my nice bookmarks, but I think I'm afraid I'd lose them. I'm sure I would, but maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Maybe the secret is that bookmarks are made to be lost. And found.

















 Some of my bookmarks:

 

It's not lying, it's something far stranger

I work the automated check in machine with a strange mash-up of busy contentment and wild rage. Setting aside the contentments, which are covered elsewhere (here, if you like, though I suppose it's more complex than just contentment), I will discuss the rages, which are triggered by tiny things sometimes. Actually, looked at sagely, from this distance, the rages are exclusively triggered by tiny things. There isn't much to begin with in clerking that isn't a tiny thing (much to the contrary of how we clerks talk of them to each other), and I can't think of a single non tiny thing with the machine that has ever induced rage in me. I think it's like a leaky faucet. That tiny periodic drip is maddening, whereas a bigger problem is simply one to be fixed. Or it might be more like the princess and the pea. Something about the machine makes me want to get things absolutely perfect, which is a futile and yet magnificently compelling quest. It makes me think of the wildly underrated movie Ocean's Twelve, where Reuben (Elliot Gould) tells Rusty (Brad Pitt) that he's micromanaging his hotels and needs to delegate to have a life. Rusty says "I don't want a life. I want the hotel to run like a hotel should." So, likewise, I'm not so sure I want contentment with the machine, I just want the machine to run like the machine should.

Anyway, the main group then of these machine triggered rages comes from things the machine is not supposed to do; an unpropitious jam, where book covers and pages wind into the rollers, or the machine mysteriously not figuring out how to route a series of books and dumping them into an exception bin, or bins not lowering or not raising or not attaching as they're supposed to, or "ghost" jams, where a belt shuts down because it is having a hallucination that books are stuck on it when they aren't. But there is another small group of rages that comes from things the machine is absolutely supposed to do. These are the ones of particular interest to me here. Most examples of this have to do either with bins filling, or with items going into the exception bins. But the particular rage inducer I find fascinatingly insane, in my relation to it and loathing of it, is the return of books from other library systems.

Bear with me here and I'll briefly explain. Well, not briefly, exactly, I'm not huge on briefly, but I'll do my best. Our library system is linked with other library systems in the state in various ways. The main way this effects the average library user is that they can register their library card in almost every public library system in the state and have one card that works in all these library systems even though they are totally discrete systems. The other main effect is that a patron can return their books in between systems. Checked out something from St. Paul, and it's due today, but you're in Minneapolis? No problem, you can return it to Minneapolis, they will put a slip in it with that days date and ship it off so that it eventually arrives in St. Paul, where they will backdate their check in to when you returned it. The books and libraries are all reunited and everyone is happy.

There is only one, tiny, tiny, problem. When a person returns their 20 St. Paul library picture books onto our machine they go one by one into our exception bin and have to be hand processed. Actually, that is not the problem. The problem is that when they do return their books that way it makes me furious. It breaks my flow. It separates me from machine perfection. It overloads my tasks. And I hate it. And, furthermore, I hate the person who returned all those books. I hate them! No, I'm not kidding, when those books are rolling down the machine one after the other, I am seriously hating the person who returned them. My whole coiled clerk being is despising them. Oh, yes, it's crazy. Is this common among clerks? I am pretty sure it is not uncommon. Do I hate these people, who merely did what they're allowed to do, right now, after the fact? My god, of course not! I'm not even mad at them. And when they came to me at the front desk and asked me if they could return their St. Paul books to my library did I say, yes, they could, but I will hate them if they do? No. I explained the whole process thoroughly to them and enthusiastically recommended it to them if I thought it would be of any help to them. And I meant it. From the bottom of my heart, I meant it.

Maybe it is all the simple reality that as I do these separate jobs I identify with them and I occupy them. If my feelings and relations within those jobs wildly contradict it doesn't matter. It's not me, it's just the place I go, just like I can be famished if I haven't eaten for a long time, and uncomfortably full if I've just had a huge meal. Perhaps, so long as these feelings aren't simultaneous, it's all going to be okay. But still, it does seem a bit deranged, so I thought I'd tell you about it. And now I have.

Reviews Mania!

At our sort of recent staff day (see post here) we talked about User Experience, which is about trying to look at our library from an outsider or user perspective to see how things work and to find tools and ideas for how to make things work better. To my delight, and, just a little bit, surprise, we are being given an opportunity to follow up on this. If we can arrange it, we can go, during work hours, to some other library system branch and look at it from this user experience perspective. We can maybe get some ideas from how they do things. We can also, if we are world renowned library clerk bloggers, review these libraries for the edification of the entire world. They didn't say that last part, but it was strongly implied. I earlier reviewed the St. Anthony Park Library (Here, it didn't do so hot) and I liked doing that, so I have arranged, while the library is closed to the public for furniture cleaning, to go with Dave (whose name I have not bothered to change because what's the point and I won't say anything bad about him anyway) to 3 Hennepin County Libraries, which I will be reviewing here, in this very blog. So look for my assorted reviews in the week or so to come. I'm also quite enthusiastic about trying out Chimborazo for lunch. It's an Ecuadorian restaurant that sounds good. I can review that too if you want. Let me know in the comments below. I can also review Dave's driving (I have never even seen him not at the library, let alone driven with him), the Minneapolis Northeast neighborhoods, and the quality of our furniture cleaning. I'm here for you. Tell me what you want.

Sometimes what we don't have can break my heart

In defense of our collection I find that a lot of the time we have the books and DVDs people want somewhere immediately available in our library. But sometimes, like today, I'll hit a bad streak and nothing is in. It's worst when it's my recommendations to some mildly interested patron because I'm the one who's all excited, and who's so sorely disappointed.

"Do you have The Game of Thrones sequel?" The young man asks. No. I put a request in on it, and we talk a bit. He loved Stephen King's The Dark Tower. Do I have any recommendations for something he can get now? With his choices I feel I have a bit of a fix on him. My fabulous choice is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss! I sing its praises. He should read it immediately. It's perfect! It's also not checked in.

Rats. Lemme see. Oh! That book Marcus suggested, The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley. It's a bit more modern, but I really liked that a lot and have a feeling it will work. Or it would work, if it was checked in. Which it isn't. But that's okay. This direction opens things up. "Nightwatch" by Sergei Lukyanenko is golden and in every way as good a choice, maybe even better. If only we hadn't weeded our last copy. How can we not own a copy of this? It was insanely popular, more so in Russia, in the nineties, but still...

And then he's gone. And it's all so unfinished for me. My day will be a little haunted by this failure, and I'll keep thinking of new, perfect solutions that I can never get in his reading hands. When I think of one I'll be compelled to search it in the catalog, or even go check the shelf. Invariably there will be three or four copies, just sitting there, as there should be. Because it's an awfully good book. It would have been perfect. Maybe I'll just take one home and read it again. 

Second Thoughts

My favorite Terry Pratchett books generally seem to have something to do with the witches. And somewhere in those books, probably Wee Free Men and maybe the other Tiffany Aching books, is Terry Pratchett's idea of Second Thoughts. Poorly put, by me, this has something to do with being able to think about how you think. I have sort of spread this around conceptually in me and taken it to mean something about seeing what I'm doing from a second place and being able to consider it again. I consider this skill, as a clerk, to have generally saved my life.

I could just be a better person. I could be the person who, when he uses the third-to-last slip, goes and gets a new stack because that's automatically, as a decent person, what I do. But I haven't entirely worked out being that person yet. So I use second thoughts.

I see a transit box that is over full of books. It needs a lid and a new, labeled box to go on top, and I think "Who would fill this and just leave it like this? This is not my responsibility." and then I walk away from it. And then I have my second thought. And then I go and get the lid and box. This is not a rare occasion. This happens many times every day. It happens with books abandoned on shelves. It happens with a scrap of litter on the floor. It happens with a bin almost full at the end of the night. It happens with unpleasant patrons contesting their fines rudely, but legitimately. Second thoughts happen when it is my responsibility and they happen when it isn't my responsibility. They don't always cause me to change my course of action, but they tend to make it vastly more likely that I will settle on the better one. They make me consider one more time, maybe take a step out of the heat of things. There is so much heat everywhere.

Without second thoughts I am not terrible.  I am nice to the patrons. I am fair. I am almost industrious enough. I will often be in a mental place where I take care of things, and take care of them thoroughly. But also I fall, and I fall often. I don't want all these boring little tasks, and the world is not very fair. Remember that. It isn't. And there is no one who should have to endure that. But a quiet undercurrent of bitterness is a terribly dangerous friend. And I fall. I fall and I fall again.

My second thoughts are there, to catch me.

Walking to Work, Some Notes from a Morning Walk on the Mississippi

Approximately once a week I walk part way to work, mostly along the Mississippi River. I am reluctant to be more specific about my route, situation, and schedule as I'd rather not alert the geese any more than is necessary. The geese make me a little nervous when they group up on the path and though it might seem over-cautious to you, I wouldn't put anything past these surprisingly large birds, including their monitoring of my blog. Although, if they are monitoring my blog, well, I can really use the readers, regardless of motives, so... Hi geese, thanks for coming, check back here often for updates on my river walking schedule!

Anyway, as I walk along the river, naturally, like anyone, my head fills with possible blog posts and indeed everything I see becomes something to blog about. In that spirit, and with a need to discharge all this excess blogging energy, I present to you "Some Notes from a Morning Walk on the Mississippi" which I would almost certainly expand into a book if either a publisher asked or I had more than 5 remarkably skimpy ideas of material scrawled briefly and illegibly in a notebook.

1. How to spot a bald eagle along the Mississippi River.

Walk with your head down composing blog posts until you see a small group of people gathered at the edge of the path looking up into the trees. Look where they're looking and pointing their large telephoto lens cameras. It is always a bald eagle.

2. Graffiti Update.
If you go here you can see my only slightly tongue and cheek review of the "Hangman" graffiti piece on the river. That artwork is now completely painted over, which is okay because though it was clever, it was also, to be blunt, ugly. Fortunately there's loads of pretty graffiti pieces now located mainly under the Franklin Ave. and Hwy. 94 bridges, including what I think is possibly a new piece, the inter-related "World" (?, hard to see) and "Naive". Near these complex and coloristically interesting pieces (I love that sort of ocher in "Naive" with its rich olive green overlay) are a couple of small simple pieces called "Statistically gaining knowledge" which presents both readable and unreadable elegant calligraphy line work.

3. A Rule for Mixed Sports Exercising on the River.

Based on my observation I strongly advise against going jogging with someone who is biking, unless you are super fit.

4. Major River Road construction project process.

From Franklin Avenue, past the gang of geese (Hi geese!), all the way to where I turn off toward Ted Mann Concert Hall, they are pulverizing the road down to its dirt bed. I would think I would hate this for being noisy and interruptive, but, no! It turns out I am very enthusiastic about this project. For one thing it means there are no cars whizzing by on River Road, and while River Road is not normally trafficy there are always cars whizzing by and I wish they'd cut it out, which, temporarily, they have. For another thing, the whole project seems to tap into my inner, primal 5 year old, and I find all the machine work very compelling, like dinosaurs and firemen. A big, super powerful, munching machine drives slowly, slowly along, steadily eating up a 5 to 10 foot wide swath of road and then spitting it out way at the top into a big dump truck that drives along in time by the muncher's side. It doesn't take very long to fill a whole dump truck so they have 10 or more of them going in a giant loop. The dump truck fills, drives forward and away, goes to dump somewhere, and comes back from the rear to get in line again. It just works for me.

5. An amateur birder's list of birds that I mostly don't know the name of but definitely saw.

a. Bald Eagle (yes, yes, follow the telephoto lens!)
b. Geese (Hi geese!)
c. Little yellow headed birds with more yellow at the top of their tail you can only see when they open their wings.
d. A woodpecker that I thought was a duck at first when it came in to land on the side of a tree. It made a lot more sense when I realized it was a woodpecker since ducks rarely hang out on the sides of trees.
e. A huge, gigantic owl! (not really, I just thought this might make the geese a bit more, I don't know, cautious, or humble). 

Wild Sounds of the Library

My public library produces a collection of some of the widest range of voices outside of an opera house, or, no, maybe an opera house located in the middle of a poorly run zoo. I'm not saying it's noisy, just that it's all over the map. Sometimes a visitor will come to me and whisper softly and I will think "You are now in the idea of a library. In this actual library I could not possibly hear you amongst all this sheer animal screeching." And yet other times that same soft whisper will seem ostentatiously loud, carrying unobstructed to the farthest reaches of the library. To further demonstrate I here provide a little random tour of some of the voices and types of voices and human sounds to be found in my library.

1. Weird low level droning somewhere between humming and singing, soft, but with a peculiar indiscernible reach, usually produced by people alone in the stacks. Comes in uninterrupted hour long chunks.

2. Peaceful, murmurous talking of two friends. They have usually run into each other in happy accident and there is a faint note of guilt in their voices from their feeling they shouldn't exactly be having a conversation here, but they are too happy about the whole thing to come up with an alternate solution. As a side note this often blocks half of the staircase.

3. Cell Phone Voice. Like a loud version of number 1. You may be well aware that people on cell phones often talk very loudly about very uninteresting things, but you might not know that people who talk on cell phones in the library refuse, for some reason, to let the person on the other end of the line talk. Once, many years ago, we had a troubled patron who used the public phone we had then, to have long, ostentatious, delusional, fake conversations with her imaginary boyfriend. All cell phone callers are sort of like her.

4. The rich array of animal sounds. No, we don't have many animals in here. Guide dogs, ants, mice occasionally. We used to have a hamster. There's a dog that comes in for children to read to once or twice a week even though science is fairly sure dogs don't much understand storytelling. None of these animals make much noise. It is the people who make so many animal noises that you could have a fun Saturday afternoon here tracking them with a list, kind of like going birding. Children produce the sounds of any number of actual birds, mostly raptors, and their high strange call-like screeches can be heard anywhere in the library. Chimps at play is also generally loud and produced by children, sometimes during distress, sometimes joy. Snorers can do the big cats, and some of our volunteers specialize in the ungulates. You will often hear them hunting requests out in genre fiction. The small noises of squirrels and gophers can be heard over by the DVDs by people making little sucking noises with their teeth and mouths as they industriously browse. We clerks, when gathered, are surprisingly duck-like at a 12 pace distance. The bathrooms, which I mainly try to avoid, are rich with aquatic sounds, primarily fish, but, occasionally, alarmingly, dolphins and seals. Also you can hear the chuffs of bears coming from the stalls there as great effort is engaged in. Though those bear noises sometimes also abruptly punctuate the usually quiet internet computer areas. I have never understood the source for those.

That is hardly a complete list, but I feel it is more than adequate to illustrate my point. It makes me feel self-consciously deranged for having this whole discussion and yet also strangely compelled to get a long list of animals and on some noisy afternoon see how many I can check off. I'll try to resist this, but it's going to be touch and go.

Story From the Front Desk

My colleague was helping someone at the front desk. The person wanted his fines partially waived because our automated check in machine jammed in the after hours. Agreeing to waive said fines my co-worker helpfully informed the man that if the automated return shuts down he can use the giant mailbox-like return as a back up.

"I tried to use that" the man said. "It was locked."

Whoa, I unlocked that bin myself. So I irresistibly entered the conversation. "I unlocked that bin myself." I said with immense gentleness and grace, er, or I said it curiously, or defensively or playfully or something.

"No, it was definitely locked." the man said "I pushed and pushed, but I couldn't get it open."

I love it when the solutions are this simple. 

"You have to pull."

My First Contest!

Hi, it's me, your blogger, and I'm piping up here to say that there is a little contest now live with a post maybe one or two below this one, depending on when I post this, it's the one about comparing something in my blog to Flowers For Algernon. It has to do with how it has all kinds of clickable links in the text. You can just read the post below too, the contest kind of lurks in the background, and so is more accidental or extra. It's not a puzzle exactly, just a sort of reward for thoroughness.

And with that I leave you the lyrics to this song, which doesn't have much to do with the contest, only with my quest to become the greatest library blog ever. I saw this musical at the Pantages theater I think, in Los Angeles somewhere rather a long time ago. It was actually only an okay production, I liked the book better. Still...


The Impossible Dream from the Musical "Man of La Mancha"
Lyrics by Joe Darion

To dream ... the impossible dream ...
To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...
To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...
To run ... where the brave dare not go ...
To right ... the unrightable wrong ...
To love ... pure and chaste from afar ...
To try ... when your arms are too weary ...
To reach ... the unreachable star ...
This is my quest, to follow that star ...
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far ...
To fight for the right, without question or pause ...
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ...
And I know if I'll only be true, to this glorious quest,
That my heart will lie will lie peaceful and calm,
when I'm laid to my rest ...
And the world will be better for this:
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach ... the unreachable star ...

Secret Sauce

"What is that secret something in your blog that makes it so special?" people don't ask me, because my readers are very special people who like quietness and reflection. But I'll tell you the answer. The key to whatever success of clarity and articulation my blog achieves comes down to rehearsal. No, I do not have a practice blog somewhere else. I rehearse before a live audience, like the Marx Brothers. Did you know that during the heart of the Marx Brothers' movie career, before filming, they would take their prospective movie on the road and perform it live, test it, tweak it, change it, try things out. Then they'd come back and make the movie? They did, and their movies are very funny. And so I start thinking of something I might blog about and I take it on the road too. However my scope is a bit smaller, and instead of touring, say, the Rocky Mountain States, I tour the library. In the break room: "Have you ever read The Long Walk, I know it's kind of terrible, but this retirement makes me think of it." At the phones: "I have a theory about twitter." Over by the filled bins: "So this guy comes up to E. and wants part of his fines waived..." (oops, no link because I don't think I've written this yet, but I have told the story five times in preparation!). I try out my phrasing. I see what parts might be engaging. I add more parts or maybe my co-worker says something that leads to a different take on it all and I tell it again. Then, when I can, I write it all up.

Do my co-workers ask me "Hey, what's with all these odd little stories, absurdist humor, clerk philosophy discussions all of a sudden?" No, they don't. Is it because they are special people who like quietness and reflection? No, it is because even though my blog is actually less than a month and a half old, I have been rehearsing blog posts for my entire career at the library. I just never knew til now that I was supposed to write it up and put it on the web.

It's like finding home.

More peculiar comparing aspects of my life to books, now featuring 'Flowers for Algernon' and 'Can I Keep My Jersey'

(Note: this is a super linkable blogpost, just, you know, in case you want to try clicking things in it. Some are what you think, some not, none are dangerous.)



There is a wonderfully done daily cartoon strip called "Unshelved". It is about life in a library. If you work in a library you most likely have heard of it or seen it or read it. If you don't work in a library you probably don't know it, but you could know it because I believe its reach and success is wider than just the world of libraries. One day recently, having one of those occasional marketing feelings about my blog, I wrote to one of the authors of Unshelved, Bill Barnes. I told him how much I liked the strip, thanked him for it, and said he could absolutely ignore the remainder of my email. Then I told him very briefly about clerkmanifesto and suggested if he briefly mentioned it on his website I'd be supremely grateful. A few days later he wrote back a really nice note about writing awkward notes to people when he was starting out, and how he would mention me on twitter. I checked later and he did. It wasn't "Best library blog I ever read, clerkmanifesto.com" but more "Clerk who blogs about libraries, clerkmanifesto.com" which, to me, was plenty nice enough.

Flowers for Algernon, well, I really feel like you know the story, but, to be safe, it's about a mentally disabled man who undergoes an experimental procedure that, for awhile, makes him a genius, but it does not last and he goes back to how he was. Yes, it's a great book. Can I Keep My Jersey, by Paul Shirley, is interesting enough. It's his story of the years when he was almost, or barely good enough to play in the NBA and would get called up from the minors, or come back from European leagues to super short stints as a not very good player, hardly playing at all, in the NBA.

When Bill Barnes of Unshelved mentioned me on twitter the number of views of my blog, over the course of about a day and a half, increased by seven times! It was very nice. I could look at my little graph of page views and there would be this giant spike. Actually, at first it was just a huge increase, but now it's a giant spike because things have, on the whole, returned to normal again. My views went way up. Now they are mostly back to where they always were. 

So then, to trivialize these nice books, I am absurdly saying this Bill Barnes spike event is my blog's equivalent of going for a week to the luxurious and fabulously well paid NBA and then returning to the crappy motels of the CBA (a kind of NBA minor league, now defunct), or, even more ridiculously, like returning from geniusness to being mentally disabled once again. Yeah yeah yeah, I'm doing the whole dry silliness thing here, fine, yes, what we are talking about is tens of views increasing to hundreds of views, with many of even these views being done by bots (yes, actual robots view websites, a story for some other time!). But my joking here is, as usual, on the square, and so I want to say, to Bill Barnes, and to you my faithful readers, even if I have fallen from my brief reign as the 2,147th most popular library blog back down to 4,278 once again, it was worth it. It was all worth it just to glimpse the stars.

My Clerking Career as Stephen King's "The Long Walk"

Someone I have worked with my whole lengthy career here has just retired after 37 years. And the book I keep thinking of in relation to this is The Long Walk by Stephen King. If you have read this book you are maybe thinking this is a pretty macabre book to think of in this situation. If you haven't read The Long Walk I will tell you now all about this book so that perhaps you, too, can think me macabre.

The Long Walk takes place in a vaguely defined dystopian American future (aren't they all?). Every year in this world there is a big national endurance contest/event in which a large group of teen/young adult boys (300 or so?), all of them volunteering, vie to be the single victor who wins wealth and fame. The rules are simple but comprehensive (and I think beautifully conceived and laid out by Stephen King). You walk. There are no breaks, no excuses, you just walk. A minimum speed is enforced. Eating and drinking are done on the fly. I forget exactly how bathroom breaks work out (also on the fly?), but basically, if you lag or stop long enough you get flagged. If you get flagged 3 times within a short enough time frame you are on the spot, summarily, executed, shot in the head actually. Last person walking wins.

Do you begin to see why this is macabre? I am the main character in the story. Clerking for decades is the long walk. Shelving, checking in, registering cards, ordering supplies, helping people, coming in day after day, I am walking, the long walk. Other co-workers are out on this endless walk with me. They are always there, separate but on the same walk. Sometimes I walk with them awhile, sharing life stories, dreams, irritations, small talk, sometimes they drift off ahead or behind awhile, but always I'm aware of them. In some sense, horrible or not, we are always together. And when one of these co-workers moves on, liked or disliked, essential to the happiness of my work life or a constant irritation to me (or, more usually, somewhere in-between), when they quit, when they find some other job, when they move or when they retire, it's just exactly like they've stopped walking, like their blisters started bleeding and became too painful, or they were suffering horrible cramps, or even like it all got to them and they just didn't care anymore and so they sat down in the middle of the road, got flagged 3 times, and then got shot in the head. Over.

And I just keep walking. And they're not there anymore.


That is a seriously dark vision. This reality of my job is not actually, normally that dark. And these disappearing co-workers of mine are not generally dying. Often they're moving on to at least somewhat happier, better situations, occasionally not, but it is very rarely something tragic that is driving and defining their end here. Often, I suppose, they're off on some other long walk, just one that's not my own. And if they visit, come back, say hi, I am delighted to see them. But it's never the same. They don't work here and so they're on free time. They're like bystanders in the long walk, watching the event but uninvested. They may remember what it was like, but things change constantly and all this stuff, tiny social things, work rule change minutiae, only has weight when you're right there. Walking the long walk. They can go catch a movie or go home or plop in a chair and read. I can't. And all these other clerks here are walking too, until they stop, like the visitor did. And the corpse of their clerking is dragged away. But that corpse is already behind me, because I keep walking.

"It was so nice to see you. Come by again." I say if I like them, but that's all the time I have now. I have to get to the front desk, or go shelve these books, or get that phone. I have to keep walking. I have to keep walking and walking and walking.

Not so funny and only barely interesting anecdote that I tell you at risk of being mushy

So I am shelving some large type Romances and an octogenarian down the aisle from me is perusing our very thin collection of Western large type books. I get this feeling he doesn't know about our regular size print, somewhat thicker collection of Westerns. I don't believe in totally unsolicited intrusions, but we catch each others' eye and say "Hey."  This seems to be a bit of an opening.

"Do you only want large type?" I ask "Do you know we have a section of regular Westerns?"

He visibly perks up at this. No, he didn't know about the other section. I offer to show him and he invites me to lead him there.

I have already registered that this man, while seeming well enough, needs to walk very, very slowly. So, in leading him to our richly arrayed row of Westerns I walk as slow as I can possibly walk, which to me is more like standing and moving a bit, but I soon see I am leaving him behind so I slow down. He apologizes for needing to go so slow. I say I really don't mind, that they pay me hourly and so I am making more money this way. He expresses that he can see the truth of that. We arrive at our destination and he is happy with the wall of Westerns. I return to my shelving.

I really truly 96% don't mean for this to be any kind of self-aggrandizing. I just wanted to tell you that this little kind of thing is my very favorite part of my job. I don't know exactly how to say what this "kind of thing" is, except it's this. And it makes me happy. I don't know, maybe only for 5 or 10, or 30 seconds, but it makes me happy.