Anonymous again

It will come as no surprise to most of you that I have decided to stop updating this blog, since I haven't updated the damn thing in a month, anyway. When I began using Twitter to post my more entertaining refdesk moments I thought it would free the blog for incisive commentary. Obviously I have none to offer.

However, I am going one step further. I will no longer post to Twitter under my current name. Oh, I'll probably invent a new name and keep tweeting (It's fun!) but I'll only let a few people know.

I want to be anonymous again. Ref Grunt was an anonymous blog until the book was published (though word had got out sooner than I thought: I subsequently learned that one admin had already been talking about my blog in seminars, which I find discourteous to me. Surely I should be the one who outs my blog). When the book came out I was worried about the reaction here, but the only thing my library did was buy a copy. I'm grateful that no one here has ever told me to stop, or tell me what I could or could not say on Ref Grunt. No one's even grumbled. The only reaction were coworkers telling me how funny they think it is. I know well that in other places I could have easily been warned or even dooced by now.

But they ARE reading it. More and more it's making me uncomfortable.

The original Ref Grunt was a way for me to laugh and comment on my refdesk absurdities, and to my surprise it struck a chord with other librarians. Maybe because I was just another reference librarian, somewhere, doing the same chores, scratching my head over the same odd questions they got.

I'm beginning to think I can't do that anymore if my library knows it's me. So it's toodle-oo to Ref Grunt and "Peterburd." I'll be tweeting again soon. Hope you figure out it's me.

In the Evening

I know I've twittered this information, but for the rest of you I'll say that our new reference desk setup, stuck amongst the public terminals, sucks. I repeat, it sucks.
Deaf sentence, by David Lodge.
Ranma #13.
The verbally abusive relationship, by Patricia Evans.
Guest pass.
Shut up!
Websites to help kids move up to their grade level, in Spanish.
At least it's quiet tonight, apart from three kids I repeatedly tell to shut up.
Printer advice.
Quit horsing around (the kids from before).
Do we participate in NetLibrary?
She lost her library card.
Wow, it's TOO slow tonight ... It was hardly worth posting. Sorry.

I suppose you have to take it somewhere. Some guy I never saw figured that a corner of our quiet library stacks was the perfect place to ... release.

But I, weeding the biographies, heard his desperate shout:

"OBAMA WON!"

Nothing more.

He sounded really pissed.

My Importance

I thought I worked the evening, so came in at noon, but I had misread the schedule. In other words, I wasn't at work this morning when I should have been.

No one noticed.

Busy Afternoon

Friday afternoon was tough. Not only were we working with the local community college's new influx of naive students, new to serious research and often new to computers, but the schools had a half-day so loud kids were filling the place up early. And it was raining, so people who might have wanted to leave chose not to. We were running all over the place.

At 3:15, a surprise: the Head Techie came out and told us that we have a major network issue, so we'd be shutting down the public computers in fifteen minutes. No news on whether we'd be back up soon. We went to each table and told everyone, apologizing, "Save your work," etc., and the computers went down at 3:30.

The library emptied out. What had been an annoying, humid stressful afternoon turned quiet and peaceful. Big noise to near silence, except from the cries of disappointment when newcomers came in and found us down. I tracked down the occasional book. Dark fantasy stuff. Gang stuff. That was about all.

It was a relief, especially since I was on my seventh straight day of work! But I feel kind of bad for being happy. Yes, it could not be avoided and we still helped people, but we might have screwed over someone's work big time, though no patron had a crisis I know of.

Hell with it. I was relieved. Sorry if some patrons weren't.

In the Afternoon

Salesmanship books.
Crying baby.
"From rage to reason," by Janet Langhart Cohen. (Over the phone. "I ... just ... can't ... find ... my ... card ... anywhere ...")
Computers are over there, sir.
She calls back with her barcode, but I've already found it.
"Yes, or no," by Spencer Johnson.
Some year's best horror anthology series.
I can't notarize that, sir.
Coworker: "My husband started making fun of me because I hit like a girl. So I kicked him in the nuts."
She has a lot of bees in her backyard, and she wants to "contain" them.
His computer froze.
"We are not forgotten," by Joel Martin.

In the Evening

Kama Sutra.
How we do faxes.
Community service.
Dog breeds.
I replace printer toner.
She gets upset because I won't let her jump in the Internet queue.
Bathroom's over there, sir.
And another one gets upset because her reservation expired.
A third one wants a specific machine.
A fourth one begs for more time so she can finish filling out a form, but her machine crashes anyway.
Copier's over there, ma'am.
A child screaming in the stone stairwell resonates and sounds like a bad horror movie.
The first Chronicles of Narnia movie.
The Bluford High series.
Bachata.
Printer jam.
Get off that machine, kid.
"Exit here," by Jason Myers.
Sure you can use the computer, kid. Just get a library card.
Chicken soup for some kind of soul or another.
Click, don't double-click, kid.
I clear up a half-dozen computer problems.
Our computer class schedule doesn't fit his, and it's our fault.
And a half-dozen more.
"I STILL can't log in."
Purple Loosestrife, killer bees, European black currents and some species of moth that hung out with Mennonites.
Sorry, I don't know how to download music to your MP3 player.
That's a library catalog, kid, not a place to visit Myspace.
Magnifying glass.
"Chocolate chip cookie murder," by Joanne Fluke.
The kid is BACK on the catalog trying to get to Myspace.
I let a guy use my machine to get his school notes off email.