News from the other side

The Library starship Heart of Gold has set down in it's new port of call and it is good.

With the exception of a few boxes and small items still left in my trunk, I've finished moving. The aforementioned moving party/book sale of greatness/birthday madness/medical fun has now ended and I can finally breathe a bit. It being the end of the month, and a moving month at that, my checkbook cannot say the same. But c'est la vie.

It seems like forever since I've worked at my library. I only get one day a week there, working at the reference desk. But it is always the highlight of my work week. Today I helped patrons with computer problems and quandaries accessing the library's Special Collection room.

My favorite part was trying to find a book for a patron about the Lincoln County War that is not all about Billie the Kid. She originally approached the Information desk requesting the location of a biography of Billie the Kid, because sadly our library does not seem to own the only book I could find on the war itself. Our Biographies are shelved as an item type rather than within Dewey. So, all the call numbers start with B and then the name of the subject of the biography (i.e. B Newton, Sir Isaac or B Mercury, Freddy). The patron did not know this. But the interesting part was that this biography was listed under B Billy the Kid, prompting a discussion of both taxonomy and aliases.

It turns out that the patron is a voracious reader, but like many of us she had little in the way of resources for Suggested Reading. I offered to show her some book lists, but she had already seen most of them. NoveList was new to her though. So I had a fun time showing her, and her father the Read-Alikes section and Sort By options. They were both thrilled. But a stern discussion over home internet access ensued. I offered them passes for the library computers, but it seemed to be the principle of the thing.

I was also able to introduce her to both LibraryThing and Goodreads. I told her that for her purposes these services could act like Facebook for book lovers. She asked if the members of the sites were snooty. She was nervous they would make fun of her for her taste in books. I told her that, while there are snooty people everywhere, the sites work to link readers with similar tastes in literature. They provide book suggestions based on what members are reading and what other members reading the same books also like, among other services. So, snootiness should be kept to a minimum. I really liked this patron. It was one of those interactions that makes up for every patron complaining about too little time on the computers, or wanting others to be quiet.