An afternoon at the library

About every three weeks, I have the pleasure of working Saturday and Sunday at the library, which means watching and guiding the antics of families who like to visit us on the weekends. Yesterday afternoon, a four-hour shift, was pretty typical, and this is some of what happened and some of the requests I received.

• "Do you have a kids' book about an unhappy triangle?" (Turns out it's called "The Greedy Triangle, and no, we don't have it, although it's cool--a triangle that visits a shape-shifter to become a square, etc.)
• "Do you have a kids' book about a girl who eats lima beans? I read it in third grade. No, I don't remember anything else." (After visiting our catalog, Amazon, and finally Google, we identified it as _A Bad Case of Stripes_ by David Shannon. We have multiple copies, and there are lima beans on the title page!)
• "So I lost my reading program sheet. (I hand her a new one.) Well, no, I guess I left it at home. Can I have another one? (So, you left it at home but you know where it is?) Yes. (No, it's one per person [the prize is pizza].)" This particular interchange happened several times.
• "Do you have any books about fall? Any books about pumpkins? Any books about apples? I know I should have come earlier ... " (Do they realize we send books to over 70 preschool classrooms, most of which want fall books? Not to mention everyone else who comes in asking? I do really wish we could accomodate them....)
• "What section is the books for kids aged 5-12? (Well, you could start with picture books, then go to early readers, then the chapter books, and some 12-yr-olds read young adult books.) So they're all mixed in, then?"
• "Can I sign up for the computer? ... Someone else is on the computer and it's my turn ... The computer headphones are broken....."
• No running in the library! (That's me. As a rule, we don't shush people, but we do make them stop running. With so many little ones and toys underfoot, it's just not safe.)
• A young boy at the self checkout says to me, "I can read all 13 of these movies by 1 AM! I'll just stop for some energy drinks on the way home!"
• Plus any number of book and movie requests that I was more easily able to fulfill, all topped off by myself and a coworker spending a frantic 1/2 hour picking up all the toys, books, puzzles, lego pieces, etc. strewn across every conceivable surface while listening to multiple kids screaming their heads off (while banging their double strollers against the metal radiator) that they did NOT want to leave the library!!

I never feel like it's a wasted afternoon, that's for sure! :)