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The second annual Day in the Life of a Library was this past week. Since I don’t work on Mondays, I’m recording mine again on a Saturday (August 1, 2009).

• Signing up out of town patron for computer use.
• Phone call for past week’s lottery numbers.
• Reference question for a friend on Facebook regarding estrogen and memory.
• Co-worker found a 1980s children’s book series for my friend.  Since our library doesn’t own them, I am interlibrary loaning the titles for their child, so they can read the books their parent enjoyed as a child.
• Email: Troubleshooting library account problems for a homebound patron.
• Phone: “What time is the children’s Tie Dye program?” [It was listed incorrectly on our events calendar; I quickly updated that.]
• LOTS of holds placed over the phone.
• Tabulating July statistics for our email Ask a Librarian service.
• Removed unapproved literature from community information tables.
• Update display wall: take down July children’s events calendar, put up a “Everybody’s Chicken Out Books”
• Report problem to IT: bing.com is not saving Safe Search settings, will only accept Strict option.
• “Where are large print books?”
• Email: “Do you have this forthcoming fiction title?”  I can’t find any record of the title about which they are asking.  I emailed back to see if they wanted the one listed as upcoming on the author’s Web site.
• “Can I get this book from Reshelve?”
• “Where can I get a library card?”  (Always lots of these…)
• I’ve been taking Library 101 photos for Michael Porter and David Lee King’s video project; will see what I can do today.
• ACT study guides
• Help with PIN
• “Can I have that poster when you take it down?”
• Phone: Questions about our digital sender which scans documents/photos to email.  (They later came in and I helped them use the scanner.)
• “Where is a photocopier?”
• No longer need a book that is being held at a branch.
• Phone: Need a hold transferred to a branch for pickup.
• Book from Storage collection not available.  We did have a (non-circulating) copy in another department.
• Chat with regular teen patrons.
• Definition of a specific legal term.
• Email question about a book review publication.
• Lottery lookups for regular patron.
• Phone: looking to see if a particular movie is in.  The entertainment movies can not be placed on hold, so we get many calls for people checking on shelf status.
• “Do you have X Box games?”
• Study guides for middle school math.
• Phone: book from storage sent to a branch.
• Phone numbers of music stores at the local mall.
• Study guides for math. (Yes, another one.)
• Questions about issuing a card and what a person’s legal name is.
• Phone: Actor’s date of birth.
• Inebriated patron.
• Help with PIN.
• Email: How to place holds on specific magazine issues.
• “Wicked”.
• Where do I pick up my holds?
• Email: Problem signing in for downloadable audiobooks.
• Phone: Where is the library?
• Phone: Question about whether a branch is open on weekends in the summer.
• Where is the closest ATM?
• [At 5 minutes to close]: I need a library card and this book…

*The views, opinions, and judgments expressed in this post are solely those of the author.