b l o g o s

obsessive much?

This week OFL has been staffing the stacks entry station. On Wednesday, she looked at my i.d. card and said "oh yes, it's Mona Lisa smile again," referencing our last conversation. As I cranked through the turnstile today, she held on to my i.d., staring at it. Then she drew a deep breath: "If you ever get your new i.d., you should see if you could save that picture." She made careful scissor motions with her fingers around the blurry shot. I told her I'd save it for her, and I was a little surprised when she looked at me like I was such an idiot and handed it back to me.

"No," she said, "you need to give it to your mother. We love those kinds of things." I didn't bother to mention that MY mother prefers photographs with discernible images. Instead I returned the sympathetic look from the other librarian who has to work with her all. day. long.

OFL on my id card (again)

My university i.d. card is so faded that yesterday a librarian (not OFL, but the down-to-business English woman with glasses on a chain) cheerfully told me that I ought to consider picking up my new i.d. card with all the shiny security trappings. She told me this while she was manually entering my library number because the scanner couldn't detect the bar code.

Today, though, OFL was running the stacks entry. When I presented my card to her, she stared at it for 20 seconds or so. And then:

OFL: It kind of reminds me of the Mona Lisa.
Me, a little bored, a little flattered, having never been compared to something so, well, classy: Oh yeah?
OFL, sighing: No one knows if it's the paint that makes her yellow or if she was anemic. What do you think?
Me: I'm going with hepatitis.
OFL, getting up to go back to circulation, calling back over her shoulder: Some say she was pregnant. But that's probably just somebody starting a crazy rumor.

OFL on being a librarian

It's been awhile since I've seen Our Favorite Librarian (OFL), and so I was delighted when she wandered over to the stacks desk to discharge my book today. When she did, though, she was a little confused about who was already being helped (me or the other woman standing in front of the other computer terminal at the stacks desk), and this slight confusion produced today's topic of conversation.

But first OFL gave me her sly look. It's hard to describe, really, but her eyes widen a little, and her head moves slightly to one side, and she gives a little closed mouth half smile, and I know it's coming: OFL is going to let me in on a little secret. Then she said, "I always tell people that being a librarian is like having twins." Just like that. She stopped her utterance as if what she meant is obvious.

Not having had twins before, and thinking that this may be good OFL on blogos material, I pressed a little. In response, her arms started flailing, her head swiveling (think the robot dance circa 1980s) and she explained to me that a librarian has to keep track of who got left where and in what process because transactions are always getting interrupted--it's the definition of library work apparently--and so the resumption of an in-progress activity becomes key. I helpfully added that we patrons also all look alike, and she agreed, launching into a tale about how people expect her to remember them when they see her at the mall.

When I left, I wanted to say "bye mom!" but I got interrupted, because another librarian was approaching me to search my bag.

OFL on pharmacological shock therapy

I spent upwards of 15 minutes with OFL this morning, largely because two of the books I was checking out had not been checked out since 1982, which was apparently before the U of I library went to computer database. So there was no scanning tag for my two volumes from the Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series, a title that made OFL lean in to me and whisper loudly, back of her palm to her cheek, "from the age of this book I can only think of PMS."

When she opened one of the volumes to see the title--The Pharmacological Shock Treatment of Schizophrenia-- she shrugged and said, "I guess it's more natural than drugs."

After the scan tag got straightened out, we moved on to actually discharging the books. I didn't mention this to OFL, who was detailing the seven dwarves garden troll set she is planning for her sister's birthday next year, which will be on 07-07-07, but the due stamps for these two books happen to be my very own birthday. 

OFL on puppy dogs and library books

Anyone who has had a puppy can identify what happened to the book pictured at left. And apparently anyone who has worked at a library can too. This damage was incurred months ago, when Tillie was still eensie (though big enough to clamber to the top of my desk and discerning enough to find the call number tag quite tasty). I've just been blithely renewing the book, which happens to be from a library other than ours. But this week, its time was up: my online request for renewal was denied.

I decided to seek the advice of our librarians beginning of course with the circulation desk, and our favorite librarian (OFL). Because of OFL's tendency to go on about things (a tendency well documented here at blogos), when I saw from the front of the line that she was wrapping up with her current patron, I stuffed the book in the bag clutched underneath my arm and decided to explain the problem, thus avoiding the shameful moment of showing OFL the book itself.

OFL: "Can I help you?"
ME: "Uh, yes. I have a library book from another library that has been accidentally damaged, and I was hoping I might get some advice about what to do."
OFL (uncharacteristically businesslike): "Let me make a phone call."
[makes phone call; returns]
OFL: Okay, if you follow the yellow tape on the floor (?) you'll find Stuart, and he'll be able to advise you."
Me: "Thank you!" [turn to leave, and then--]
OFL: "One time we had a book chewed up by a puppy dog, and (shakes her head, looking down) there wasn't much we could do."

[Insert sound of 'Debbie Downer' skit from SNL.*]

So I slunk along the yellow tape to Stuart who took the book in his hands, turned it over once, and asked simply, "new puppy dog?"

[*Oh, what the heck, insert a Debbie Downer video.]

Katka on OFL

Thanks to K for letting me post this email gem on blogos:

"Never, never bring a baby near OFL.  She starts doing this bird- chirpy thing with her mouth.  She asks questions about your husband's  physiognomy. She holds your books while she tells absurd stories  about comedians you've never heard of  that have no bearing on even  your due stamp.  Luckily I was saved by firemen, literally, who  needed to get into the stacks to check on something."

OFL on my due stamp

I told y'all she could do it.

Guess when OFL's daughter's wedding anniversary is? May 17, which just so happens to be the same date my Teubner edition of Aphthonius's Progymnasmata is due back at the interlibrary loan office.

According to OFL, her daughter had a lot of nerve to get married right around the time that so many people graduate or retire.

After hearing her entire May gift list, I feel grateful that I only need worry about returning my slim little volume.

OFL on my ethnicity, among other things.

Over the weekend I nearly broke my University ID card--this morning it was barely hanging together--and so I had to get a replacement before it snapped in two and jeopardized all the copy money I have stashed on there. This of course meant getting a new ID photo made. Which was fine by me because I loathe the broken photo which makes my cheeks look so damned pink and circly. I've always had remarkably (and almost embarrassingly) rosy cheeks, and I'm sad to report that this new i.d. photo is even worse than the broken one: it really looks like someone took a barbie pink digital airbrush and made a little dot on each side of my face. I'm a little horrified, but who ever looks at the picture anyway? I ask myself.

Answer: OFL. The first of many things out of her mouth this (rather warm) afternoon upon looking at my ID card: "You must be Irish to look like you have roses in your cheeks."

Ah yes, my favorite librarian. I'm sure my autonomic response made the real roses blaze even more. She pressed, "Am I right?" And so I relented that yes, my mom was a Fitzgerald. "Oh! like Honey Fitz and Rose Kennedy."

The new ID card unfortunately had to go through reprocessing at the library, so OFL and I had lots more time to chat, though I was relieved when part of that processing meant she had to make a phone call--i.e., chat with someone else. These ID numbers must have some logic, because the phone processor guessed the new part of mine, and she exclaimed that he was good with numbers. She then asked him if he had any lottery numbers for her and then went into a long explanation about why now would be a good time to win the lottery. Then in the middle of telling him how much the lottery was up to, or maybe when she was talking about a car repair she needed, she let the phone fall just a little, and stared at me in cold disbelief.

"He hung up."

OFL on . . . Burke! (sort of)

Popped into the grad stacks today to grab a first edition of Burke's Attitudes Toward History (vol. 2), which if you don't know already is (like the first edition of Permanence and Change) very small and drab-olive with two red stripes of different thickness (though both kind of thin) criss-crossing on the lower left side. I've always thought the red had some communist significance, given Burke's early membership in the Party. Significant or not, OFL (aka Our Favorite Librarian) did not like the book's design one bit.

She held up the book to show me, wrinkled her nose, shook her head slowly, and said, "One plaid. Now whose idea was that?"

I shrugged and said something about how it's from the 30s, and she speculated that since it was the Depression, there must have been an ink shortage.

And then, no kidding, she launched into rhyme.

At this point, I'd thankfully located my pen and was able to write it down, and anyone who knows OFL knows she didn't notice that I was recording what she said, which was apparently her mother's mantra during the 30s, and subsequently for the better part of OFL's childhood:

"Use it up/Wear it out/Make it do/Or do without."

And then she added, unaware of the clashing prosody:

"or make it yourself."

And presented me with the newly stamped and desensitized little volume.

OFL on my hat

Back at the library today, and Our Favorite Librarian (OFL) actually spoke to me while I was being helped by another librarian. The subject--object?--this time, was my hat. This hat, a brown houndstooth hat with a little pearl-dotted houndstooth flower on the side is probably the most stylish hat I own at the moment. 

"That looks comfy."

I responded with a pensive (or maybe perplexed) look, and OFL added, "and warm. It looks warm."

Truth is, the hat in question, which I was forced to buy at a Pittsburgh boutique along with a matching bag because I liked the bag so much (I try not to sport the two together because it makes me look like I'm trying to be francais), is neither comfy nor warm: it leaves my ears exposed and presses onto my forehead, making it itch. But in the library the itchiness was nicely translating into heat, so I nodded--"oh yes, it's definitely warm." OFL, looking satisfied, returned to organizing the hold shelf.