On due date cards....

Having recently procured an unopened package of date due cards for an as yet unrealized library art project, this story of petty theft dealing in such used items made me smile knowing that the object is not just of beauty to those of us who grew up with the card's utilitarian purpose, but that the cards continue to be valued and a source of delight and mystery for the young.

No memory....

Apparently our computers at work don't have enough memory for me to download the 2 minute videos the kids made off my digital camera. So all this talk about getting Flip cameras and whatnot...why bother? Also, I really hope my internet at home is up and running because I'm dying to hear the audio and see what ones I can actually put online, we kinda ventured into South Park territory with the yo mama jokes.

things i wish were easliy communicated before someone asks for a guest card

1. How much it costs to print
2. If they need a disk to save, download or send attachments
3. How much time the card is good for
4. If the library sells disks or not
5. The printing procedure
6. How the computers are numbered
7. What features are disabled on the computer
8. If one-on-one computer help is available
9. What accessories can and can't be used with the computer
10. How the notification system works to assign computer time
11. If the library can make change or not

Some of these are rare problems, others I'm sure librarians encounter every day. Number two was the only one on my mind when I decided to make this list, but the otther nine came quickly. I mean ten.

Heavy Usage

Trying to find the catch in a search and win website, I was surprised this made it past their lawyers;

"Doing a ton of searches and/or clicking on search results will in no way increase your likelihood of winning. "

A ton of searches? How much does a search weigh?

you know you're a librarian when...

So I can't drag and drop pictures in Flickr organizer at the library. So much for using downtime to organize my 15,000 photos and tagging them.

I worry how the poorly sorted and tagged images reflect on me as a professional information manager. Moreso than the thousands of pictures proving I stay out past my bedtime to see bands.

Battle of the Codemonkeys

I'm entering in the registrations for our summer reading program right now, and if there is a duplicate registration, the most technical database error message possible pops up. Of course my 14 year old volunteer had no idea what a key is, or a "System ArgumentException, or why he should "review the stacktrace" to find an error. Can't it just say "sorry, this person is already in the database"?

What I love is his reponse to all this. After I literally decoded the message, he said: "oh, it's written by code monkeys!"

Yeah, I thought those were cute and cuddly until it came out of his mouth, but what a great insult for a fourteen year old to use!