The Roach

We have a pair of brothers who are regular customers of the library. They are nice people, talkative, flirtatious and funny, but they aren't very clean. That's a very nice way of putting it. In fact, they're pretty gross. They often come in reeking of old urine and cigarette smoke. Recently, their smell has found its way onto the materials they borrow. One of their visits left us with about 10 DVDs that smelled like they were dipped a pee trough and left in the sun to dry. I had to seal them in a box after spraying them over with a product called Eliminator. After a day, I set them to air out. They returned to their regular, circulateable smell.
Then, one day, one of the brothers came in alone to return some materials and pick up his holds. We volleyed some banter about him putting my boyfriend in cement shoes so he can take me out on a date and me telling him If he killed my boyfriend, I'd be forced to kill him. While our chatter progressed, I noticed an insect on his jacket, which I was not surprised to see. What fly could resist the tantalizing scent of urine, fresh or old? But no! It was not a fly that followed him into the library, but a roach who hitched a ride, presumably from home. The damned thing crawled from inside the collar of his coat, down the front of the coat, lingered a bit there until he did the unthinkable: he crawled onto the counter and entered my world.
Now, this is me. I don't do well with roaches and spiders. I am also the same librarian who ran all the way across the library when, while weeding fiction, i discovered a spider was crawling up my arm (it was significantly sized and didn't look like a plain ol' spider, but something more viscous, and of course it was on my arm [above the elbow, nonetheless]).
I was frozen to the spot. The world disappeared and it was just me and the roach crawling on the counter. All I was able to do was signal to my coworkers, which was apparently indecipherable. Finally someone noticed the roach and smacked a magazine over it. My daze was broken.
After that, thank goodness, the conversation ended. He took his newly checked-out DVDs and left. Can't wait for the next visit!

Yahoo! Blog is No More

I don't know why, but I started a Yahoo! Blog not too long ago and I was posting stuff about work: art activities, books I really enjoyed, etc. I just went to go type up another post and found out that they are officially discontinuing blogs. Boo. So, now I'm doing what I should've done in the first place, posting them on my, now considered, perma-blog. Just in case you're curious, the Yahoo! blogs are in different fonts. Add a little curry powder, toss and enjoy.

Cool Find! Library of the Living Dead

I don't know about most librarians, but I'm always struggling to explain how the library works and how to use it to patrons and during class visits. Many people just don't get it. So, its always nice to find fun new ways to teach it. Case in point: Library of the Living Dead. A graphic novel that extols the library and briefly explains how to use it. Great for teens and those comic-loving kiddos.
http://blogs.mcpherson.edu/library/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Library-of-the-Living-Dead-Online-Edition.pdf