Refgrunt for an evening

You can't find Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet In Heaven on the shelf because all our copies are checked out. Would you like to be on the hold list? Audiobook or printed edition? (Patron was looking at audiobook catalog record but wanted printed copy.)

Telephone call: Do we have The Circadian Prescription, by Sidney MacDonald? No, but other libraries in the network do. Would you like to place a hold?

Teen Summer Reading Program Chaos! Four teenagers simultaneously descend on reference desk with reading lists to collect prizes, raffle tickets, etc. Parent and daughter seem not to understand restriction of one grand-prize raffle ticket per participant.

ChattyGuy stops by to discuss his latest intelligence coup.

Parent of two teenagers suggests that I should flee to the juvenile area the next time her brood stops by.

ChattyGuy stops by to discuss the Khmer Republic embassy and UPS.

Series-Reader says he remembers a series where all the books are named after states. It's Wagons West!, by Dana Fuller Ross, pseud. Noel Gerson. Thank goodness for my gluttonous and indiscriminate habit of reading my parents' discarded paperbacks back in the 1980s. He seems satisfied with the description in Sequels : an annotated guide to novels in series.

Public typewriter is out of correction tape. No one knows where it can be found.

Elderly lady wants an ID card. Not a library card. "They said on the radio I could get one at the library." Doesn't remember which radio program or station. Refer her to the local office of the Secretary of State.

Circulation staff has located typewriter correction tape. I eventually figure out how to install it without benefit of instructions.

"If I print something, how do I know it printed the whole thing?"

Typewriter is broken again. No printing ribbon. No one can find spares.

Yes, we have Coming to America.

Teen Summer Reading Program raffle tickets.

ChattyGuy approaches desk happily smiling, carefully enunciates the name of this organization, grins, chuckles, and goes back to his computer. He seems to think I know why this is funny.

"Where do I return books?"

"Where's the restroom?"

ChattyGuy: "How much is IBM going for?" The answer inspires him to chat some more.

Swiss Family Robinson on video? It's checked out. Place a hold?

Telephone caller wants to critique library website. Refer her to webmaster's mailto link.

Bone, by Jeff Smith. But he wants Book 9. Sorry.

Two girls want to check out local history materials for a school report. One of them has a history of a nearby city in hand and expresses great interest in the subject. I get warm fuzzy feeling that it's all worth while after all.

Warm fuzzy feeling is disrupted by loud, staticky burst of sound from young-adult area as someone figures out how to activate speakers on public internet terminal.

Dragonball Z, volume 4.

"Where's the bathroom?"

Teen Summer Reading Program raffle tickets.

Princess Mononoke? The DVD is checked out. Would you like to put it on hold? Meanwhile, we have a book about the movie.... Querent is appreciative. Warm fuzzy feeling returns.

Querent wants CD set of Great Ideas of Philosophy. (Bully for him!)

Turn off computers, turn off lights. Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

Late update: Woman in parking lot intercepts departing library staff and asks them if they can retrieve a very important document she accidentally left near one of the internet terminals. Return to building. Turn off burglar alarm. Walk through dark building to internet terminals. Retrieve very important document, which appears to be a shopping list. Turn on burglar alarm, leave building, deliver important document to its rightful owner, who is duly appreciative. And so to bed. (Or at least toward the general vicinity of same, twenty miles away.)