Day Twenty

This day started off pretty crazy. A school group of about 30 special needs children showed up unexpectedly for storytime. Apparently they were scheduled to come visit the library last month, but had to cancel due to weather, and as far as Janet, the head librarian in the children's department, was aware, they never rescheduled -- they just decided to show up yesterday. I don't know if that's really true, but it made for an exciting storytime! Plus, Mr. Ming, the man who plays the guitar and sings songs was back for storytime, so all in all everyone seemed to have a good time, we just weren't expecting that many children! One of the girls came up and gave me a hug at the end, so that was really sweet. I always love it when that happens!

After storytime, I sat at the reference desk. While Tonya, the librarian at the desk, was away helping another patron, I got to help the father of one of the kids who regularly shows up for storytime find a book he was searching for. I looked up the book in the catalog, and found it. It was tricky, though, because it was formatted like a picture book, but because it was 130 pages long, it was shelved with the J Fiction rather than the picture books. If I would have just looked at the book, and not at its call number, I would have been looking in the wrong spot! The father seemed very appreciative, and understood that I was learning, so he was very patient with me, as well.

After I took my lunch, I got to go upstairs and observe the TIPS service that is offered through the Main Branch of DPL. TIPS is a service that receives reference calls from patrons. It was interesting to see how busy it was! Most of the calls were about the tax service the library offers to help you get your tax forms together, as it is tax season. It was also interesting to note, because the librarian had to record the statistics for each call, that all of the callers in the hour that I was there were female.

After I got back to the Children's Library it was relatively quiet, and not much happened for the rest of the day. It was still an exciting day, overall, however.