From the time the door unlocks until it locks again at the end of the day the library drives the moments for self away. I need to write a blog entry, and have two requests for information, twenty-two Interlibrary Loan requests to search for and find, new books on the way, emails to answer and a four man crew to watch over and train.  I am lucky to have the crew, or I wouldn’t be able to process the circulation of items and the patron requests. When I consider working in a Public Library, and I do sometimes, I only have to be reminded that I was a bit bored there and the hours dragged on certain days.  I get dragging days here only when there is no movement and I have finally caught up on my work, which happens so infrequently I don’t remember the last time.

At the McNeil Island Corrections Center branch Library we started the week with the last day of the previous month, which means reports and data to compile. I lose an inmate clerk on Monday because he took out his anger on another inmate in the Unit, a chapel porter, and rumor has it he got the first punch in, but after the table turned over and they got on the floor without room to move around the porter cleaned up on him. Prison humor, sorry. They both ended up in F unit Seg, and by Wednesday I had picked some thick Historic novels for his reading, twenty-three hours alone is twenty-two too much for one’s mind. I can’t start the hiring process until his hearing and the judgement is given. His chances of staying in Minimum Custody and on McNeil Island are very slim. I did the inmate clerk payroll on Tuesday and turned it in, everyone will get something for their best efforts last month, less than forty-five dollars and more than thirty.

Three inmate clerks mean that we barely kept ahead of the patrons, and seem to have lost control of at least four items, don’t know if they were improperly checked out, but they aren’t where they should be. I suspect I have a frazzled circulation clerk that isn’t looking at the computer screen because he has too much going on and there are more big ugly guys waiting for his attention. It is important to check that screen, we are about to receive sixty-one CDs and they will be hot items. The first CD we had was gone in about thirty minutes and no one let on that it had arrived. Our audit by the Corrections Oversight team was published and I made sure that my supervisors had a copy to feel very good about, I printed a copy for my historical record. I am identified as Earl Dungey Librarian (which I am not, but Library Keeper is too special for publication).

On Thursday my supervisor visited and was distracted by the amount of Reference material behind the circulation counter, so she weeded, and I ordered up to date replacements, withdrew old and ugly stuff, and discussed future purchases. I have less that six hundred dollars to spend and three hundred of it is in the current book cart with Baker and Taylor. She also approved my last book cart and it will go through Acquisitions. I was thinking as I wandered the library looking at books, that our Westerns are worn and weak, they just don’t write enough of them any longer – well, the traditional ones – cowboy or gunslinger rides horse saves ladies in distress and then rides off.. we seem to have too many of the “urgently romantic” men without honor on the shelves now. What I would love to see is somebody donating Leatherbound Louis Lamour and Zane Grey to our shelves. I am sure someone out there bought them and has out lived them. I do live in a fantasy world, don’t I?

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