"Can I Leave?"

I had quite the interesting experience as a patron quietly approached me. She had just been given her new library card and she had used it to get onto the internet.
She came to me after and asked, "Is it okay if I leave now? I didn't check anything out."
It took me a second to follow her logic. What I finally figured out was that she thought that she couldn't leave the library without at least checking one item out. I almost said "no, you need to check something out," but I refrained and explained to her as simply as I could that using her card was completely optional.
If only all of our patrons thought that you had to check something out everytime you came to the library. We'd have a lot more books coming in and out, and I'd have a lot more job security. ;)

"I Need Books!"

So I was just minding my own business at the library, trying to shrug off and avoid all the political questions run my way, when a little boy approaches me and in desperation says, "I Need Some Books!"

I smiled. It was nice to have a question I could answer without losing my job. I pointed all around me to all the stacks and stacks of books. He looked around, thanked me with a nod of his head and ran off.

Wow, my job is so simple.

"I Have to Do My Homework"

Today was a phenomenon.
We have teenagers here all day everyday after school complaining that they are bored. They don't want to read so we give them other activities to do. LIke today, we had these Professional Pumpkin Carvers come in to show off thier work. Which was very impressive. They even made a pumpkin with a kid reading just for our library! Well, we invited all the kids to go and check it out. And they mostly said, that's boring. And then to make it even more frustrating, they would say 5 minutes later, "I'm bored." ... Teenagers....
Well, one kid came in and made me proud of the teenage world again. I invited him as he came in to the pumpkin carving extravaganza. And he actually said this, believe it or not, "No, I can't today. I have to do my homework." What!? I was so impressed, and doubtful, that I check on him periodically and yes, he was actually doing his homework. Maybe I should tell the kids that are bored to do thier homewrok since they seem to like it more than pumpkin shows...