Deaf, Disgruntled Man

We have an elderly man that comes into our library almost every day. He is a little "muddled" in the head and virtually deaf. He cannot hear something unless you lean in close to his ear and almost shout it.

We have had numerous incidences where the man (believing since he can't hear anything that no one else can) will let out a stream of curse words VERY loud in the library. I remember one incident where he kept repeating "S---" and over again. Everyone can hear what he is saying and 20 heads usually turn to see where the choice words are coming from.

I dealt with him this week when trying to explain how much book sale items cost. He was confused about the "buy one get one free" deal we had going on. I told him repeatedly what the DVDs he had in his hand cost but he didn't seem to get it and people were staring as I virtually shouted at him : "Two dollars!" Not accepting the answer I gave him, he wandered off and began ranting (what he thought was under his breath) about how stupid our library was. Everyone on the staff heard it but being the professionals they are, the customer service staff brightly said to him as he checked out: "Have a good day!"

Influence of Movies

The other week was my last preschool storytime of the fall session. It was a dinosaur storytime and I had a flannel story with dinner species of dinosaurs. There was a T-Rex, diplodocus, stegosaurus, triceratops, and a brontosaurus. I asked the children what the name of the dinosaurs were when I held up their flannel counterparts. I've been surprised at the average three-year olds knowledge of dinosaurs, they love that stuff. This group could identify the T-rex and the triceratops with some prompting. When I held up the brontosaurus instead of the correct name they all shouted: "Long neck, long neck!" from the characters in Land Before Time. Even when told the proper name they continued to call the brontosaurus "long neck."

I have also never seen a child under six identify a clown fish as a clown fish. They all call them "Nemos." It goes to show how great the influence of movies are on television and how many hours they spend watching them.

Ninja for Hire

The other week we had a very special guest for anime club...a ninja! I found him online, his online ad said he was a "ninja for hire" and would do just about anything. I hired him not knowing exactly what to expect.

When I was sitting at my desk waiting for the ninja to show up, a policeman entered the library and asked for me. When I confirmed that I was that person, he said "There's a guy dressed in a ninja outfit with all these weapons in a car outside the library. He says he knows you. Is this true?" The policeman had a very concerned look on his face. I guess he thought the ninja was going to attack our library with his katana and shurikens. I confirmed that I did know the ninja and "Jon Ninja" came to set up.

Mr. "Jon Ninja" really did know his stuff. He knew ninja history, moves, information about weapons etc. The kids were in awe of him. For the activity I had all these cut-in-half pool noodles that they could use as swords. The ninja carefully taught the teens how to fight with them, showing them defensive moves etc. But when he let them loose they just walloped each other over the head.

Doing a lot with a little

Our library system gives each library a fixed amount of money for programming each year. I have had a lot of programs this year and found myself last month with four months to go in the year and about $200 left to spend. Some might think that was a lot but with storytimes, a teen anime club, a gaming club, after school club, teen programs, crafts, book clubs etc. that money goes fast.

I have been getting big crowds at my storytime this session. At each storytime I have a craft relating to the theme. So I have had to had to come up with crafts for 30 something kids each time for 8 weeks with practically no money. I am on the sixth week and I have successfully done it, with only spending about $20. I think that deserves an award or something. I can't even go to the grocery store to buy milk and get out spending less than $20.

The reason I'm able to do this so cheaply is simple. Preschoolers are very easy to please. You basically need paper and glue and they are happy as clams. The picture above is our last craft, a paper bear with some buttons on it I found in the back and clothes pins on the back (which are $1.50 for 50) to make the bear stand. Now if only I could entertain the teens with simple paper and glue...

Sharks and Minnows

I've learned with kids under the age of 8 you can't go wrong with pirates, (the kind with parrots on their shoulders, not the Somali kind.) This week I turned my pirate party I had in June (see June 2010) into an after school activity aimed at elementary aged. I did not have a pirate storyteller but instead included several pirate/aquatic-themed games.

One game we played was the classic "Sharks and Minnows." In this game one child is chosen as a shark and stands in the center of the room. The rest of the children are minnows and must cross to the other side of the room without being tagged by the shark. If the shark tags a minnow, that minnow becomes a shark. You play until there is one lone minnow left. I have a fairly large auditorium so I thought this game would be fun. We had about a dozen kids playing, ranging from 4-10.

Things were going fun until there were two minnows left, one tiny girl that can't have been older than five and one boy not much older than that. They were faced by ten exciting, shouting, and eager sharks. When I said "go" for the minnows to cross over to the other side, it was kind of like those nature shows where hyenas descend on a gazelle. Ten older kids jumped on these two little kids, saying "we got you", pushing them and herding them to the other side of the room. I was fearful one of them got hurt since the older kids were so excited. Fortunately no one was but I decided we were done with "Sharks and Minnows." After that we stuck to a game like Hot Potato, where it was less likely one could get run over.

Pick up the Buckets!

In some anime school dramas when a character misbehaves in school they are forced to hold up water filled buckets as punishment. Up until the 1970s teachers in Japan would discipline their students this way and it made its way into popular culture. The water bucket punishment is the equivalent to the "dunce cap" in Western cartoons.

I had my first anime club meeting this week and since my anime teens are very loud and crazy I thought a way to discipline them would be to use the bucket punishment. I brought two small buckets and filled them up with water and informed them (in a kindly manner) all at the beginning if there was misbehavior someone would have to hold the buckets. The teens thought this was very funny and immediately started competing to hold the buckets. Soon however, the girls found out the buckets were very tiring to hold and stopped but a couple of boys kept at it presumably to impress the ladies.

I only ended up using the buckets as punishment once when a girl did not get off our auditoriums piano... a big no no. I told her "pick up the buckets!" Then all the other teens picked up the chorus: "pick up the buckets!" She dutifully complied. I don't know if the water buckets had the intended effect I was looking for but they did provide some amusement.

I had a school group come in last week and I read them this book: Furious George goes Bananas by Michael Rex. It's a parody of Curious George where the "man in the hat" tortures George and makes him do all sorts of things for money. At the end of the book George throws the man into a space shuttle, jumps on the back of it and then as it blasts into space the ape parachutes down gently into the jungle. When I completed the book, one six year old girl earnestly said: "I don't think that parachute is big enough for George."

When she said that I thought to myself: So George building a skyscraper, performing on Broadway, outwitting the man in the hat and blasting off into space on the back of a shuttle didn't bother you...but the parachute..that was what did it. Sometimes the things kids say...

No Appreciation

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been taking a well-earned vacation.

This week I had a sand art activity. I ordered a sand art kit that had 50 bottles for the kids to make their own sand art bottle. I also had enough sand for them to make their own sand art picture with colored sand, markers and glue. I assumed that 50 bottles would be enough. Why would more than 50 kids descend on the library on a Thursday afternoon? Well, I was wrong. We were swamped. I ran out of bottles. I felt SO bad but how was I to expect so many. The last activity I had there were 30-something kids.

Most of the mothers were fine and gracious and happy doing the second sand art craft...except for one mom. I personally apologized to this mother and invited her to do the second craft. She refused and instead decided to rant to the reference desk about their not being enough bottles. Now I understand that if I made her pay a dollar for the bottle and it not be there for her to be that upset. But to complain about a FREE activity where she showed up 20 minutes late to I thought was unfair. How about a thank you for spending the money and time for having the activity at all?

Stealing from the Library

There is a DVD thief rampant in our library. We always have DVDs stolen but over the last couple of weeks there have been dozens taken from under our nose. We have suspicions but no suspects and so we have adjusted our security cameras to see if we can catch the culprits.

All libraries have thieves. There is not one branch that hasn't struggled with how to secure their property. I was having a conversation the other day about exactly WHY this happens. I think it's due to people's mindset about libraries. I think the people who will steal a dozen DVDs from a library would not even consider stealing them from Blockbuster. To them, stealing from a library is not really stealing because everything in the library is free. They are essentially permanently "borrowing" them.

I personally think stealing from a library is 10x worse than stealing from a Blockbuster. When you steal from a video store you are stealing from a massive corporation. When you steal from a library you steal from your neighbors who contributed the taxes to pay for that library. Everyone gets hurt when you steal from a library. I wish people could understand this, then we would have fewer thefts.

Pirate Party!

A couple of days ago I had a "Pirate Party" to celebrate our Summer Reading Program's theme of "Make a Splash" at your library. Kids love pirates, of course their idea of pirates are the Pirates of the Caribbean type not the Somali type but nonetheless they love them. I had a whole passel of kids, mostly boys out to the library and I had pirate names for each of them on name tags. I found a pirate name generator to come up with the names but I had to edit them because many of the pirate names it came up with were naughty like "Bessie Slovenly Wench."

First we had a pirate storyteller come out, Pamela Hanks, you can find her at this site. She dressed in full pirate regalia and had the pirate "accent" down.

Then we divided the group in half and half went on a treasure hunt around the library and the other half made pirate crafts. I made six different treasure hunts around the library leading the kids from clue to clue until they got a word which they would take to the Reference desk to get a bag full of goodies. Of course this led to kids running around yelling "there's the next clue!" and dragging their parents along. Devising 6 separate hunts with 9 different clues was quite a task and I don't plan on doing a treasure hunt again in the near future. The party was fun but I think this "Admiral Slovenly Wench" is going to take a break for a bit.

Bawling Babies

The library is supposed to be a quiet, serene, place. Not so. A day does not pass in my library where one child does not sit down in the middle of the floor and start screaming its head off. The screams of these children and babies are more than fits they are temper tantrums, angry bawlings and yellings that always happen to take place right in the middle of the library. This week I was sitting back in the staff room, far away from the main floor when I heard a piercing scream from behind the door. It sounded as if a tiger was mauling a young child. The screaming continued, increasing in intensity. Upon further questioning from my coworkers the incident started because a marker was taken away from this one toddler.

I understand that children and babies cry. It's in their nature. What I do not have tolerance for is their parents who sit with them for several minutes while they cry and cry trying to soothe them. It is clearly obvious to the dozens of people in the library that the parents soothing does not help the child as the screams become ever piercing. But the parent does not seem to understand this and thinks that if they just say the "right" words their child will turn into an angel again. What I want parents to do is as soon as their child starts screaming to take them OUTSIDE the library and then calm them down. It will make the library experience better for everyone. I wish I could make a sign that says this and every time a child starts screaming I could just point to it and motion to the door.

Verbal Judo

This week I attended a library conference down south where I presented two programs. One of them I co-presented with a colleague and friend of mine on the topic "Managing Teen Behavior." This is a subject that comes more and more into play nowadays with librarians dealing with teens adopting the library as a hang out place, and a place where they are left for hours until their parents come home. These teens are restless and bored and often cause problems for staff.

In our presentation we covered verbal judo, a tactical communication style used to generate compliance. Among the topics covered in verbal judo was "things never to say to a teen." Among them are "Calm Down", "You Never... or You Always...," "What's your problem?" and in my opinion one of the most used and awful of them all: "Because I said so." I am guilty of the "Because I said so" statement probably because it has been used on me. Whenever this statement is uttered the first response from a teen will be "why?" When you say "because I said so" you are not supporting your rules with logic and reason and thus will not gain any respect. After I studied these verbal judo techniques I made a promise to keep out "because I said so" from my vocabulary no matter how easy it is to say to an unruly teen.

Male v. Female Presence

Last week my anime club had its annual sushi activity. This year I invited the local high school's Japanese teacher, Cook Sensei, to show the kids how to make their own maki rolls and some bean curd thing that I cannot begin to spell. The kids were delighted and there were over 30 of them jumping and bouncing around, high on wasabi.

The noise level increased to a roar and after attempts to quiet them down with more reasonable tones I raised my voice to a loud shout above the din asking them all to listen to the sushi instructions. This quieted them down for like two minutes and then the roar increased to school lunchroom levels. Cook Sensei had had enough and with a huge, deep MASCULINE voice he said the same thing I did. This shut them up immediately and they stayed quiet.

I have noticed this same kind of reaction with the teens with my male manager. I will say the exact same thing to the teens, in the exact same tone but their response to my FEMININE presence is different than my manager's masculine one. The teens reacted to Cook Sensei the same way. People don't respond to female authority figures the same way men do. That's why no matter what I say to the teens I just won't get the same response.

Extravagant Mess

Last Friday I had my annual "Earth Day Extravaganza" where I have the kids essentially make things out of my trash. I have collected my toilet paper rolls, milk cartons and egg cartons for like the last six months for this thing and Friday over sixty kids descended to make some lovely crafts out of them and bottle caps and old magazines.

For one of the crafts we made bird feeders out of old milk jugs. Stupidly I kept out a big bag of bird feed for the kids to dump into their feeders. Of course you can imagine what happened: bird feed got everywhere. And bird feed does not come out of the carpet very well. One kid excitedly spilled bird feed in other parts of the library and my unhappy coworkers had to clean it up with a broom.

The place was an absolute disaster area after the more than sixty kids came to do their crafts. It took me, a coworker, a mother and three little helpers an hour to clean it all up. One thing I have observed in all the numerous activities I've done and the many messes I've made is that at the end of all these activities the white mothers and kids rapidly disperse with their crafts. However, it's the Hispanic mothers and children that stay to clean up. After the Earth Day Extravaganza a Hispanic mother and her three children, one toddler aged, stayed after a whole hour to help make the room spotless. I did not even ask her too, actually I repeatedly told her she did not have to help. If all kids were taught to help clean up like these children, messes like these would be cleaned up in ten minutes.

What was he thinking?

I do a baby/toddler storytime each week for caregivers and their little ones. It's a highly interactive experience where the attendees can't be afraid to sing along and look a little silly. Once in a blue moon I get a Dad to participate in these storytimes and I'm always happy to have them. However, I wasn't so sure about the Dad that showed up this week at my storytime.

He walked in, all tatooed, and on his shirt proclaimed the slogan: "Watch midget porn: it will make you feel larger." The mothers with their babies looked at this Dad warily out of the corners of their eyes and shifted in their seats. I think I saw one grip her toddler a little tighter. Now this Dad was great during the storytime and there were no further incidents.

However, afterwards, I asked myself: "What was he thinking?" When he was picking out his clothes in the morning did he say to himself: "Okay, well I'm going to a baby storytime, perhaps the midget porn T-shirt is most appropriate." I don't know what his thought processes were, I'm just glad none of the babies can read yet.

Draco!

Here is our library pet Draco hanging from his cage. I think he was doing some pull ups or something. He's a Chinese water dragon and all the kids that come in the library love to see him. He's so popular he even has his own Facebook page. (But then again, at this point who doesn't?) When he's not hanging from his cage Draco's favorite thing to do is eat crickets and sit around in his water bowl.

The Case of the Missing Magazines

Our library has a number of free magazines we give out to the public. Among these is one devoted to the local gay scene called Q. Last week we noted that our big stack of 30 plus copies of Q were missing. Typically we have very few of this magazine taken and I highly doubt that 30 something gay people came in individually to pick up a copy. We suspect that someone not very happy that we were carrying this magazine hauled them all off.

A few days ago scattered all over the table were copies of a Creationist Christian apologetic magazine. Looking inside one of those magazines I found that you can plan your own "creation vacation" among other articles. Now I'm wondering if the same person who took our Q magazines put out the Christian magazines.

It seems that some people are all for freedom of speech when it is their speech that is heard.

Spoiling Easter

I was having a four year old girl color some Easter die-cuts for me today that I was going to put up in the children's area. While she was coloring them I asked her: "So are you looking forward to the Easter bunny coming to your house?" The little girl turned to me and looked me straight in the eye and said "There is no Easter Bunny." I was surprised that someone her age would know that this great big bunny was just a great big lie. So I asked: "How did you hear about that?" She replied "My older brothers told me."

Those pesky older siblings, always ruining childhood fantasies like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I was talking to one coworker and she said her older siblings told her to fake believing in Santa Claus so they would all get more presents from the Kris Kringle. That is probably a better tactic for these siblings than spoiling the secret. I hope this little girl still gets her Easter candy from the "fake" Easter Bunny.

How much candy is in the jar?

A very easy activity I do with the kids in the library is a "guess how much candy is in the jar?" program. It's very simple: I fill a container with lots and lots of candy, put a box next to it and print out a lot of voting sheets and let the kids guess how much candy is in it. The closest guess wins the jar. I did it last summer and for Halloween and this time I did it for Valentine's Day.

I get very strange answers for my guessing activity. This time there were 843 pieces and the guesses ranged from 4 to 10 million. I'm not sure how 10 million pieces could have fit in that jar but apparently one kid thought they could. I had about 400 votes and the closest guess was 850 and when the winner came to pick up the jar his eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning. He was so excited.

I had one very disappointed kid though. He told me that he'd pay me "100 dollars" if I would just give him the candy. I told him he could buy more candy than that for 100 dollars. He didn't seem to understand this. I wonder how he would get a hold of a 100 dollars anyways. ...What kids will do for candy.

Blissful Silence

I had a local manga artist come to my anime club last week. Now I have to explain a couple of things about my anime club. I love these kids but these kids are hyperactive maniacs. They are so revved up that they run around and scream and jump up and down every time someone mentions their favorite anime character or squeal and hug each other five times every hour. In other words, they are typical energetic teenagers just let out of school.

I warned the manga artist that these teens are a little "excitable" and that she should just talk over them and not be offended if they don't pay attention. Yet I was shocked with their reaction to her presentation. They sat...and listened...and were quiet...and even TOOK NOTES. I had never seen them so quiet...EVER! They were so into her instructions on making manga characters and they asked questions too. Of course near the end of it chaos resumed but for 30 brief shining moments, I sat down and relaxed peacefully in blissful silence as for the first time the teens actually shut up.

Teen Hackers

A couple of weeks ago we discovered a group of teens looking at porn on our catalog computers. The thing is, there should be no way they can access the internet on those computers. We clicked around the catalog and tried to figure out how they did it. Finally, we discovered that someone ELSE had figured out how to get on the internet and if you clicked on this arrow it would give up a page history. On this page history was a porn site that had been accessed by the original hackers and the word had apparently spread among the teens that this particular catalog computer had a direct line to this porn site. We still don't know how they originally got on the site. Our tech guys haven't figured it out.

I was telling my husband about this the other day and I said that no filters, banning, rules, punishments or anything will keep a teen away from porn if they truly want to get to it. This is just another example of that. In some sense you have to admire their cleverness and fortitude. If only they would apply it somewhere else.

Felt Mascots Part Deux

I just recently added some more pictures to the slideshow. My anime club made felt mascots again a few weeks ago. Felt mascots are these cute stuffed animals made of felt and cotton batting that are very popular in Japan. They are fairly simple to make but do take some time and patience.

The first time I had the anime club make felt mascots they made goth ones. They didn't disappoint me this time either. One was created with only one leg and had blood dripping from its mouth. Another had stitches drawn upon it with sharpies. They were not the cute lovable felt mascots shown in The Cute Book by Aranzi Aronzo. But although not as lovable looking, they are sure to be loved.