No Network, No Patrons

Well, almost no patrons....

Today we shut down the public access computers so that we could do both hardware and software updates on them. We don't have a ton of computers, but we have enough that it just made more sense to shut down the network for the day and try and get them all updated/fixed at once. The fact that we were doing this was well-publicized, so very few people came in to be disappointed by the shut-down - in fact, very few people came in at all.

It was like a ghost town in there, and the people at circ kept saying, "Wow, I can't believe how DEAD it is." I, however, wasn't at all surprised. And I have to say that I was thrilled that the lack of patrons only served to underscore how very important it is that our next Director be someone who is tech savvy and UNDERSTANDS the IMPORTANCE of "library 2.0" issues in OUR library. (Not necessarily me - Chewbacca - anyone - just please "get it.")

Aside from that, there were other interesting aspects to today's shutdown. In spite of the fact that few people came in, I answered a fair number of reference questions - it seemed that most everyone who did come in today asked me for help. I also had several reference phone calls from my "computer regulars," which to me demonstrates that many of the "computer regulars" do not use the library solely for the computer access, but now know that they can get the help they need from the reference desk - whether they enter the building or not. Cool. Also, a couple of other regular patrons came in today - like every other day - and didn't miss the computers one bit because they come in simply to read the newspaper. Also cool.

I found it nice to be able to spend the day doing something a bit different than usual. I spent a lot of time lying on the floor - which is unusual library behavior for me (surprise!). I had fun with the cans of air (those were always my favorite darkroom supply), I cut up my hands while installing the new floppy (eeek) drives, and I blew lots of black stuff out of my nose (the computers had not been cleanned inside in a LONG time) at the end of the day.

Ain't it fun being a librarian?