The library did, though, so two days off!
I was one of the lucky ones. People all over my area are still without electricity. The library opened again yesterday, and it was crazy. Here's how the day went.
9:00am...the library opens. I tweet out that our power is back on and we're open. Dead silence. We had a bunch of staff members there and no patrons.
10:00am...the library begins to fill up. Several people come in freezing cold from houses with no heat, and our director decides to put coffee out (oohh! coffee in the library!).
10:30am...bins from other libraries in the county arrive. A lot of bins. We start going through them and discharging material, but are constantly interrupted by more people. The circulation desk gets hidden by piles and piles of books, DVDs, and CDs.
11:00am...constant stream of people into the library. Coffee and cookies out. People exchanging stories of the storm - felled trees, roads closed, and of course no electricity.
12:00pm...I have fielded approximately 843 phone calls. "Hello, library, yes we're open...and we have coffee/heat/water/wi-fi!"
1:00pm...lunchtime! I'm exhausted, as people have been returning things all morning and everyone has questions. Busy, busy.
2:00pm...still chaos! I'm trying to run around and pull items off the shelves to send to other libraries for holds, and I'm climbing over people crouched next to every outlet. Cords are stretched across aisles, and everyone is charging phones and checking email.
2:30pm...should not have worn these boots today. Feet hurt! Saw some Halloween costumes, best one being a girl inside an American Girl doll box.
3:00pm...power goes out. Comes back on two seconds later. Computers never recover.
3:30pm...computer system still down. Apparently there was a surge when some other business in the area powered back up. Or a transformer down? Or something. Desperate calls to IT result in us climbing around in closets looking for black boxes to reset.
3:45pm...I create sloppy handwritten signs to fling all over the library to inform people that they are severely limited in what they can do today as our computer system is down. And guess what? It's not coming back up anytime soon.
4:00pm...patron informs me that the copier is out of toner. Which is impossible because we changed it that morning! I go back there and shake it all about to no avail. Fling out-of-order sign on top of it and charge back to the desk where people are lining up.
4:45pm...get excited because I get to leave in fifteen minutes!
5:00pm...still at work, trying to help with a few more things.
5:15pm...during a lull, I seize my chance and make a run for it!
Whew! What a day. I was very proud of my coworkers; we always work so well together and these rough days bring out the best in us. The children's librarian put together Halloween books and crafts for kids to occupy them while their parents were online. Our patrons were so appreciative of the warmth and coffee. And even when the computers went down, people were very understanding and we helped them as best we could.
It's always cool to see the sense of community when disaster strikes. How neat to see so many people coming to the library for help. Nice to feel like I was making a difference.
Crazy day, but I don't mind a little craziness once in a while.
2 comments:
Now I know to be ultra compassionate to my local librarians when there is a power outage.
This is why every community needs a library - a good place for the community to gather after a disaster. I hope people remember this when tax and budget time comes. Especially the library's willingness to provide electricity to recharge cell phones and such.
Yay! Thanks for the encouragement.
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