Tales from the commute: "Stop, stop, stop!"
 

The patron's name and address come up on the screen when checking-out at the library. For the first few months after I switched branches a couple of years ago, I paid a lot of attention to it so I could learn the regulars names and get a feel for their distribution in the neighborhood.

A group of pre-teen boys all had the same address on a street I used for my commute home. I told them I went by their house nearly every day. “Just look for a guy on a bike with flashing lights.”

Of course they didn't believe me that first, a white guy would be on their street, second, that he'd be on a bicycle, and third, that it would be at night.

Since then, nearly every night when I make the turn to their street, shouts of “Hey library guy!” come from the porch. I yell back and wave. It's like having my own cheering section on the Tour or something. I miss it when they're not there.

Ordinarily I use a longer route to work, but yesterday afternoon I was running late and took that route instead. As I came past their house, there they were on the porch. “Hey library guy, stop, stop, stop!”

This was different.

So I drop anchor and circle back on the sidewalk to their house. Thinking there's some sort of emergency, I asked, "What's the matter?"

"Can you take our movies back?"

Yes, we're a full-service library. I waited while they found all the DVDs--one proved to be elusive--and had the boys stuff them in my panniers. Then I rode the rest of the way to work.

That's a great story. :)

You are awesome.

Great library service :)

Now that is what I call a full service library ... O no, wait .. Librarian :D

Very cool.

Great story.

made me smile.

If you delivered the movies, too, you'd be like Netflix on a bike.

Lol

"library guy" Too funny:lol:

Do you do deliveries, too? My local branch never has any of the books I want. :o

Yeah, and maybe bring them some snacks to enjoy with their movies.

Maybe in the future only deliver actual books. Although at least you got them in the library. The next step is to get them reading. Kids don't seem to do enough of that these days. <shakes fist and gets out hose>

Thanks for the chuckle. Nicely done.

:)

As a fellow public librarian, I love this story. What does that make you, a bookcylce or bookbike?

Since this was media, not books, I'm thinking Bikeflix.

This was a cool thing to do.
That being said, I would be careful about what you accept for return from them. I could see some of our patrons (Richardson Tx) forgetting one of their DVDs or CDs and insisting that they "...gave everything to the Bikeguy...he must have lost one...I'm not paying for a replacement....", etc.

Sorry, maybe it's just been a rough summer in circ for us down south....

I work all circ, all the time. The drill is ingrained. Checked before panniered. These kids are frequent fliers in the "Oops left a disk in the machine" club.

That was fun.

Well, "Hey there" fellow circ person! (and we know that all the best cycle commute).
Verifying that discs are in cases is easy...I have more of a problem with them forgetting one entire item. I get calls constantly from patrons swearing they "dropped it in the night deposit" and having it mysteriously appear several days or weeks after the fact on the belt. Though sometimes it disappears completely.

That's easy. We have a limit of five. They gave me five. One for each finger!

Jeeze! It must be nice. Our limit is 100 items out per card. (Multiple cards per family. Yikes)
Our numbers look great, but we're buried most of the time. (We, in Circ, have been lobbying for lower limits) Hopefully, it'll change for the better when we get our RFID system installed.

I flinch a little when I see patrons approaching the desk with rolling luggage.