I wonder if this is a common problem at libraries.

The contact forms from our library’s website come to my inbox. With a name like Madison-Jefferson County Public Library we receive a lot of questions destined for other libraries.

I’ve received numerous requests from central Virginia for books and information. Central Virginia? Yes, they’re looking for the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library in Charlottesville.

I received a request from Madison, Wisconsin, on what they needed to register to vote. I forwarded them to the Madison Public Library and the city of Madison voter registration clerk.

We regularly get genealogy questions for Madison County, Indiana, which is actually in the bailiwick of the Anderson Public Library.

Today, however, took the cake.

I received a form from a person living in southern California (according to their phone number) wanting to find the debates between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on the framing of the constitution of the United States of America.

Why in the world would someone from California be asking us this question? Why not their local library?

I’m ashamed to say it took me a few minutes to realize the obvious. The person contacted us because we’re the Madison-Jefferson County Public Library.

(Yes, I did send some helpful links)

My latest web project just went live yesterday. I’ve been creating a new website with the Switzerland County Public Library in the adorable rivertown of Vevay, Indiana.

The director is getting a bunch of her patrons and friends to beta test it, but I thought I’d toss it out to anyone reading this blog.

www.scpl.info

Leave a comment — tell me the good, the bad, the ugly, suggestions and any bugs you might encounter. Yes, it might look a little weird in Internet Explorer… I’m working on that.

There’s more content coming down the pike such as more local history-genealogy, community events and children services stuff, but we’ve gotten it to the point it works and can be useful to their patrons.

I’ve been also working on an update to my library’s website. It’s making progress, but I still have a lot of work to do— especially graphically and debugging the site on MS Internet Exploder.

You should too! Make history!

They must love their neighbors…

We have some cool patrons who donate DVDs to the library.

For the most part, I add them to our video collection or use them as backup disks for that inevitable moment when our current copy gets scratched into binary oblivion.

But here’s one I received last week…

On the back cover of the DVD case, there’s a photo of this sweet-looking fluffy white sheep with a bloody, dismembered foot in his mouth. The teaser states “There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand… and they’re pissed off!”

I really dislike horror flicks, but for some demented reason, this made me laugh out loud. I guess the sheer chutzpah of making horror funny is funny in and of itself. (Yes, pun intended).

The movie is called Black Sheep and, for a B-movie-slasher flick, it’s received decent reviews. In a nutshell, geneticly-altered zombie sheep go on the rampage and the sheep-phobic protagonist is stuck in the middle of the carnage— all this with a sick sense of humor.

Horror is definitely a shortcoming in our library’s video collection, but when I flipped the case over and saw a sheep try to take a bite off someone’s head…

Well, of course… it was the “unrated” version. Definitely no go.

What the heck could make a horror movie “unrated” and who could possibly want to watch or film something so gory that it couldn’t pull an R-rating?

Oh well. Again, I just don’t get horror, but at least for a moment it had me laughing.

Darlene’s been hearing stories of the poor electric line workers getting harassed so she put a poster up on our boarded-up window saying “Thank You Duke Electric Workers!” in hopes of giving them a little cheer.

We have no idea if any Duke workers actually saw the sign, but they’ve certainly been working like fiends trying to get everyone back up and running.

Meanwhile, people passing by were reading the sign. Darlene said she’d hear an occasional “that’s nice” or grumbling sarcastic comments (they probably didn’t have electric yet).

All that was expected.

However, one person read the sign then poked her head in and asked, “What happened did they break your window?”

Wow… have we become that cynical?

We’re supposed to get our broken storefront window replaced on Wednesday or Thursday.

Darlene’s getting impatient waiting for the insurance adjuster to show up so we can proceed with permanent repairs. So I called the adjuster’s company this morning to double check on the process. Their answer? Even though the insurance company told me Tuesday they were referring us to the adjuster… the adjuster does not have our claim on its records.

We’re just going to go ahead with the window repairs and hope they cover it. If not… oh well. With the damage so wide spread, I’m not really surprised we haven’t seen the adjuster, but I thought we’d at least be on the list. Go figure…

We have about half the estimates and we’re already looking at a few thousand in repairs. If this all had happened in any other fashion — say a drunk from the bar down the street being thrown through our window (it’s happened in this town) — I’d have stressed up a storm. With this, all I can do is shrug my shoulders. It’s just not a big deal compared to everyone else. I’m stunned over how many of my friends, coworkers and patrons have had serious damage to their homes.

My coworker who had a tree fall on their brand new-built home had a sense of humor about it. She showed me pictures of their cat hanging out from the now exposed attic rafters. “Boy you guys should have done this in the first place,” she said putting words into their cat’s mouth. The next photo, of course, was of their son climbing on the fallen tree. Boys… trees… what can you say.

Then there are the folks who still don’t have power— one family only lives three blocks down the street from us and they’re still out. The apartments across the street from their house had power. I asked them a couple nights ago if they were jealous having power so close yet so far. “No, they were pretty rowdy last night when they didn’t have power. so I’m glad they got it first.” That night they had a small bon-fire in their back yard with wood they helped up up in the neighborhood.

For us, this week’s been more cleanup. For the glass company to replace the window we had to dispose of the broken glass and clear the area around the window. Some prior owner had built display area in front of the window so I had to wrench it apart (it was a cheesy thing made of 2×4s. It was satisfying to take a hammer to it).

The process of getting all the broken glass out of the window was challenging. I now have a bit of empathy for my dentist when he couldn’t get my stupid wisdom tooth out of my jaw a couple years ago.

Finally I took more than a dozen boxes of broken coping tile, glass and a fridge and freezer full of food to the dump.

The last few days I’ve heard from a lot patrons at the library about being without power and having trees on their homes. I could obviously tell there was some definite stress, but oddly what made people the most growly was having to throw away a fridge and freezer full of food.

Tossing those bags… yep, that was the worst of it. Maybe having a freezer full of food is like a security blanket.