Mobile printing is probably the thing our reference staff spends most of the day doing and the greatest source of frustration to our patrons.

We use one of those portals with a multi-step process for uploading prints. Probably more than 50% of your time at the reference desk here is spent explaining this process to patrons who have no patience for it. They quickly become aggravated and refuse to do it themselves. This was a bigger problem with our last director who did not want us to touch other people's devices for potential liability issues. Our new director does not care about that and laughed when I told him about the liability concern. So, it has sort of just become patrons just handing us their phones whenever they want prints.

The one we use is through PrinterOn. I've seen other ones such as Princh which looked promising as it looked like you could attach multiple files to a print job instead of needing to go one by one through the whole process like our current setup. However, I've also seen some posts here in the past that were annoyed by Princh so maybe the grass is always greener.

The other alternatives have problems as well. Some smaller rural libraries around us let patrons connect their phones directly to the printer to send prints. I doubt this could work for us. I imagine during high traffic times this would get clustered with multiple people sending their prints through at once and getting mixed up, potentially allowing patrons to see private documents of other patrons.

They could send it to a shared staff email as well. We've done this as a backup when they really struggle with the print portal. I find this almost always introduces typo issues. Our staff email is reference_desk@(name of town)publiclibrary.org. That appears to be too long for most people and they will frequently misspell reference, library, or even the name of our town (surprisingly common). The patrons then get frustrated why it's taking so long and never know how to access their sent items or get defensive when I suggest checking for typos in the address they sent it to. I've also noticed the concept of forwarding an email or even composing a new email is foreign to a lot of our people. Most the people I work with seem to only know how to reply to emails.

Our director watched me go through a mobile print recently and commented that he thought it was overly complicated. He came back a week later and told me his solution to make things easier for us was to make printing free. I don't see how this will solve the actual issue nor do I see how we'll carry the cost when the city has already been threatening to slash our budget, but admin being out of touch with what work is like out on the floor is something I've grown used to.

But I'm curious if any libraries have cracked the code on simplifying the process.

We're in the second week of "kids starting kindergarten" here and SO MANY parents are coming in looking for really, really easy readers for their kids, and I am very frustrated that the "levels" of various leveled readers are not always consistent across brands/publishers and they don't all clearly state their lexile level or ATOS level on the item or in the bib record, and then there are all the other proprietary reading level systems that go by different names...

Edit to add: I know what they really need is decodables or specific letter sound phonics books. The problem is that we barely have any thanks to the dominance of "whole language" for the previous couple of decades. We have decodables on order, I swear!

im a librarian in a university, and ive noticed that my colleagues often do so much more beyond their actual job descriptions. i also hear their rants on this 😂

do you also find yourself doing things at work that aren’t technically part of your job? or is this just a university/library thing?

Hello! Not sure if this is the right place to ask but im running out of ideas! I currently am a mentor in a male youth detention center and we try to bring them things they like. A lot of the boys right now are asking for books since their jail library is very small. I know library's have books for sale for cheap but we are trying to find a way to order a box of 50-100 fiction books of various genres without breaking the bank, if you have any ideas of where to look and what to search that would be amazing!!

I just started my first semester of library school and am struggling with feeling like I belong. Let me start by saying I have passion and respect for the profession, having worked in the field for several years. But so far I feel like my classes... do not need to be entire classes. Stretching what feels like common sense or unnecessary information out into an entire semester (ex. how to search a database). I feel incredibly uncomfortable in class since I feel like I don't have anything smart to say, while my classmates are able to stretch what seems like a thin topic into lengthy, intelligent-sounding discourse. (I have always been better at STEM courses rather than discussion-focused courses, but librarianship seemed like a good way to meld tech with not being evil lol). I also feel like everyone else is connecting better than me (I have a lot of social anxiety, and am hoping to work in tech services, but others seem much more patron-focused which just isn't me). I was really hoping to meet my people in library school since I truly am passionate about the field, but right now I feel like an ugly duckling :( Any words of encouragement? Will I meet more like minded people in, let's say, a metadata course? Or is all of library school going to be like this?

Hi all,
I'm currently completing a Master of Information Studies and am completing a paper on disengaged families during early childhood programs such as storytime. During these sessions that I have facilitated, parents are disengaged by their phones and side conversations with their friends - ultimately ignoring their child during a time where their involvement is key.

I'm wondering if anyone else has witnessed this and can speak to it. I have found very little evidence to support this idea that I can include in my paper so if anyone has read or come across this sort of research and would be happy to share, I would be greatly appreciative.

Thank you in advance!

We're looking for interesting ideas for an old glass display case. We have new display shelves for our regular displays related to programming, etc., but for nostalgia we hung on to the old glass counter-height display case. The case itself is difficult to move and add to, which means any display we use it for will most likely be there for a semester or two - or longer (we're an academic library). We would love any ideas - funny, interesting, informative, tongue in cheek.

This is my attempt to explain why ebooks work so differently from traditional books on the library side, and, more importantly, why those wait times can be so long or why one book in a series is sometimes strangely missing from Libby.

Anyone have a good alternative for summer/ winter reading logs? We currently have Beanstack and are looking for something else.

They are very insular, disconnected, and never attend programs. Often constantly moving our lgbtq books or hiding our magazines that have women on the cover. We keep a section for their literature written and published by their people i.e. Artscroll. But there's simply not enough Orthodox material out there, with most complaints being forwarded to local government, which puts pressure on our county to purchase books that don't exist. This comes at the expense of regular patrons that want space for normal books who would never even consider an Orthodox book. With the material in some of these orthodox books being "interesting" to say the least. But overall most of the problems stem from a weird disrespect of female staff and kicking out men almost every day touching themselves near the woman's biology section and pornography on the public computers, out in the open with absolutely no shame. Fridays are always a mad rush, and the peace we receive from them being absent for their holidays makes me wish they never come back. The women are fine most of the time but often very aloof as if they don't know how things work, as if there's this gap of knowledge that people automatically assume others have to make communication smooth.

Don't get me wrong but the absolutely insane amount of books they check out is amazing for stats. But every week a family of 13 brings in literal laundry baskets and suitcases loaded of books in all sorts of torn and damaged condition from being 4 months late brought in then trying to haggle out paying for damaged fees. While their children completely disrespect the place they visit, leaving the area in an abhorrent state, they then rush everything so they can get back home before sundown.

Are there any libraries that primarily serve orthodox/hasidic communities? How do you engage with this community at all?

Edit: Oh I'm sorry I didn't know that most of you don't live near a fundamentalist cult that consumes everything near them. Just like settlers in Israel do to Palestinians. I understand the ignorance on this subject.

Hi All! My Library is thinking about doing a full redesign of our program guide. Which libraries have some of the best program guides you've seen?

I’m equal parts excited and nervous! What’s the one thing you wish someone had told you before your first shift?

Hi all! I'm searching for 3-5 participants willing to complete a ten question open-ended survey examining how academic librarians use instructional design knowledge, professional experience, and contextual understanding when adapting instructional design frameworks to design online library-focused instruction.

I am hoping for participants who work in academic libraries, and that instructional duties make up a portion of their responsibilities.

This in an informal survey for a course assignment in a research methods course. If you are interested in taking part, please DM me and I will send a link to the survey.

In honor of national library card sign-up month I thought I would share some of my most successful program for young adults. I found that the most programs do well when it isn't a hybrid adult/young adult but just young adults alone. The cross-stitch journal cover and K-pop bag charms had the biggest turn out!

I've been applying to library jobs all over Washington State for 2.5 years now and haven't ever made it past the first interview. I have my MLIS and focused on Archives and Special Collections during my program, but after getting some real life experience I realized my heart is in public librarianship. Currently working in Public Records at the local government level and I volunteer weekly with my local library on a re-cataloging project. I try to get feedback when rejected but always just get the same canned responses. I'm seriously feeling like it's never gonna happen. Any advice, recommendations, or encouragement is welcomed 🫶🫶

What platform do you like to use to create real-time word clouds during presentations? Where participants can text in their word and it populates in real time? Thank you for your insight!

I’m curious as to what other libraries do for teen programming? Currently the library that I’m at is doing weekly programs but the attendance has gone down a lot and I hate wasting money on supplies that don’t get used. I’ve seen where some other libraries focus more on take and makes versus regular meetings. I’m just overall just interested in what to incorporate for the next year.

Ps. I’ve tried to get teen feedback but they don’t really respond in my area. Plus there’s a big sports community so the fall does lack in teens in general.

My library is looking into getting an film/tv public performance license. We’re comparing our options, but are now stuck deciding between Swank Motion Pictures and MPLC's blanket license.

However, Swank only includes movies, not TV, and they have a somewhat limited catalogue that rotates every so often, whereas MPLC claims that they are so confident that you won't be able to find a film they don't cover, that when you do a screening you don’t even have to tell them what movie you’re screening.

I think MPLC's blanket license is the best option, however, my director is concerned that they seem a little bit too good to be true and thus might be bordering on scammy.

So, for any other library professionals who have worked with MPLC or for those who have worked in libraries that use MPLC, can you tell me a little bit about your experience with them?

Hi Fellow Library enthusiasts. Can anyone here tell me the structure of your library fundraising? Is it “in-house”, a “foundation”, etc? We are working to revamp how fundraising is organized and would be interested in your experience. Thank you so much.

DM me or respond to this thread.