I'm fixin a hole where the rain gets in

Or at least putting a bucket under it...

It's back to basics here in the Reading Room, as I pull a rare Saturday morning shift to cover for my regular evening and weekend staffer. Astute readers of the Library Ass will remember that I used to work Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at the Circ Desk, so while I'm not a stranger to the Big Library on the weekends, it took something of a Herculean effort to drag my sorry behind out of bed this morning nonetheless.

As it turned out, however, it was a Very Good Thing (tm) that I made it in, for the following reasons:

1. The person who was supposed to open the Circ Desk early forgot her I.D., and was stuck in limbo at the guard desk until I was able to bring her in as my "guest".

2. One of the student staffers who was supposed to assist with opening got a jump start on Daylight Savings Time and slept in an hour later as a result.

3. The weekend Circ staff member who took over my position last year broke her arm last night coming to work. Although she did the heroic thing and came in this morning, she was still in a large amount of pain and was in no condition whatsoever to work.

4. My student staffer was a little late getting in, which would have meant that the room (although not very busy at all) wouldn't have opened on time.

5. Did I mention the hole where the rain gets in?

One of the features of our multi-million dollar Reading Room is that the glass ceiling tends to leak in driving rain. Since this is New England in the Fall, that only happens every time it rains, so whenever I see dark green on the Doppler I instinctively think of the room and whether the water has found yet another way through our defenses.

The truly annoying thing is that our Reading Room is a mirror image of another enclosed courtyard on the opposite side of the library which by virtue of not being under anyone's specific jurisdiction tends not to get checked for similar leaks in foul weather. As this room is the final resting place of our print copy of the National Union Catalog, it seems only proper that I make a point of wandering over when it rains to make sure that it doesn't succumb to the elements, as death by neglect and obsolescence are bad enough as it is.