Miss Information is among the missing
Sometimes the library can't find things. It may be because the thing is
misfiled, in use or has been stolen. In any event when something is missing for
whatever reason, there's a message on the catalogue record that says something
like "this thing is missing--we've looked all over but so far no luck".
Today a man came to the information desk looking for a book. It was about improving your brain. Miss Information was pretty impressed with his brain. He'd actually managed to look up the book in the catalogue and take note of its location. This is better than 75% of the library users could do. Go ahead, laugh. The book was missing. He'd noticed
the missing status on the catalogue record. Miss Information was about to give him a MENSA application form but he continued to speak. The man said that all he needed to know
was where the library kept the missing books. Um, what? Well, you know, where
is the box (or shelf) where the missing items are located?
Miss Information explained the whole "missing means we can't find it" concept and suggested other brain improvement books. This guy just needs a little more help....
Miss Information is annoyed by secretive scientists
Miss Information is fond of scientists generally and she wishes her studies in
library science had been more about gravity and less about metadata. Sigh.
Last night, however she stumbled across a particularly annoying group of physicists. On Friday, Miss Information is often stationed at the teen area, notable because it is visible to all those who are looking for directions. A very pleasant man approached the desk looking for the monthly meeting of physicists. Miss Information has the schedule for the library meeting rooms and for the big city facility in the mall and the meeting wasn't in either of those locations. That only leaves the hotel, the rec centre, the civic centre, the cricket club, and the lawn bowling clubhouse--and a thousand other potential meeting places.
Miss Information decided to google for more information instead of sending the nice scientist on a wild goose chase. It was quite easy to find the physics group website. It had a very nice description of the meeting and suggested that all interested people were welcome. It also said that the meeting was to be held in a top secret location that would only be disclosed to those who RSVP'd. Well, that's friendly.
Fortunately, they also provided fairly precise directions to the secret meeting location so except for the actual room number Miss Information was able to tell him pretty much where the meeting was. She suggested he lurk around the lower level of the civic centre until he overheard someone talking about the theory of relativity.
