The Photo Copier
One of the commonly-requested library services is photocopying. When I started my career as a librarian, we had an old temperamental black-and-white machine available to the public. It was occasionally ornery, but simple to use.
After many years, we got a major upgrade to a color-capable machine with trays for legal paper and manual feed in addition to the standard letter-size sheets. It has many amazing capabilities and an absolutely abysmal user interface that clearly only made sense to whichever antisocial engineering intern was assigned the job of designing it. Everything is accessed through a touchscreen display, and if the machine doesn't like your input, it very loudly beeps to register its objection.
Since I seem to be the librarian most willing to work through its idiosyncrasies whenever anyone runs into a problem, I am frequently called upon to assist folks with their copying chores. Last week featured a flurry of folks facing photographic failure. I used the photocopier, and became the photo copier.
Image created in Canva
First, one of our local characters, S, wanted copies of an old little league baseball card. If you have been in youth sports, you probably know what these are. The son of an old business client had given it to him ages ago, and was now running his own business. S had hired that business to do some work on his property. He wanted a copy of the old card to give back to the entrepreneur now, about 25 years later. I was able to persuade the copier to scan both sides of the card, enlarge them, and print both on a sheet of paper at good resolution.
Then, an older lady, M, brought in an album of old wedding photos she wanted scanned and e-mailed to a family member in honor of her 50th wedding anniversary. I was able to get our fancy copier to do all that, but I needed to spend some time manually feeding them singly through the flat scanner bed instead of using the auto-feed. M was able to confirm all the photos actually went through, which was nice. It doesn't always work right, after all.
Finally, S returned with his own stack of snapshots. He had pictures from the old job for the baseball card boy featuring siblings, the family dog, and his old home. I got quite the earful of old stories while managing to scan, enlarge, and copy these pictures.
A small-town librarian wears a lot of hats, and this was just a few more odd jobs among many filling my workweek, to say nothing of those D&D games and painting classes!
Has anyone ever given you a tip for being so helpful with the photocopier?
It's been offered, but we don't accept tips.
That’s a shame. Especially when it’s a service that’s actually worth tipping for.
You do know how to make me laugh. This is the best description of a shitty UI I have ever come across! Reminded me of this:
I have had my fair share of annoying photocopier fights. The one at the local library when I was a kid used to enjoy eating my coins without registering a print available. The librarians were understanding, but they could never get it to work properly. I'm glad you prevailed, sounds like they were all very happy at the end. Nice work.
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I remember in the early 70s, I would have been about 10 or 11, my uncle got a Xerox photocopier in his office opposite Dublin's Four Courts complex. So enormous was the machine that the window had to be removed to get it in and it took up half the room. I worked for the school holidays as the machine operator copying documents for barristers who'd stream in from the courts.
In those early days of photocopiers a document had to be fed into the machine at one end, it travelled through the entire length of the machine accompanied by flashing lights and whirring noises and was eventually spat out at the other end along with the copy. It was a nerve-wracking business and there was many the time I got a mouthful from some legal eagle when his papers emerged ever so slightly chewed.
Paper still occasionally gets chewed, especially when it wasn't in great shape to start.
Our library needs a {Jacob To The} when I tried to use their copier. They did not know how to upload a photo from my phone to print a picture. They told me the copier would do it. but no one there knew how, so I ended up going to a print shop.
I would have had you sign in to a computer and log into your Google or apple account to print a photo. You would need your password though, and you would need the phone to get your security code and verify it is you signing on. Guess how often people expect me to overcome such obstacles beyond my power.
At least they have you to go to, no one here knew how to do it.
I have lost a few battles with copying machines over the years. I am old enough to remember the mimeographed pages we colored in grade school. The ink always smelled interesting.
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