"fan" the books

[KellyHabersham]

*Not my story, it was related by one of our circulation staff at a meeting we had earlier this week. No suck involved, but needless to say, it gave us all a good laugh. *


With our SCO machines, after you scan your library card, you are prompted to place your items on the counter area, and to fan them out. Apparently a customer took "fan" literally, and was waving his items under the scanner..........I think he came up to the customer service desk at one point, and my co-worker had to explain why the items he was trying to scan weren't checking out.

[Daemonmonkey]

To me, who is a non-native english speaker, it took a while to understand, and I think I got it (to fan out = to flatten? )

[It's me]

To me, who is a non-native english speaker, it took a while to understand, and I think I got it (to fan out = to flatten? )

Close. In this context it means to spread out... like you would when holding playing cards in your hand. The reference is to how Chinese fans unfold:

http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&source=h...ff3dd5fb0bfb49

[Daemonmonkey]

Ahh, thanks for the explanation and origin.

[librarygal]

Yeah, we have those machines at our library too. I have soooo many story's about them, it's ridiculous.......

[PepperElf]

ya. the sco at my old library wouldn't have had the room to fan anything out.
so scanning them one at a time was easier