Ode to the Reference Librarian

I hope the librarian from Ghostbusters doesn't show up.

This week, instead of my usual diatribe about patrons and their lack or sense or decorum, I have decided to spotlight my favorite kind of librarian: the Reference Librarian. For those of you unfamiliar with reference librarians, these folks have gone through an Amerian Library Association accredited school to get a master's in library science. Now, get in the time machine with me so we can visit the Reference Librarian of Days of Yore. Before Microsoft and Apple products were in every home and Al Gore invented the Internet, library patrons around the world use card catalogs to look up books. That's right, you had to flip through a drawer by author or subject or title to find it. Reference librarians also served as founts of knowledge when you needed to know about certain subjects or needed help narrowing down a topic to study. Need to know the population of the Republic of Chad? They knew where to find it. Need to find out about daVinci? They knew which books art anthologies had chapters about him. They were human Google.

Reference librarians today are still crucial to any library. "But what about the Internet?", I hear you cry. For the answer, I give a quote from Neil Gaiman, creator of the Sandman graphic novel series: "Google can bring back a hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one." Go open Google, or another search engine of equal or greater value, and type in "the history of golf". You will get tons of hits (over 30,000,000 when searched), including two Wiki articles, a video of comic Robin Williams talking about golf, and some guy in Canada who wrote a brief history of golf and then tried to make the website more legit by adding an animated gif to the end. Now, you can spend the next two hours either tracking down a somewhat reputable source and probably watching that Robin Williams video or you can go to your library and ask a reference librarian for help and spend the next two hours actually writing a paper that doesn't use eHow as a source.

The moral of the story: The Internet, as wonderful as it is, cannot replace the brain of human being who actually knows his/her stuff. Hail to thee, Reference Librarian!

Thanks for reading and remember: don't fold down the pages of your library books.

I'm Sorry, I Thought You Were Joking

In my job, I directly interact with the public, face-to-face, a minimum of six hours a week. This does not seem like a lot of time but it seems like enough time to come across some rather unusual questions and statements from our patrons.

Let us start with the most frequently asked question: No! Not "do you have 'Catching Fire'?" It is in fact, "where is the bathroom?" It is not the question itself that is so strange but rather how the question is asked, the most bizarre being "do you have a bathroom" and its variant statement "you don't have bathrooms, do you?". This might be a viable question in a small store or a questionable-looking gas station, where space is limited; however, in a five-story building you would hope that there would at least a toilet in a broom closet. There are ten bathrooms (twenty counting men and women separately) in our library, so I think it is safe to say, we do have bathrooms.

The next category of questions is the main feature of this blog: questions better not asked. I had a student approach the desk with two books in hand. I checked them out and handed them back. He thumbed through one of the books and asked "is it okay if I write in the book?" I was rather shocked that anyone would write in a library book (sacrilege!) but even more so that someone would ask if it were okay to do so. Many library books have crossed my path, whose once clean pages had been marked with pen, pencil, or highlighter, but I ad never been asked if this act was acceptable. For the record, it's not okay and I have never heard of a librarian that would find this behavior acceptable. In this case, "it is better to ask for forgiveness, rather than permission". In other words, what I don't know won't make me go screaming into the night...

The last category is "questions that are not in fact meant to be answered but merely asked to raise my blood pressure to pre-hypertension levels for the amusement of the asker". These would include "what would happen if I never returned this laptop" and "didn't you stay 24-hours last finals week". The first question, I can't explain. What would do you think you would happen? You would get to keep it forever? You would be granted three wishes? The second is the type that seems not to be a question but a challenge to my knowledge of actual library policy and an attempt by the asker to be granted special "all-night access", if the question is phrased just right.

Moral of the Story: The adage "there are no stupid questions" does not seem to always hold true. And, by the way, the closest bathroom is in between the elevator banks.

Thanks for reading and remember, don't fold down the pages of your library books (or write in them).

The Pet Shop Sketch and Other Nonsense

This week, I had the mother of all strange and rude complaints. A patron, who we will call Franklin, for a sense of clarity later in the story, came to the desk and wished to complain. I put on my happy face and braced for the bizarre. I've had a cornucopia of assorted and varied complaints come to me from overflowing toilets to a vehement dislike of the new library website, so I'm never really excited when a patron wishes to register a complaint. Franklin, our complaining patron, launched into a description of a homeless man on the third floor who was "really smelly and loud". I, being aware of exactly which man he described, as he passes through the library frequently, was a little confused. I knew that this man was indeed pretty pungent smelling from personal experience, but he was usually very quite and studious. Franklin then told me that he "didn't think it was fair that [he] have to share the library with him because [Franklin] was paying for it and he wasn't". He went on to dig himself deeper into the pit of my disapproval by rattling on about him not deserving to be in the library. I explained that the building was a meant for public use and that I couldn't remove the man simply because he was homeless. I did promise to look into the noise complaint, which I did a few minutes later, though I found no noisy person on all of the third floor, homeless or otherwise. I also threw in the fact that Franklin's student fees did not pay for the whole of the library and that paying fees didn't entitle him to decide who stayed and who went. After this explanation, Franklin demanded to file a formal complaint, my action apparently not sufficient, and I gave him my boss' business card. I noticed, as he walked away, that Franklin was clutching a Bible in his had. I think Jesus said something about being nice to people...

This got me thinking about the Pet Shop Sketch (aka The Dead Parrot Sketch) from Monty Python I recited and watched several times over the course of my BBC-influenced childhood. Those of you who have not seen this sketch, I have embedded the video for your viewing delight. To summarize, a man attempts to return a parrot that is in fact, stone dead. "I wish to register a complaint..." never leads to happy places for the person on the other end.

Why must many of the patrons I deal with think that because they register a complaint, no matter how ludicrous or borderline discriminatory, the "problem" will just go away or be changed in their favor. If the homeless man had been vocally disruptive or violent, I would have stepped in immediately, as is my job, but did Franklin honestly believe that his complaint would elicit a response of gathering torches and pitchforks to expel the homeless man to the curb? As far as weird, non-student patron's are concerned, the man in question is one patron that I rarely worry about having problems with. He's actually polite and soft spoken and always says "good afternoon" to me. He also is not a patron who stays until we peel them from the desks and push them out the door. As for the smell complaint, if I removed every person that was aromatic, I would be kicking people out right and left. Whether it's the guy who is wearing a gallon of bad aftershave or the girl who just came from a PE class, there are lots of pungent people on campus.

Moral of the Story: Don't judge a book by it's cover and don't be a jerk. Nobody likes a jerk.

Thanks for reading and remember: don't fold down the pages of your library books.

I've Always Looked Like That

Every week I get people trying to use ID cards that are not theirs. The thing that surprises me is the fact that people think I don't notice that a 6'1" guy is not in fact the 5'6" woman in the picture on her ID card. "Hmm...you don't seem to look like you have highlighted blonde hair and sparkly lip gloss." The fact that they get upset when I stop them, is what really gets me. I think if the University really wanted students to swap IDs like baseball cards, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't include an ID.

The following reason patrons have actually given me as why they don't seem to match up with the picture:

• "My girlfriend/boyfriend is just upstairs. What's the big deal?"
• "My dad works here and I have a huge fine, so can't I just use his?"
• "I've lost my ID card and I didn't bring any other photo ID, so my buddy said I could borrow his."

Reactions to my negative response in the mild identity theft department ranges from a "oh, I didn't know" to "you guys are a bunch of jerks for making me do this". I don't like to check IDs but I've had too many patrons that have "borrowed" their roommates cards to not stop people from doing it. I've also had plenty of claimed returned items that go something like "I never checked this out. Maybe my roommate stole my card".

Moral of the Story: Be smart enough to not use someone's ID, especially if you look nothing like them. The photos are to protect you. You'd want me to stop you if someone used your driver's license or passport if it wasn't you, wouldn't you?

Thanks for reading and remember: don't fold down the pages of your library books.

Be Kind to the Workers, Please

My sister and a poster in an Underground station in London

I work at the circulation desk at the library for a minimum of six hours a week. I know, not a lot of hours at the desk, but still, enough to be insulted at least once a week by someone who thinks they are better than me because I work in a service position. For example, last week I was yelled at by a patron because we didn't have the book that was supposed to be on hold for him. Frustrating, yes. Annoying, yes. Worth scolding my student worker and myself and then getting mad that department actually responsible for the mix-up is not there on a Sunday night, no! I will move heaven and earth to help someone, especially if it is our fault, but I am less willing to help when you scream at me.

A few weeks ago, two of my student workers got screamed at because they were doing their job. A patron sent several print jobs to our desk, which have to go through a digital cue before they are actually released to the printer. One student worker, from past experience, knew that there might be an issue with the formatting because they were PowerPoint slides and wanted to send a single job through to check before sending all of the print jobs. He refused and told her "he was in a hurry" and walked away while they printed. She sent the printouts and, surprise!, they weren't formatted correctly. Ninety pages later, the patron refused to pay for the printouts. I am a big believer in do-overs but not with this number of pages. The other student worker informed him that he needed to pay for the printouts. Enraged at the worker's unmitigated temerity to ask for payment, the patron told both student workers they had "the worst possible approach to humanity [he] had ever seen" but he pulled out his credit card to pay. The student worker ringing it up the transaction pressed the wrong button and had to void everything and start over, to which she was berated with "she gets a do-over but I don't?!". What a charmer.

In this digital age, I also get insulted via email. I was told in a reply from an automated fine notice that the phone number for our Media Collections desk listed on his notice was "not valid" with a "Come on.. try to show some professionalism" attached to the end. After some minor sleuthing, I discovered that the phone number was not invalid, we were just closed because of President's Day at the time and he got the answering machine. And he wanted a waiver on his fines. Not the best way to approach the situation, I think.

The sad thing is, I know that being verbally abusive to those who serve is not limited to library. I see people being rude to restaurant servers, grocery baggers, and bank tellers every day. The kid who stocks Macey's doesn't control what flavor Doritos are available and the girl working the drive-thru at Burger King doesn't control price increases on you large Double Whopper meal. They're just peons.

The moral of the story: Treat people in service positions kindly, even if they are dumb, surly, or obnoxious. They're people, just like you, not your personal whipping boys/girls. Kill 'em with kindness if their mean. Let them make the scene, don't add to it.

Thanks for reading and remember: don't fold down the pages of your library books.

Dude, Where's My Book?

In the course of my job, I receive a lot of email. I have three work emails that I check every day that I work: one assigned by the university, one that receives claimed returns/book search requests filed by the student workers, and one that is connected to email notices that no one is supposed to reply to but does anyways because literacy and comprehension are clearly no longer required to enter college. The last email account always gives me the most grief with patrons' elaborate (and sometimes fictional) tales of why they couldn't return a copy of The Uncanny X-Men on time or why they need just six more weeks for a book they've had a year (please see So many books, how can you have the time? from last week for more rantacular details about grad students treating their checkouts like hostages in a bank heist).

This week, I received an email from a patron who could not return his books. Why, you may ask, could he not return his books? Was he out-of-town? Did his roommate steal his books to sell on Amazon for pizza money? Had his books been abducted by evil, book-thieving aliens, who are attempting to learn more about human culture? Nope. They were in his car, which had been impounded because he had parked it on private property while he attempted to sell it. You would think that he would go and get his fossil fuel-based vehicle out of the impound lot, but he said that the fee they proposed to him to get said car was "more than the car was worth" and he, therefore, did not plan on retrieving his car. He also said that the impound lot would not allow him to retrieve his possessions from the car. Don't get me wrong though. I am totally against the iron grip that parking enforcement companies have on my city, but why would someone leave library books in a car that was going to be unattended for a good amount of time? He might as well have put a large sign on the car that said, "I will be leaving this car in this lot for several weeks completely unattended. Feel free to rummage around inside for loose change and library books".

The reason the patron emailed me was to ask how much he would owe the library to replace the books. After much consulting with the Great Oracle of Gore (a.k.a. the Internet), I priced his books and the grand total came to almost $90, which I'm sure he will be less than thrilled with if he's upset about impound fees. And now, the library does not have the books he "lost" and we probably won't order it for a while, depriving some poor student of the joys of stealing a few passages from the book and then slapping on a citation in his/her research paper.

Moral of the Story: Don't leave library books in a car you are attempting to sell on property that is not your own.

Thanks for reading and remember: don't fold down the pages of your library books.

So many books, how can you have the time?

At my library, graduate students and faculty members are allowed to check out 100 items for sixteen weeks. In my three years working at the library, I have had only three individuals who have reached this limit. Most patrons are baffled when we tell them they can have 100 books. What could you possibly be doing with 100 books?

I always imagine grad students sitting in their tiny, shared offices, books stacked around them, like a fort. Or possibly set up like one of those attractive octagons you find in bookstores where the employees have too much time on their hands. Imagine the fort you could build with 100 books. Actually, just click on the link and you'll see a pretty cool book fort, but I digress.

The biggest problem with grad students hoarding books (no other word for it, I'm afraid) is that no one else gets to use those books or knows that they exist. I get half a dozen requests to recall books from grad students who have had their books for a YEAR or more. And I can't tell you how many angry emails I've gotten when a grad student is told they have a week to return the item that they've had for 40 weeks. "But you don't understand, I NEED this for my thesis I've been writing for six years!" No, I don't think you understand, this is a library not a book adoption agency.

Moral of the story: Only borrow what you can actually read and don't be cheesed that other people exist that want to read the books that you have squirreled away in your office under stacks of ungraded papers and empty coffee cups.

Thanks for reading and remember: don't fold down the pages of your library books.