Things I have Learned At Work: Part 14

Hey, look, a distraction! While I furiously attempt to amass news and things for all of you, have another installment of my twin pairings of Things I have Learned At Work, and one post later, Things I would Like My Users To Learn.

1) Nobody ever reads the signs in a library.
1b) Nor, apparently, do they listen to the sounds that say "Hey! Problem here!" This would be understandable if we were running some strange Linux system, but no, our ILS runs on the dominant market OS, so one would think someone would recognize the "Nope" sound.

2) I have no objective standards (professionally speaking, In Re: selection of materials).

3) People are willing to leave their cell phones charging on a ledge they cannot see that is halfway across the library from the computer they are sitting at.
3b) People will ask you to watch their equipment, thinking you will keep it safe for them while they go elsewhere. When did this happen?
3c) Actually, people will ask you to watch their children, thinking you will keep them safe while they go elsewhere. This is not cool!

4) People feel threatened by teenagers, especially if they look like they're friendly to the alternative side of life. I think, mostly, though, people feel threatened by teenagers.
4b) Perversely, because of that fear, people feel that teenagers have no right to be anywhere adults are, and should be forced to immediately defer or give way when an adult demands something they are using, to use the space they are in, or to have the level of ambient noise changed immediately to their preference. They will attempt to recruit library workers to enforce their preferences.

5) There is a book titled "Why Sh*t Happens: The science of a really bad day". This is awesome.
5b) Ditto for the revised edition of The Physics of Superheroes.

6) Short shorts have not gone out of fashion. These shorts, in particular, were so short that they almost were covered by the T-shirt.

7) There is, in fact, a Robot J. McCarthy (RedScareBot), scouring the Twitterverse for mentions of socialists and Communists. The more bots we discover, the more we think about how to trip a cascading chain of tweets and retweets across the network. So far, we've discovered RedactBot and RedScareBot. Wonder what else is there...

8) The more I look in nonfiction, the more I find fascinating titles and excellent blurbs on the covers. Clearly there is something for everyone in the library world. Some of it has better salability than others.

9) People get really pissy when their attemtps to just sit down and go are pre-empted by someone going through the correct procedure to reserve a computer.
9b) Combine that with 4b above, and you get people looking for a scapegoat in teenagers "playing games" on the computer while their Big Serious Bizness goes undone.

10) Children who go mute and cling to their parents' legs when the parents are around are perfectly able to talk and interact when they aren't. Especially when they have dolls to help them. (Sounds kind of like The Wisdom of Moo, now that I think about it.)

11) Every time I work the reference desk, I remember why I had to go to school for a Master's. People have questions about anything you can imagine.
11b) I also get all possible modes of address to me and others, from patient and understanding to rude and inconsiderate.

12) In less than two minutes, I can diagnose and solve a problem someone is having printing their web-based e-mail.
12b) Has I had more than two minutes to complete the task, I would have been able to teach it so that the person in question could fish.

13) I am an inspiring figure. (In this particular case, my ability to turn a story with few words into a narrative, with pitch and action and sound effects inspires another possible storyteller to try and do the same to get one past an overly paranoid radar.)

14) Trust the catalog. No matter how wacky the query might be, try it anyway just to see.

15) (Overheard at work) It is apparently totally not okay for very young men to go running about the library with their pants off.

Things I Wish My Users Would Learn: Part 5

1) Read the damn signs. Listen to the warnings. Please. It saves us both time and effort.

2) "If you feel unsure about which of several books to choose, I suggest the following. Open the book and read a paragraph at random, out loud. The sound of it—the sounds the words make as they slide and bump into each other—should feel cadenced or harmonic or percussive or marvelously arrhythmic. The idea of swaying your hips as you read should not seem entirely far-fetched. If this fails to occur, put the book back on the shelf and continue your search. If salespeople or other customers stare at you, pay them no mind. It’s their problem, not yours." - Michael Cunningham, Better Homes and Gardens August 2009.

3) Stay with your kids. We have a computer in the kids area for just that purpose. Unless, for some reason, you take your children to the library and then decide you want to spend your time looking at NSFW material, which would normally be highly awkward upon having to explain such to people.
3b) Supervise. Your. Children. Play with them. Be there when they have questions. Because otherwise, they will ask me questions all the time, in a fairly loud voice, and with no real reagard for the possibility that I might be helping someone else and can't get to them right now.
3c) You are responsible for the content that your children see. There will be things there you think are inappropriate. It is up to you to filter or have those discussions with your child about appropriate material. We don't do that, nor do we have any inkling of an intent to do so. At least, those of us who intend on keeping our jobs don't.

4) Stealing from the library is lame. Not only do you inconvenience everyone else around you, and make whatever pitiful pittance you get by reselling the stuff elsewhere, but you're making it harder for us to be seen as responsible stewards of tax dollars. The ones that you pay for library services, moron.

5) Teeangers have every right to be here at the library. If you are intimidated by their presence at the library, perhaps you should take a really good look at your own prejudices. We're often pretty proud to have teens here, choosing us as a "hangout" spot. If you can't deal with that, instead of asking us to move them without giving us any cause on why, kindly go sod off or come back some other time when your delicate world won't be crushed by the presence of teenagers.
5b) The obverse, however, is that if you're misbehaving (especially repeatedly), oh teenagers who we stick our necks out for, you're going to find out how fast we go from defenders of your presence to people kicking you out.

6) To garner the attention of someone to help you, waving and or shouting, while possibly effective, earns you severely negative goodwill. Get your ass out of your chair and make an effort to flag one of us down by coming up to us.

7) Other people are taking advantage of our new booking system to obtain computers. It is not my problem that you are trying to get lucky and find a computer that is not being booked. You should not complain if someone happens to use the system after you arrived and take the computer that you were just about to log into. After the first time, the lightbulb should have come on. That it took you a second time may indicated there was a short in your system.
7b) Speaking of computer usage, there are no tiers of importance, really, other than we ask people to give preference to job seekers on the 2hr machines. Regardless of your perception of whether or not the teenagers are "playing games" in the face of your job search, we are not going to kick them off if they're logged in. We will, however, encourage you to reserve a computer for yourself so you can go for that, or, if it is a swift measure, to utilize our 15 or 30 minute machines.

8) Forserious, people. Other people have noses that work well. Thus, regardless as to whether your favorite odor is eau de cologne or air of tobacco, if I can smell it across the desk, it's probably on too thick. If I am still smelling it as you are moving away, at say, two meters, it's definitely on too thick. This is doubly dangerous if you're a co-worker, because it usually means unavoidable proximity.

9) To be a busybody at the library is just as bad as to be a busybody elsewhere. I can't say that I don't care if someone else is using someone else's time, but your repeated insistence that I make him log off and log back on makes me more likely to tell you to mind your own business.

10) I don't read minds. Stare as much as you like, but I'm not going to know what you want until you say something. (Even when I can make a really accurate guess by your context.) Again, come over to see me with your questions.
10b) As much as is possible, give me complete and accurate information. I would prefer the accurate over the complete, however, so when in doubt, omit and wait for me to ask.

11) Giving information to someone about the taxing structure of our library district is no less important that the school assignment you seem very flustered about. You'll get no sympathy from me about its unimportance, despite your insistence.
11b) Speaking of, by butting in to ask your question that you seem very frustrated with, when you say "I don't mean to be rude", it is already too late.

12) Do not wait until the last two minutes of your computer session to get help with your problem. (Unless, of course, the problem appears in the last two minutes of your session. That's unavoidable.) This makes the librarians very cranky.
12b) Furthermore, I Am Not The Tech Guy. I live by the xkcd flowchart and accumulated years of breaking things and figuring out how to fix them.

13) One level removed from users: Teachers - it is ill-advised to make assignments so specific or exacting such that when someone comes to me for help, I can provide them with perhaps one resource, and even then, the person is unsure you will take it.