silveradept | The other shoe - Things I would like my users to know.

While I am always learning on my job, there are times where I would like to tell my users something, as a whole, because knowing and remembering these things makes my job easier. Many of these are based on some librarian’s experience, but details or entire accounts may have been made up out of whole cloth.

Things I would like to communicate to my users:

1) Interrupt me. Ask me for help first, rather than wandering around confused. I am being paid to provide assistance in your questions, no matter how simple, complex, or stupid they sound to you. If I look like I am doing something else, interrupt me anyway. Most likely, it’s not something that has to be done right this second.

2) My miracle-working ability gets better the more information that you provide to me. That said, I am much like the computer you will see me use - garbage in, garbage out.

2b) Please do not assume that I will pass any sort of judgment on your request. I assure you, I will not pass on to your preacher, parents, youth league, friends, or anyone else that you are curious about the beliefs and practices of other religions, nor will I pass on to the government any requests for the Anarchist’s Cookbook. (There is the exception where a lawfully signed court order may be used to access your records. If you keep no records, however, then they cannot access them.) If you only give me surface-level information and prevent me from trying to find the root cause, I can only give you a surface-level answer, which may not be what you really wanted to know.

3) Please assume that the computers designed for Internet access were bought from Bargain Jim’s Basement O’ Obsolete Parts. Attempting complex operations requiring Flash and/or Java may result in failure or your computer freezing. We’re working on the problem where only half the memory sticks will work on the computers.

4) Please do not attempt to circumvent the rules on Internet time. I realize that one hour per day is woefully insufficient for anyone to complete anything more than the most basic of tasks, and that we do not have nearly enough computers to fulfill your needs and requests, but that has been determined to be the best fit to ensure that everyone has access during the time the library is open. If you start using the catalog computers as general-access Internet computers with no time limits, or use other means such as another barcode number to gain additional time, we will notice. We will probably warn you about it once, and then start taking heads if it continues. If we feel charitable, all we might do is lock out all the alternate means that you have for circumventing our policy. Realize that my enforcement of policy may not coincide with my beliefs about whether that policy is a good idea.

5) If the sign says “Quiet Zone”, obey. You can read and converse elsewhere, just not there. Obey! Obey!

5b) “Ambient noise level” is determined solely by the librarians, but a good rule of thumb is that if you’re louder than everyone else in the library, you’re over the ambient noise level.

6) Your responsibilities regarding the conduct of your children/siblings/grandchildren/charges are not abdicated upon your sitting down to an Internet terminal, or your sitting them down to an Internet terminal. If things get out of hand, you are permitted and encouraged to pause your session, remove yourself to enforce parenting discipline, and then return to your station. If you must do this multiple times, that is acceptable. Since we are not a licensed day-care facility, we do not have the training, nor the resources, nor are we paid enough by any stretch of the imagination to baby-sit or entertain your children outside the course of our normal programming. As such, we will refer all unruly children back to you and expect you to do something about it to our satisfaction. If you are wearing headphones or otherwise showing an obvious disregard for your children, that will not endear you in our eyes.

6b) I prefer to treat library users as sentient, competent, and otherwise intelligent beings, assuming they have reached the age where this is possible. Thus, I will do weird things like ask a three year-old child if they can be quieter in their play, because I feel they can understand the question and then, hopefully, respond to it in the affirmative. Please, dear parent, resist the urge to snap at me, tell me that your child does not understand the conception of “quiet”, and say that I have no standing in which to ask for quieter play. I assure you, from the audience that I have for my story-time presentations, and from your own involvement later on, that the conception of “quiet” can be harnessed by three year-old boys when their parents are paying attention to them.

7) I should never have to warn you or comment on something unacceptable more than once. Failing that, I should never have to threaten you with consequences more than once for the same behavior. If you attract my attention on three separate occasions for the same thing, there will likely be Consequences. Do not make me come over there, or use my serious voice. You Will Not Like It.

8) Librarians and children both have excellent hearing. Anything you say around either of them will probably be heard, even if neither of them makes any move to acknowledge or dispute the veracity of your statement.

That’s my short list of things to communicate. Luckily, the more consistent offenses usually reside in problems with lower number, which is a plea from me to make me earn my salary, than problems with high number that tend to start ugly and get worse as time goes by.