Stuff for library users to learn, v. 3
Jan. 7th, 2009 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptRemember, most of you are good people who do not annoy the library staff. Here are some helpful tips on keeping that status... although I’ve noticed that it’s the people who aren’t aware that what they’re doing is royally pissing off the library staff that tend to do it best.
1a) The library is changing. We are doing our best to ensure that all of our populaces have a niche that they can be happy in, but a side effect of being a public building is that all members of the public are welcome to join in. In high-traffic areas like computers, this means you may be forced to encounter age groups you personally find detestable, possibly making more noise than you are comfortable with, and maybe even doing harmless things to each other or around that annoy you. There are two proper responses to this:
i) Suck it up and deal with it.
ii) Politely ask a staffer to see what they can do about the situation.
1b) Telling a staff member that they are incompetent and shouldn’t be employed because they don’t read your mind and stop someone from doing something harmless that doesn’t appear to be directly affecting anyone is a sure way to make a staff member’s day. Most of us will shrug it off. The rest of us will blog about it. In either case, on what authority do you tell a staff member how to do their job?
1c) Talking to the offenders directly can work, too. But don’t expect them to be any more of mind readers about some sort of “quiet” need than I am. If you want success, do it in a rational manner. If you blow up at them, they might respect you, or they might see it as a challenge to annoy you further. If you decide to take matters into your own hands, don’t be surprised if the librarian tells you you’re out of line while also telling them to tone it down.
1d) For said offenders: If a librarian gets involved, you’re being too loud. If you ask the librarian to move somewhere where you can be a little louder, we still expect you to behave civilly. Don’t make me come in there. And especially don’t make me come back because you exceeded the bounds of good taste. It makes me less likely to grant you the request to move in the first place.
2) Saying “You’re a big girl/boy, we don’t read baby books anymore” is totally missing the point. To encourage reading, read what they want to read. Imposing arbitrary age and gradedness on someone’s pleasurable reading just doesn’t work. Even if he wants to hear “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie” for the five hundredth time, read it to him (or let him read it). Don’t stifle the reading love, please!
2b) The persons responsible for Accelerated Reader and other ways of packaging someone’s reading skills into numerical and quantifiable “levels” or “points” will be hung by their toes, attached to an unnecessarily slow-moving mechanism, and subjected to the closest thing we humans have to carbonite freezing.
2c) The library is not just a place to look at books. I’m not even sure that’s our primary function any more, with as often as the Internet terminals are in use.
3) Honk and die. Come into the library to retrieve your children.
4) We are not an answering machine service, nor do we have to keep track of anyone. If you are that concerned about the whereabouts of your child, tether him or her with a cell phone or other sort of leash, please.
4b) On that point, we do not act in loco parentis. So, if you want your child not to check certain materials out, or not to attend programs, or to only make it so they can watch Barney forever and ever until the end of time, you’ll have to accompany your child to the library every single time.
5) When making a complaint to me, don’t hedge. If you say, “The depictions of X in this book are Y, but I’m not really an anti-Y person” or “but I have these other progressive ideas over here”, you’re not helping me figure out what you think is wrong with the book.
6) Teenagers are occasionally rowdy and coarse. Comes with the territory. We’re really doing our best to make sure that we’re not totally stifling them and riding their asses to the point where they can’t sneeze without a handkerchief and a shush appearing (which is what some of you users want), and not letting them run amok and turn the place into their persona living rooms (which is what they would like).
7) Once is a warning. Twice is a command. Don’t make me say it a third time.
8) I am not a bludgeon to be used indiscriminately! I will answer your questions nicely, politely, and to the best of my ability, but I assure you, that does not mean that I have somehow sided with you against your child in any sort of way.
1a) The library is changing. We are doing our best to ensure that all of our populaces have a niche that they can be happy in, but a side effect of being a public building is that all members of the public are welcome to join in. In high-traffic areas like computers, this means you may be forced to encounter age groups you personally find detestable, possibly making more noise than you are comfortable with, and maybe even doing harmless things to each other or around that annoy you. There are two proper responses to this:
i) Suck it up and deal with it.
ii) Politely ask a staffer to see what they can do about the situation.
1b) Telling a staff member that they are incompetent and shouldn’t be employed because they don’t read your mind and stop someone from doing something harmless that doesn’t appear to be directly affecting anyone is a sure way to make a staff member’s day. Most of us will shrug it off. The rest of us will blog about it. In either case, on what authority do you tell a staff member how to do their job?
1c) Talking to the offenders directly can work, too. But don’t expect them to be any more of mind readers about some sort of “quiet” need than I am. If you want success, do it in a rational manner. If you blow up at them, they might respect you, or they might see it as a challenge to annoy you further. If you decide to take matters into your own hands, don’t be surprised if the librarian tells you you’re out of line while also telling them to tone it down.
1d) For said offenders: If a librarian gets involved, you’re being too loud. If you ask the librarian to move somewhere where you can be a little louder, we still expect you to behave civilly. Don’t make me come in there. And especially don’t make me come back because you exceeded the bounds of good taste. It makes me less likely to grant you the request to move in the first place.
2) Saying “You’re a big girl/boy, we don’t read baby books anymore” is totally missing the point. To encourage reading, read what they want to read. Imposing arbitrary age and gradedness on someone’s pleasurable reading just doesn’t work. Even if he wants to hear “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie” for the five hundredth time, read it to him (or let him read it). Don’t stifle the reading love, please!
2b) The persons responsible for Accelerated Reader and other ways of packaging someone’s reading skills into numerical and quantifiable “levels” or “points” will be hung by their toes, attached to an unnecessarily slow-moving mechanism, and subjected to the closest thing we humans have to carbonite freezing.
2c) The library is not just a place to look at books. I’m not even sure that’s our primary function any more, with as often as the Internet terminals are in use.
3) Honk and die. Come into the library to retrieve your children.
4) We are not an answering machine service, nor do we have to keep track of anyone. If you are that concerned about the whereabouts of your child, tether him or her with a cell phone or other sort of leash, please.
4b) On that point, we do not act in loco parentis. So, if you want your child not to check certain materials out, or not to attend programs, or to only make it so they can watch Barney forever and ever until the end of time, you’ll have to accompany your child to the library every single time.
5) When making a complaint to me, don’t hedge. If you say, “The depictions of X in this book are Y, but I’m not really an anti-Y person” or “but I have these other progressive ideas over here”, you’re not helping me figure out what you think is wrong with the book.
6) Teenagers are occasionally rowdy and coarse. Comes with the territory. We’re really doing our best to make sure that we’re not totally stifling them and riding their asses to the point where they can’t sneeze without a handkerchief and a shush appearing (which is what some of you users want), and not letting them run amok and turn the place into their persona living rooms (which is what they would like).
7) Once is a warning. Twice is a command. Don’t make me say it a third time.
8) I am not a bludgeon to be used indiscriminately! I will answer your questions nicely, politely, and to the best of my ability, but I assure you, that does not mean that I have somehow sided with you against your child in any sort of way.
