Cindiann writes “Dear Abby printed a letter from a disgruntled-sounding Kansas librarian in which the librarian pleads for more reasonable behavior from her patrons, such as returning materials on time, not bringing food or drink to hte library, controlling one’s children, etc. The suggested behaviors in themselves are fine, but (IMNSHO) the reasons “Marian” gives are a little preachy and are perhaps fodder for some of the bad rap that librarians get.
This response was posted today on Libref-l. Wow. Again IMNSHO, I think this was written by the librarian who posted the response (too jargony to be written by a patron!). Does it belie his displeasure with his profession? colleagues? institution?
Veddy interesting….”
User Rights
Reads like a pretty standard expectation of how a patron/customer/user/whatever should be treated. Time to dust off those service guidelines?
Let’s be honest
Let’s be honest, some of us seem not only a bit apathetic about our profession, some of us are a bit too in love with it.
Between you and me and the rest of the world who can read this post if only they go to LISNews, a lotta people do not care about library and info science. They just don’t. It’s either not their thing, they’re not going to use it on a daily basis, or something else. Most people really don’t give a damn how you went about getting their answer as long as you can verify the information’s integrity. Someone calling in and asking for an address probably couldn’t care less if you looked it up in a phone book, snagged it from Google, got it from an online directory, or pulled it out of your ass. They don’t care as long as you can vouch that the info is good and honest.
I think some of us do get a little preachy when it comes to our profession.
Do you really expect, in this day and age, for people to remember the breakdown of the Dewey Decimal System? And, let me tell you, you can jolly well forget the Library of Congress Classification System. Students have enough on their plates as is and aren’t going to take time out to learn a D from a P but they’ll happily provide you with an F and a U if you really push the subject.
So I agree with much of what this “patron’s” response offers. Don’t get preachy. Don’t act like some god or goddess of information. Looking down on your patrons because they didn’t know something runs counter to everything we do. After all, if they already knew it, they wouldn’t need us. Sure, this is our profession and most of us enjoy it. But don’t let us expect everyone to get their rocks off on info and library goodies.
Actual user replies 🙂
I saw a couple of actual replies in the blogosphere to the Dear Abby column. These people really took exception to the letter, although the second one sounds like she has a axe to grind in general against her local library. I’d agree that these people didn’t get as jargony as the composer of the reply in question. They also used more profanity. That leads me to think these blog entries are probably legit
depends on the type of library
On the other hand, when students come in and want me to find an article for them, part of my job is to show them how I’m using the tool at hand to find the article, so they can find the next article themselves. I’m sure this is different in a public library, but in an academic library, part of my job is instruction. Students are expected to graduate from college knowing how to do basic article research, and if part of that includes showing a nursing student how to use the MeSH thesaurus built into MEDLINE, then I’m going to do that. The student may not want me to show her how to find the information herself, but I’m still going to show her.
Different libraries, different patrons, different needs.
Re:Let’s be honest
Agree, BUT, what about the patrons who get lousy service and don’t complain? People are mostly pretty good and I’ve heard library horror stories about poor service, arrogant attitudes, and sub-standard treatment patrons have endured from surly staff but who don’t complain to the director. I urge my patrons to talk to the director when they have a legitimate beef but the patron will say, “I don’t want anyone to lose their jobâ€?. This is very kind but not at all helpful to improving library service.
All of us have bad days, and all of us can improve but the really ripe library-staff stinkers need to either be forced to change their attitude or find another profession.