Saturday, January 21, 2012

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had to explain to a patron that even though they clicked "Buy now" on Amazon for a particular ebook, they don't actually OWN the ebook if the gift card on the Amazon account has a balance of $0.00.

...if you've ever had a patron complain about a baby crying on another floor of the building.
"Well, it sounds like the baby is in the bathroom, so maybe it's being changed. I'm sure it will stop shortly."
"I'm a mother of five, and NONE of my babies EVER screamed like that during a changing!"
At this point, I very carefully did not say, 'As a mother of five, I'm surprised you have no tolerance for a crying baby. Surely you can relate to the parent, and can understand how useless it is for you to get pissy about a very natural part of being an infant?'

...if you've ever gotten excited about an email reference question because it actually took a little creative research to answer--you pull out multiple types of reference materials, trace the development of an idea, and document your findings in a detailed and informative email. And then, the next day, you find a four word reply. "thank you very much"

Ahh well, I guess we can't all be poets...

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