Lost & Found has many things...

...but not your dentures.  Sorry, sir.

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if  you've caught two men with their hands down their pants in one day.

...if you've ever had a public printer failure, put signs around the library indicating the printer is broken, and people still manage to print.  (How is this even possible???)
...and further, if you've ever had someone manage to print who then took one of the signs, told you it was a lie, and ripped up the sign right there in front of you.

...if you've ever come back to the reference desk after helping a patron to find a total stranger sitting behind the desk in your chair.  "Oh, I was just waiting."

So.  How's your day?

Holy, holy, holy

While helping someone find books about the lives of the saints, I found two back issues of Esquire magazine with swimsuits cut down to *there*.  

Kicker was that they were about 6 years old, way outside of our retention schedule.  Which means they were sitting on the shelf for, what, three years? Four?

(Another unfinished draft from January 2011)

It's a book, not a cat.

Just watched a little girl drop several books into the book drop, one at a time. This would not be an unusual sight worthy of comment if she hadn't also been saying, "MEOW!" with each book. Each. And. Every. Book.

(Another old draft, this time from January 2011)

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever answered the phone to find that a part-time colleague has finally met Mr. Britannica.

Our library is lucky. Every few months, we are visited by a man we've (okay, I've) dubbed Mr. Britannica because of his obsession with the Encyclopedia of the same name.

Problem is, in last year's major weeding project, the Britannica was removed from the Reference collection for a number of reasons, including:

1. It was from 1989. This meant the US & the USSR were still locked in the Cold War, space shuttle hadn't blown up, and the intertubes weren't in full stream.
2.         It costs thousands of dollars to replace, but it gets very little use.  If cost per use was a factor, it would be enough to make your jaw drop.

(This was a draft from October 2011 that I only just now noticed)

You know it's going to be a long day when...

You know it's going to be a long day at Reference when a woman wearing a long red cape walks in...and then you realize she has rubber snakes and balloons tied in her hair.

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had cause to wonder what your library's policy is on patrons flossing their teeth in the public reading area.

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had to explain to someone that the reason they can't log into their web-based email is because they put a 0 instead of an o in the address:
user@email.c0m

And the patron got mad at you.

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever heard anything like the following conversation:

Patron:  The W key on that keyboard is stuck.  Can I have a new computer?
Volunteer:  Umm, sure, let me assign another computer to you.
P:  (Pointing) But can I have that computer?
V:  Yes, but it won't be available for another 20 minutes.
P:  That's okay.  There's less monitoring on that computer.
V:  Less what?
P:  Monitoring.  That W key got stuck because I was trying to get the truth out.
V:  The truth?
P:  Yes.  The government monitors everything I type, and they jammed the W key to prevent me from writing anything more.  But they have more trouble monitoring that computer.
V:  How do they monitor it?
P:  They look for certain keywords, and as soon as I type one, they start blocking me.

Up to this point, I had been considering if I should get involved with the conversation.  The volunteer is nice, but rather gullible.  The patron is one of our hardcore paranoid regulars.  The combination of the two could have unfortunate results.

However, the volunteer just shrugged and walked away.  Hoping the internal thought process included at least one of the following arguments:

1)  Jamming a letter only moved you to a different computer, where you were free to continue your writing.
2)  How on earth do you know that a particular computer is more difficult to monitor???
3)  You seriously believe that the government has an efficient real-time monitoring program?  Have you ever known the government to do anything efficiently???

What it takes to be a librarian

Sometimes, I think it takes a certain skill to be a successful librarian.  Today, that skill is "Knowing When to Give Nice Answer VS. Honest Answer, AKA 'What You REALLY Want to Say'."

Case in point:  We have a patron who frequently uses our internet computers.  I've never been approached by this patron for anything other than the Same. Exact. Conversation.

'Uh, yeah, I was just using that computer (points vaguely towards entire room full of computers) and it was really slow.  Why are all of you computers so slow?"

Good librarian answer:  "Well, they get a lot of use."
Bad librarian answer: "We slow them down on purpose to annoy library users."

"Yeah, but it's really annoying."

Good librarian:  "I'm sorry to hear that you're having troubles."
Bad librarian:  "You complained about this last month, and I did nothing about it then, too."

"I mean, I could barely do what I needed to do, they were that slow."

Good librarian:  "I'm sorry to hear that you're having troubles."
Bad librarian is, at this point, screaming at ME inside my head:  JUST TELL THE GUY THAT THE COMPUTERS ARE SLOW BECAUSE THEY ARE FREE FOR HIM AND EVERY OTHER PERSON IN THE WORLD TO USE, BUT IF HE'D LIKE TO UNDERWRITE AN UPGRADE, HE COULD SEND A CHECK.

Some day, I will, in fact slip.

Pro tip for free:

If you are a hard of hearing patron who calls for help using your e-reader and our ebooks, please DO ME THE COURTESY OF TURNING DOWN YOUR TELEVISION.

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had a man snoozing not 15' away from the desk.  This is not all that unusual.

And, half an hour after you first noticed him sleeping, you go over and gently pat him on the shoulder and ask him to wake up.  He jumps about 3' up when you wake him, but sits up straighter.  Also not unusual.  

And then, an hour later, you go wake him up again.  Slightly less usual to have to wake the same person, but not unheard of.

What IS unusual, though, is that the man again jumps 3' when you wake him...and immediately starts speaking to you in sign language.

In retrospect, I guess that explains why none of my artfully 'dropped' books disturbed him.

You know it's going to be a long day when...

...30 minutes into the morning shift, you've already had to help someone with their computer three times in the first 10 minutes of their session.

And one of those times led to the patron informing you that you probably have a virus on the computer because the screen keeps going back to some other window and won't stay where they want it to.  And you try very hard to not lose your cool when explaining that every time they click on the little blue "e" they are, in fact, opening a new browser window and not, in fact, actually navigating the website they seek.

It's amazing to witness the digital divide in action day after day after day.  Cause it is real, it exists, and it's profound.

Just when you think you've seen everything...

...a man walks past the Reference Desk with a half gallon of chocolate milk on one side and a gallon of iced tea hanging off the other side of his belt.

Sloshing away, too.

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever gotten a report from a colleague that someone complained of a dead rabbit in the bathroom.

And then, when a staff member goes to investigate, they find someone washing two rabbits in the sink and a third one dead on the counter.

Animal Control and the Police were called.  It was ugly.

I cannot make this stuff up.  

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had a reference interview with a man wearing 3 belts.

...if you've ever had a reference interview with a man who spoke only pidgin German and pidgin French...but has a library card & grew up in town.

Did I miss a memo?

That's two patrons in a row who have needed Ref assistance and who have also had their shirts on inside out.

The guy's t-shirt, no problem, easy to understand.

The woman's shirt with ruffles & buttons, though....

That's a first...

Fairly certain that a pre-nuptial agreement is being hammered out at the table across from the Ref Desk.

Either that, or a very, VERY amicable divorce.

Either way, suppressing the urge to holler, "DON'T YOU ATTORNEYS HAVE OFFICES YOU COULD DO THAT IN?"

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had a young child of 6 or 7 ask where the movies are.
"Do you want kid movies or grown up movies?"
"...Grown up movies!"
You direct the child towards the movies, and a smaller pops up alongside.

"What are you going to get?"
"I don't know."
"Well, what does this one say?"
"The...forty...year...old...something."
"Is it any good?"

Yes, the movie in question was "The Forty-Year Old Virgin."

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever conducted a reference interview with a man wearing a garbage bag as a poncho...and it's not even raining.

...if you've ever looked up the availability of DVDs just to make the point to the couple that yes, we ALL now know EXACTLY which movies he wants to see, which ones she wants to see...and which zombie flick they're letting their 9 year-old son pick.  And then, knowing that the two movies they are hollering about back and forth across the library are long overdue, you join the conversation.