Library circulation departments are where the real crazies work. Don't mess with these people. They will do something to your car. Or unravel your cardigan.
Ask the readers: Which is the craziest department in your library?
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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39 comments:
Tech Services. Without a doubt. They all have some kind of undiagnosed Aspergers, and they're run by a maniacal dictator who won't let them speak. Seriously.
In a loving way I'd say that youth services are the crazies but they need it.
Administration. They think they know how to be librarians, but they have no idea. Micromanagers for the lose.
Cataloging for sure.
Interlibrary Loan.
Marketing & Communication, they just love their parties...all week long.
Our ILL director wastes 300 pieces of paper a week because she is apparently incapable of reading off of a computer screen.
And she'll cut a bitch.
Instructional services will eat your babies. Scary people. *shudder*
Cataloging for sure. They are already past mumbling about their swinglines and onto burning down the building.
I agree with most of you that the cataloging department is usually where the craziest people are... no kidding..
I was going to defend ILL... but, as I've seen first hand the people that work there, I'll second it, instead.
I work in cataloging/tech services and am a perfectly well-adjusted, extroverted person. I just hate answering people's questions, that's all. I will admit that my specialization has its share of batshit-crazy, unkempt, maladjusted freaks, but we're not ALL screwed up.
Our craziest crew: definitely the pages. Is there something about shelving materials that makes you lose all sense of normal? They mumble to themselves, sing along with the radio in the workroom, and, occasionally, grump around the place bitching about "the people who work upstairs."
It takes a special kind of crazy to field the sort of questions posed at the circ desk. I was once asked, very seriously, by a patron where one could purchase human body parts for "self directed learning" yep, that put me on the nut wagon for the day.
Hey, Anonymous, "extroverted" is not the same as "sane" or "well-adjusted." Geez, New Modern Library Thinking for the fail.
Hm...at my academic job, the whackos are the students--but as far as library staff, I'd have to say Circ. Half of them think they're librarians and would rather fuck up a reference question (which they're not even supposed to be handling) than hand it on to someone who knows how to deal with it, and of course the student is the one who really suffers.
At the PL, I'd say Tech Services. We have somebody in there who will arbitrarily refuse to order stuff that a subject librarian has requested, because even though she hasn't seen the collection or the patrons in years, she is convinced she knows better than the people out on the floor. The end result is that intellectually-stimulating stuff slips quietly out of our collection while 15 copies each of the newest schlock is purchased in its place. But of course, that's happening all over the US these days. New Modern Library Thinking for the fail once more.
Preservation. Bad glue fumes brains are for.
I'm going to kind of quote Yvonne and say that It takes a special kind of crazy to decide to be a librarian. Think long and hard about your library school experience. You're now starting to remember that all of those fellow students were effing nuts no matter what they decided to specialize in. Librarians. Are. Crazy.
Crazies work in all departments, but mostly at circ. We have one who keeps needing to go to rehab (but says "no, no, no"). Imagine what Janis Joplin would look like if she hadn't died young. The poster child for "Say No to Drugs". I gave up marijuana the day I met her.
They're all crazy. Each department has a special kind of crazy person that is manic about their "super-serious-emergency" work.
Having said that, I'm going with Instructional.
At the public library I work at- the children's department. You *have* to be crazy to deal with kids all day.
At the academic library- definitely Cataloging. Ick.
Academic library cataloging fer sure. We had psychos, a legend-in-own-mind male diva or two and general nasty blood feuds all around.
I think the serials cataloging ring of the tech services peanut gallery in my own 'brary takes the cake (notwithstanding a recent retirement; her replacement holds no candle to her wanked-out-ness). Although it's not called CATALOGING any more: "resource description" pushes New Modern Library Thinking into megafail territory.
I used to consider myself a librarian wannabe, but there's no desire any more; I'm a faux-brarian all the way.
In mine, its sadly a toss up between acquisitions and circulation. I don't mean they are crazy in a goofy and fun loving way, but in a "insane and backstabbing and really unstable" Not pleasent at all.
Is anyone who said Instruction able to give examples? I want to be sure I'm not the crazy.
I'm so glad you guys are back! I really missed your humorous insights.
Circ and cataloging - the circ people don't want anything to change, EVER, and the cataloger is just an insane control freak.
Acqui.batshit.sitions.
My colleagues would say Cataloging, but really, it's Administration. These people are nuts. They're so out of touch that it's sad.
Wait a minute. I'm a solo. There's no option but me.
...
Uh oh.
PS- my verification word is "scrudeu". I read it as "screwed you".
Pages and circ staff are the same thing at my library... and yes, we are all crazy. All the full time staff and crazy nutjob patrons made us this way.
The crazy people from the cataloging department. They invented the sick building syndrome. Their manager behaves as if he were general Custer
i think every department has its geek or two, which makes the library the nicest place on earth, as normal ppl quite frequently suck :o)
I'm curious who'd win a price:
The craziest departments from Libraries versus the craziest departments from Banks & Insurance Compagnies.
If you have ever dealt with the curatorial department of a national museum, you'll find librarians to be very nice and normal people.
Serials librarians. They cuss up a storm. And all library directors are weird folk.
And my word verification is braries
And MY word verification if fuggig...what's going on here? Is this rigged?
yeah, library director at my public library (along with his workwife harem of fulltime lady librarians). definitely deranged. out of touch, out of sight (not enough though), oblivious and vociferously verbal about his general dislike of librarians.
I feel like suggesting he (and all the other library staff I've ever worked with who seem to really hate librarians) go get a job at the DMV or Sears or...just so they can work with professionals they might respect.
Everyone is crazy. But cataloguers are a particular kind of crazy.
Male catalogers. 'nuf said.
Circulation at the main branch where I work is freaking insane. They should all be check out girls at the grocery store, they're the kind who cut a bitch for asking to borrow a pencil.
Reference are wacky academics, I like them well. Children's are the ones who can best pass as humans. A lot of them were teachers who got out before the stress killed their soul.
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