Left-handedness, Passive-aggressive

If you are a left-handed librarian, make it your standard practice to rearrange the reference desk's keyboard, mouse, and phone at the start of your shift, and then leave it to be put back to normal by the right-handed person who relieves you.

Shitting your pants, The appropriateness of

The availability of free online books from Google makes it absolutely appropriate for librarians to shit their pants.

http://www.print.google.com/

Seriously. Quit your job. Move to the woods. Learn to live off the land.

Professional development, Participating in

Searching the Internet for new jobs is a perfectly reasonable way to participate in professional development while at the reference desk.

Weeding books, On the practice of

C'mon! Nobody weeds books anymore! This is another arcane library expression that should be purged (or weeded?) from your professional vocabulary. Withdrawing titles is also a little too pedestrian.

SOLUTION: You should de-select monographs instead. This subtle semantic change will validate your status as a library scientist and make you feel like the professional you truly are.

Professional journals, Reconsidering

Every once in a while, the professional literature comes through with something genuinely useful, and critics (like your beloved editor) have to eat crow. Sometimes these redeeming events come in the form of a handy bibliography, an illuminating book review, or a particularly apt and applicable study.

Or perhaps while catching up on your backlog of College & Research Libraries News (also known as C&RL News for those of us who don't have time for the extra four syllables), you happen upon the name of a particular person who has been stubbornly ignoring your emails and phone calls for the past few months. No amount of pestering has elicited a response -- which is particularly frustrating because it's really important that you talk to this person to get your professional research back on track. Well, here she is, listed in the "People in the News" section, and...

She's dead. And apparently has been for a while.

Reference Desk statistics, Logging

Don't take reference desk statistics too seriously. It's not like anyone ever looks at those tally sheets anyway.

Recording tick marks and classifying them as "Reference Transactions," "Directional Questions," or "Phone Calls" is a pitiful way to justify our self-worth as professionals. Sure, an administrator may occasionally make a staffing decision using this data, but when was the last time an administrator came to you and said, "You know... I was just looking at the reference desk statistics, and I think we should add another reference librarian to help you out during your busy Thursday evening shift"?

Ticked off with tick marks? Librarians should take a principled stand and ignore the useless act all together.

Surveys, Conducting

Q: Do you conduct surveys?

a) always
b) sometimes
b) only if I have to
c) seldom
d) never

Librarians are bred to survey. It doesn't matter if you use the data. It doesn't matter if you even have a need for a survey. You should do one. Spend a lot of time and personnel hashing out the questions, format, etc. The more hours of professionalism expended on the project, the better your survey will be.