Diplomas, Displaying

[Note: The humble editors of A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette seek your opinion by presenting a rare reader's poll... Thanks in advance for your participation.]

Is it pretentious for a librarian to hang the framed MLS diploma in his/her office or work space?
	Yes
	No
Polling provided by Pollhost.com

Office supplies, Hoarding

Hoard office supplies in your desk and filing cabinets. Some day you may find yourself needing to dispose of a patron's body and all that library mailing tape and bubble wrap will come in handy. Just remember, it takes A LOT of paper clips stuffed in a person's pockets to make them sink to the bottom of the river.

Pencils, Supplying free

Provide complimentary pencils to your patrons so that they can write down call numbers from your online catalog. Just be sure the provided pencils are small golf pencils. Nothing says, "We value your patronage," like an awkward writing experience and the resulting hand cramps.

Patrons, Stalking

Some say that stalking is the sincerest form of flattery. Don't get caught flattering your patrons by looking up their personal contact information in your online system, delving into their circulation history to gauge their reading habits, or going through their web browser's history file after they leave a public workstation.

Once you get up the nerve, you may have a difficult time asking the person out given that restraining order filed against you.

Conferences, Returning from

Upon returning from a library conference, be sure to complete the following checklist of items before catching up on all the email, gossip, and office drama you missed while you were gone...

• Cull out the good vendor give-aways for yourself and then dump the rest off on your coworkers or the homeless (15 minutes)
• Make a list of all the practical things you learned at the conference (10 seconds)
• Erase all the boring "Why the hell did I take these?!" conference photos from your digital camera (10 seconds)
• Recycle all the PowerPoint print-outs, business cards, and other ephemera you collected, but will never look at again (5 minutes)
• Congratulate yourself on doing a good civic deed by helping boost the local economy of the conference's host city (until you get your credit card bill)

Once all of these things are done, be sure to spend a few minutes detoxing your body and mind by talking to someone who doesn't work in a library and doesn't speak in acronyms.

Freebies, Collecting conference

While at a library conference, run around the vendor booths collecting free give-aways like a whore in a cucumber patch. Grab the free bookmarks, catalogs, tote bags, and flashlight pens with a desperate, wild-eyed passion that would scare your non-librarian friends. Need and practicality are not issues in the vendor booths. ("It's a highlighter AND a laser pointer?! Brilliant!!") It's all about getting as much free crap as you can fit in the rolling suitcase you brought along just for the occasion.

In order to make the most efficient use of your time, don't look vendors in the eye. Just grab the freebies by the handful and go! Do, however, stop to acknowledge the vendors whose companies have obviously spent an egregious amount of research and development money coming up with new ways to reinvent the ink pen. Let them know that they are the ones who keep the librarians coming back.

Soul, Selling your

Sign up for Google AdSense and load money-making ads on your blog. If anyone reads it, you can get rich and quit your day job.

If no one reads your blog, try sneaking some Google ads onto your library's web page. Be sure to load the ads in a prominent place on your web site to ruin any aesthetic you have going.