Parties, Throwing

Final exams week is a great time to host an impromptu party at your library. But don't invite your security folks. They will confiscate uncovered drinks and/or spray your students in the face with mace.

Mug, Your ugly

Librarians should choose clever coffee mugs to express themselves creatively around the workplace. A person's mug says a lot about him or her. For example, your "An oyster a day keeps the Viagra away!" mug explains to your library colleagues both your bad breath and your boners.

Ask the readers: What's the best/worst coffee mug used at your library?

In, Blending

Librarians should not wear clothes with pictures of books on them. This "library-camouflage" may hide you as you wander in the stacks, but it makes you a target for nerdhunters as soon as you walk out the library's front door.

Earth Week, Celebrating

Librarians can celebrate Earth Week by...

• Unplugging all of the library's computers
• Burning library books to save fossil fuels
• Encouraging staff to not shower for a week
• Only circulating green books
• Using patron poop to fertilize library landscaping

Shushing, Equal opportunity

It is your responsibility as a librarian to inform library patrons when their headphones are too loud. Nevermind if the patron has impaired hearing and turns out to be using an assisted listening device. Disabilities are no excuse for noisiness in the library.

Meetings, Escaping from

It is perfectly acceptable for a librarian to fake a small bladder to escape from a meeting, workshop, or conference presentation. If you play the part convincingly enough, you can even angle for a "handicapped parking" spot.

Booktrucks, Loving your

Book trucks are a hot commodity in libraries. Protect them. Label them for your department so that they don't wander. Send out accusatory mass emails when they go missing. Decorate them. Rotate their tires every 7,000 miles. But please, please, please, please, please.... spare us all and don't dance with them.

No, Just say

List all your library's prohibitions on homemade signs and paste them around your library. No food. No drinks. No cell phones. No animals. No noise. No weapons. No sex. No farting. No murder. No eefing. How else will your patrons know all the things they are not allowed to do in your library?

Ask the readers: What is the most ridiculous prohibitive sign in your library?

Circulation, Beware of

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?

Coffee, Fixing the

A polite librarian will sneak into the library staff's coffee stash, empty the Folgers Half-Caff canister, and refill it with the good stuff. You can make your library a better place.

Librarian, Being a librarian's

If a colleague calls you "a librarian's librarian," it is perfectly acceptable to punch him or her in the mouth.

Projecting, Overhead

Librarians can kick it old school by using an overhead projector and transparencies in their library instruction sessions. Print the transparencies from PowerPoint slides to show that you are being ironic.

Breaks, Taking

Happy, healthy librarians smoke cigarettes. Smoking librarians get more breaks, take longer breaks, and get outside the library several times per day.