Marketing, Direct

Libraries shouldn’t waste time updating their Web sites, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds. If you really want to reach your patrons with important information, write a letter to Dear Abby.

Ask the Readers: What do you want Dear Abby to tell your library patrons?

It, Sticking

Your choice of Post-it notes (or their generic counterparts) is essential to intra-library communication.  Choose a size and color for your correspondence that reflects your library personality.  For example:

• Small notes are preferred by Tweeting-librarians.  
• Large, line-ruled pads are used by more "mature" librarians.  
• Pastels are for the meek, mild, and milquetoasts.  
• Neons are used by librarians who are trying too hard to be cool.  
• Pale yellow is reserved for the criminally insane (and/or the budget-restrained). 

Never use pieces of scrap paper and transparent tape to communicate with your library coworkers.  That is just pitiful.

Ask the readers: What kind of Post-its do you use, and what do they say about you?

Exclaiming, Job Search

Unless you have ever worked for Yahoo!, there is absolutely no excuse for using exclamation marks in your library job application letter or resume.

Battles, Email

If you are going to subject your library coworkers to a fiery toned public email battle with another colleague, at least try to make it interesting. Nobody wants to read fifty back-and-forth argumentative emails about your use of the MARC record's 856 field. Consider your audience... use more expletives, insult the other person's cats, and ramp up the obvious sexual tension. Your readers deserve better.

Quotation marks, "Unnecessary"

Forget what you learned in your "grammar" classes... a good librarian will sprinkle quotation marks liberally throughout his or her written and electronic correspondence to give certain words more "emphasis." You can also do this with your verbal communications, though beware of people who may mistake your emphatic gesture for sarcastic "dick fingers."

Emails, Sending flaming

It is generally not acceptable for librarians to send flaming, angry mass emails to their coworkers. Instead, try slapping your coworkers across the face. This direct, personal touch eliminates the electronic paper trail and leaves little room for misinterpretation.

Ask the readers: What inspired the most recent flaming email at your library?

Restrooms, Soliciting in

Do not use foot taps and under-the-stall hand gestures in your library's public restroom to solicit sex from strangers. Do like the rest of us and use the less ambiguous, half-literate wall graffiti to make an appointment.

Greeting cards, Disposing of

Never dispose of a birthday card, Christmas card, or a card of congratulations from a library colleague. Keep them filed away (preferably by the last name of the sender) as a record of who your real friends are. How else will you remember who said, "Have a great one!" in 1997?