Instruction, Singing

Library instruction for first-year college students should be participatory and engaging. If you worry that students won't understand your technical terms and language, make your lesson more palatable by setting it to music.

Music, Your choice of

Polite librarians know that their officemates hate their choice of low-playing music in the library workplace. If you insist on playing music in your office space, choose something that you both hate so that you can ridicule it together.

Ask the readers: What is the worst music you have had to endure in your library?

Volume, Pump down the

Never admonish library patrons for listening to their headphones too loudly.  Instead, a librarian should stand beside the offending patron, dance a vigorous MC Hammer dance, and say, "Wow!  I'm really digging that jam!"  Your endorsement will render the patron's coolness null and void, and send him or her running out of the library in embarrassment.

Rock you, We will

Librarians should follow the rock concert model and spend the first five minutes of each library instruction class with some music to get your students in the mood for research. Before the main attraction, offer up one of these motivational selections:

• "We Will Rock You" - Queen
• "Gonna Make You Sweat" - C+C Music Factory
• "Search & Destroy" -- Iggy and the Stooges
• "Whoomp! There It Is" - Tag Team
• Or any funeral dirge of your choice

Ask the Readers: What song would be a fitting introduction to YOUR library instruction classes?

Sexy Back, Bringing

Never let your library coworkers catch you listening to Justin Timberlake on your office computer. You will never hear the end of it.