Quotable, Being

Make your words more memorable in your library instruction classes by typing them onto photos of yourself and making them available for your students to share on Facebook. Here’s one to get you started.

Update: 6/28/12, 2:45 PM
More "library instruction via word pictures" are available on the LGTE's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/polite.librarian

Boredom, Alleviating

If you are bored by your work at the library, spice up your day by reading tweets from other librarians who document their boring workdays on Twitter.

Skills, Refreshing your

All librarians should take advantage of Photoshop training sessions provided by their employers. Nothing looks better on a librarian’s resume than being able to create original LOLcats, fake Ryan Gosling quotes, and glamorously blurred LibGuides profile pictures.

Workday, Scheduling your

Librarians should limit noteworthy workplace activities to 30 minutes per day. The rest of the workday should be spent reporting this activity on various online social networks.

[Editor's note: You can now "circle" A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette on Google+. See: http://gplus.to/politelibrarian]

Code, Speaking in

Librarians should remove all printed library signs from their buildings and replace them with QR codes. This will finally get your patrons to notice your library's “No Cell Phones” policy.

Apps, Cool library

Good librarians should abandon their books, web sites, blogs, and tweets in favor of the latest library co-opted  technology: “apps.” Start referring to all of your library's books, web sites, blogs, and tweets as “cool library apps” and they will suddenly be relevant again.

Ask the readers: What is your favorite library "app"?

Current, Keeping it

Librarians should expedite the processing of books with short lifespans.  New textbooks, computer software manuals, and anything about social media should be cataloged upon arrival and immediately weeded to make room for something more current.

Mobile, Going

Libraries should spend a lot of time, money, and effort to make their web sites mobile-phone-compatible. Smart phone users should have just as much right to ignore your page as the rest of your patrons.

Passwords, Creating

Librarians should secure sensitive information on the reference desk computer with a super-secret password, like: library, reference, reflib, libref, or refdesk. This will throw hackers for a loop, as they will be expecting something much more complicated.

Ask the readers: Share your library's lame reference desk password in the comments below. (Anonymously, of course. Otherwise the hackers might log in and change your library's reference desk schedule.)

Viruses, Getting

Computer viruses only attack library computers that are being operated by the elderly, the feeble, and those with weak constitutions. Oh, and perverts. If your staff computer becomes infected, it is best to set it on fire and avoid being identified as one or more of the above.

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.

The, The

A polite librarian should always insert a the before proper names of Internet name brands. Demonstrating your familiarity with the Google, the Facebook, or the Twitter, is a good way to establish some internet-cred with the kids.

Shark, Jumping the

Librarians should be wary of jumping the shark when it comes to their use of technology. During its election night coverage, CNN introduced "hologram" interviews. And now, dear reader, sit back and wait for the first hologram reference librarian, hologram library instruction session, and vendor-sponsored holograminar... coming soon to a library near you.

Ask the readers: Have libraries already jumped the (technological) shark? If so, when? And how?

Friends, Making

A librarian should never reject the friendship of another person in the social networking Library 2.0 online environment. There are lots of perverts out there who need "friends" too.

Silly, Twittering yourself

Librarians who participate in the Web 2.0-world of Twitter, should heed these general etiquette rules:

1. Set up a second Twitter account for your anonymous self.
2. Recognize that this activity is not considered working.
3. Always wash your hands after you tweet.
4. Never shit where you tweet.
5. Make your twitter updates as mundane as humanly possible.
   

Much like fornicating and drinking, one may tweet alone, but it is more fun to do it with someone else... the more, the merrier.

Library 2.0, Believing in

Never admit that Library 2.0 doesn't really exist. To do so is to admit that the emperor has no clothes cardigan.

-- Posted from Internet Librarian 2007

Library 2.0, Embracing

A new version of the Internet (version 2.0) is now available. Libraries are now free to abandon the first one.

-- Posted from Internet Librarian 2007.

Games, Playing

Many libraries have instituted gaming events where patrons are invited into the library to compete in Wii tournaments, World of Warcraft marathons, and Guitar Hero duels. The American Library Association and the Association for College and Research Libraries are once again behind the times with their glaring lack of arcade performance indicators in their information literacy standards.

Perhaps... "The information literate should be able to deliver a thunder clap to fell a Wailing Banshee."

Ask the readers: Got a gamy suggestion for the ACRL information literacy standards? Share it in the comments section below.

Computer screens, Touching

When helping library patrons with computer-related problems, be sure to touch your finger to their computer screens. This is especially important when patrons are using their own laptops. The greasy fingerprints you leave on their screens will serve as reminders of "where to click" once they leave and are no longer within reach of your pointing extremities.

Files, Organizing your

Save all of your electronic files to your computer's desktop. A screen filled with overlapping icons will no doubt serve as testament to your ability to organize information and will instill confidence with your library patrons who've been wasting their time with folders and organized file structures.