Custodians, Pissing off the

Don't piss off your custodians. They will stop emptying your trash and will start hiding hateful messages under your telephone.

Things to avoid:

• correcting them for emptying your recycling into the regular trash
  
• playing computer games while they empty your waste basket
• regularly dribbling coffee all the way from the coffee shop to your office
• refusing to participate in idle chit-chat about the weather
• leaving your pay-check stub face-up on top of the trash
  
• snorting like a pig when they crash the library potluck dinner (bearing no food)
• writing "custodians suck!" on the bathroom wall in your own feces

[My Job] Committee, Setting up a

Set up a committee of your peers to oversee your primary area of responsibility. Appoint yourself chair. This is a great way to ...

• give yourself some leadership experience
• practice delegating to your peers
• diffuse responsibility for tasks you don't want to do
  
• share blame for bad decisions
• pad your vita/resume

Do all of this in the name of democracy... because everyone should have a say in how they do your job.

Stat counters, Lessons learned from

Placing a hidden stat counter on a library web site or blog is a great way to see if visitor traffic justifies the time spent authoring the content. In addition to counting the number of new and returning visitors, these counters also give the author some insight into how people arrive at their page.

For example, a surprisingly large number of people reach A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette by doing one of the following Google searches: nude librarians, nude sexy librarians, and sexy librarians (presumably the latter still being clothed). The Guide's authors can only imagine that their accidental visitors are sorely disappointed to learn that librarians, by and large, are not the least bit sexy. And more often than not (thankfully), they do wear clothes.

Ideas of grandeur, Entertaining

Though business may be waning in your reference room with final exams wrapping up, don't let yourself be caught at the reference desk wistfully staring at your own blog, daydreaming of the day that someone will offer you a book deal for your concept. Even if you do entertain such ideas of grandeur, don't let others see you practicing your autograph for your imaginary promotional book tour of national and state library association meetings (where, of course, you'll be paid to speak about the silly self-importance of your profession and where each reading will end with everyone wanting to buy you a beer). Your patrons and colleagues just wouldn't understand.

Pet projects, Promoting your

As final exams loom, academic librarians should begin gearing up for the Who can be the most annoying about their summer pet project? contest.

The rules are simple:

1. Pick a project that no one else cares about.
2. Talk about your project all the time.
3. Assume that your project is everyone's highest priority.
4. Get defensive when no one will give you any feedback or comment on it.

Ready? Set? Go!

"So I'm going to be changing the screensavers on all the public workstations this summer, and I was wondering if we could all meet to go over the first draft of my proposal?"

Reference Interview, The

Part of being a good reference librarian is being able to understand what patrons mean when they ask their questions. Often, the patron doesn't express their information need in a clear and concise manner... thus the need for a reference interview.

For example: A patron may ask, "What languages did the Vikings speak?" In his mind, he has communicated what he thinks is a clear information need. The librarian, however, can interpret his real information need to be, "How can I tell if I'm wearing too much cologne?"

The librarian's mission is now two-fold: a) find languages spoken by Vikings and b) let this guy know he is burning the hairs out of your nose. The first part is easy. The second may require some finesse. Be a good librarian and cough, gag, put your hand over your nose, or ask him to wait outside while you search for his answer. If he doesn't get the hint, light a match and see if he bursts into flames.

Tissues at the reference desk, Supplying

Do not keep toilet paper at the reference desk. It's tacky. Toilet paper is for use at the toilet. The reference desk can be bad, but it's no toilet. Class things up a bit by buying a generic box of Kleenex. The ones in the floral box. If you really want to show the patrons that you care, splurge and get the ones with lotion.

Are you crafty? Crochet a Kleenex-cozy to keep those tissues warm and comfortable. Just be sure to color coordinate it with your library's decor. Nothing ruins a good nose-blow like a mismatched tissue-box cover.