Patrons, Stalking

Some say that stalking is the sincerest form of flattery. Don't get caught flattering your patrons by looking up their personal contact information in your online system, delving into their circulation history to gauge their reading habits, or going through their web browser's history file after they leave a public workstation.

Once you get up the nerve, you may have a difficult time asking the person out given that restraining order filed against you.

Conferences, Returning from

Upon returning from a library conference, be sure to complete the following checklist of items before catching up on all the email, gossip, and office drama you missed while you were gone...

• Cull out the good vendor give-aways for yourself and then dump the rest off on your coworkers or the homeless (15 minutes)
• Make a list of all the practical things you learned at the conference (10 seconds)
• Erase all the boring "Why the hell did I take these?!" conference photos from your digital camera (10 seconds)
• Recycle all the PowerPoint print-outs, business cards, and other ephemera you collected, but will never look at again (5 minutes)
• Congratulate yourself on doing a good civic deed by helping boost the local economy of the conference's host city (until you get your credit card bill)

Once all of these things are done, be sure to spend a few minutes detoxing your body and mind by talking to someone who doesn't work in a library and doesn't speak in acronyms.

Freebies, Collecting conference

While at a library conference, run around the vendor booths collecting free give-aways like a whore in a cucumber patch. Grab the free bookmarks, catalogs, tote bags, and flashlight pens with a desperate, wild-eyed passion that would scare your non-librarian friends. Need and practicality are not issues in the vendor booths. ("It's a highlighter AND a laser pointer?! Brilliant!!") It's all about getting as much free crap as you can fit in the rolling suitcase you brought along just for the occasion.

In order to make the most efficient use of your time, don't look vendors in the eye. Just grab the freebies by the handful and go! Do, however, stop to acknowledge the vendors whose companies have obviously spent an egregious amount of research and development money coming up with new ways to reinvent the ink pen. Let them know that they are the ones who keep the librarians coming back.

Soul, Selling your

Sign up for Google AdSense and load money-making ads on your blog. If anyone reads it, you can get rich and quit your day job.

If no one reads your blog, try sneaking some Google ads onto your library's web page. Be sure to load the ads in a prominent place on your web site to ruin any aesthetic you have going.

Kick-ass reference librarian, Being a

Don't be annoyed when your coworkers come to you for help with particularly difficult reference questions they can't handle on their own. While it may seem like an inconvenience to you, they are indirectly telling you that you have developed a reputation as the kick-ass reference librarian on your staff and that they value and admire your skills over those of your colleagues.

Or it could just mean that your office is closest to the reference desk, and that you're the only librarian working that particular Friday in the summer while everyone else is at ALA.

Interviews, Dressing for library

Never wear a suit for a library job interview. Instead wear a threadbare blazer, unpressed khakis, a stained tie, and well worn shoes. Women... if you can't stomach an ill-fitting pants-suit, wear a dowdy skirt and an oversized cardigan. Remember, most search committees are suspicious of style.

Plus, if you dress too well, it becomes obvious to the potential employer that you have unrealistic expectations about library salaries and their ability to keep you dressed in your fancy clothes.

Tote bags, On hating

The next time you go to a library conference you will be given a tote bag with your registration materials, usually emblazoned with some type of library-related logo. Unless you want to look stupid, make sure you throw the tote bag out or refuse to accept it in the first place. Tote bags are cheaply made, ugly and totally impractical. There's nothing worse than a librarian carrying a tote bag...nothing! Stop making an already bad image worse. Stop it!