Brief, Being

A professional librarian's time is precious. And so is your patrons'. Shorten your library instruction lectures into as few words as possible...

• Click here. Try different keywords.

Give this lecture and use the time you save to do something productive... like shelf-reading.

Caveman, Going

If your library's Internet connection goes down for the day, it may be necessary to revert to "caveman mode." Throw a computer monitor through the front of the vending machine to get some strawberry Poptarts, club a potential mate over the head with a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, and try to start a fire in your cubicle using your reading glasses and some brittle items from the special collections department.

Mercenary, Being

Put innocuous decision-making meetings to work for you at your library by offering your allegiance on contentious votes in exchange for personal favors.

"Which is the best default search for the library catalog: Keyword or Boolean?" It depends. Perhaps the better question is: "Which default search will get you off the reference desk this weekend?"

Out, Burning

Librarians should be weary of being too good at their jobs. The momentary high that comes with exercising your innovations, creativity, efficiency, and skill will only be followed by a deep dive into bitterness and cynicism. So skip all the hard work and join your miserable coworkers now in the professional funk that is librarianship.

Luddite, Being the Library's

Every library needs a luddite librarian. If your library doesn't have one, feel free to assume this role. Don't turn on your computer for weeks at a time, shun the online catalog, and fight tooth and nail to retain subscriptions to the paper periodical indexes.

Breaks, Taking long

Treat your library job much like you treat your blog: take long, unannounced breaks and see if anyone even notices that you're not contributing.

Conference presentations, Proposing

When proposing a library conference presentation, it is important to explore a provocative topic that examines interesting new territory and/or challenges professional ideas and practices.

Can't think of one? No problem! Just use the following template to create the title of your very own presentation:

Bringing __________ ...

• information literacy
• the "long tail"
• an alternative to Google
• Library 2.0

... to __________ ...

• NExTGen
• DotNet
• Gen Y
• Millennials

... students with __________ .

• podcasting
• blogs
• MySpace
• rss feeds

If you can also sprinkle the words folksonomy, collabulary, and blogosphere into your title, the conference planners have no choice but to accept your proposal. Start practicing, and good luck!