Extreme emails, Sending

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ETIQUETTE RULE!! (READ IMMEDIATELY! THE FUTURE OF LIBRARIANSHIP DEPENDS ON IT!!!)

Flag all your outgoing email messages with subject lines expressing the importance and urgency of their content through liberal use of capital letters, hyperbole, and exclamation points. Be consistent with your urgency so that everyone will know the importance of everything you do.

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!

Heat, Beating the

A librarian will occasionally find him- or herself feeling a bit salty due to an oppressive heat wave, global warming, or a piss-poor HVAC system. Keep yourself fresh and clean by periodically sponging off in the library's public restroom. Though the water is sometimes colder, one should never conduct one of these "whore's baths" at a public drinking fountain.

Librarian, Becoming a

Contrary to what some naive and enthusiastic recent library school graduates might think, one does not actually become a librarian until one gets a job as a librarian. When you graduate from library school, you are not a librarian with a job as a custodian. You are a custodian with a library degree.

Bona fied librarians should take it upon themselves to rub this painful realization in the face of any recent library school graduates on their library's staff... right after offering congratulations on their achievement.

Usurped, Being

When a funny new librarian joins your library's staff and usurps your role as "funniest librarian," don't despair. Instead, look for a new role to embrace. Perhaps you could become known around your library as ...

• the pitiful librarian
• the fat librarian
• the lush
• the Chester Cheetah-impersonating librarian
  
• the funniest second-funniest librarian ever
  

Family, Describing coworkers as

Be wary of referring to your library coworkers as your "library family," even if you do have librarians who fit the description of the deadbeat dad, the overbearing guilt-wielding mother, the retarded younger brother, the slutty sister, the religious zealot aunt, the drunk uncle, the weird brainiac cousin, the reclusive teenage brother, the nihilist goth son, the over-achieving daughter, the senile grandmother, the grandfather who won't turn up his hearing aid, the trying-too-hard-to-be-cool step-dad, the computer geek nephew, the hypochondriac niece, and the toddler who's always crying.

Alpha-librarian, Being the

Demonstrate your dominance over your library coworkers by interrupting while others are speaking, sending frequent mass emails, and calling more meetings than your peers. Should any of your colleagues deny your superiority, you may find it necessary to mount them at the reference desk.

P.D.A., Engaging in

Hostility between two librarians should always be resolved in a public forum, be it at the reference desk, in a meeting, or in a pay-per-view caged death match. These public displays of aggression (P.D.A.) provide entertaining fodder for your library's gossip mill, and they offer bystanders the chance to root and cheer for their favorite library combatant.

Turnips, Squeezing blood from

A librarian need not make a livable wage to be solicited for money. Should your own library ask you to contribute to an institutional fundraiser, politely decline and offer a gift-in-kind instead. Here are some examples:

• Leave your fluorescent lights off for the day to conserve electricity
• Give away all your home-grown zucchini (no one else will take it)
  
• Donate the dusty Reader's Digest condensed books in your grandfather's attic
• Scribble an I.O.U. on the back of a losing lotto ticket
• Continue to work for a paltry salary

Interest, Feigning an

A polite librarian will nod and occasionally interject an umm, hmm, or really?! while suffering through a patron's recitation of his or her family genealogy. These proud orations can go on for hours if uninterrupted, so take precautions and situate yourself within reach of a fire alarm.

There is a reason these people hang out at the library all the time: Their families (which can be traced back "to George Washington's brother-in-law!") won't let these insufferable old birds back in the house.

Fresh, Keeping it

Spice up your humdrum library life by getting a fresh haircut, trendy glasses, or a handsome new cardigan every now and then.

And do the same with your library blog or web site. A periodic change of color and/or layout will only make your content seem all the more brilliant.

(Note to readers: This is where you all post and tell us how you liked the old layout so much better ...)

Job listings, On not listing the salary within

If you are an employer looking to staff a vacant library position, make sure that you do not list a salary (or even a salary range!!!) in the job description. Do, however, require that qualified candidates send you his/her salary requirements with the resumé and cover letter. When you interview the candidates for the job, it will be quietly understood that if your salary demands are too high, there's another joker waiting in line behind you who has already low-balled himself enough to undermine your demands. This practice will not only keep librarian salaries low forever, it will ensure your warm special place in hell right next to the asshole who came up with those annoying Chrysler "Dr. Z" commercials.

Vacancies, Filling

There are five basic steps for hiring a new librarian:

1. Advertise the position
2. Review applications
3. Interview candidates
   
4. Deliberate over finalists
5. Offer the position

Be sure to wait 1-2 months between each step of the process so that all your best candidates will have already accepted positions elsewhere. Repeat as necessary.

Your library will eventually hire someone, even if they end up scraping the dregs from the bottom of the unemployment pool.

Incest, Professional

Never date another librarian. It's just sick. Plus the pillow talk would be b-o-r-i-n-g.

Also...

Never marry another librarian. Should you manage to reproduce together, your children will be misshapen. If you have no other options, just stay at home with your seven cats.