The life of a reference librarian

I was going to write a post about a particular patron in our library. Reference librarians see and hear a lot. Crazy people looking at porn, students talking about who they slept with or how drunk they were... We also get the normal "my professor is an idiot" lines, too. (Of course we hear, "My students are lazy" from their professors.) But there are always a few patrons who are so unique that we discuss them back in the office, away from the public. Every library has these people. Sometimes they are the local crazies and sometimes they are students.

So, I was going to write about these shorts this particular patron was wearing, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without insulting the person. I like this individual because she is just that: an individual. But these shorts? Oh my... they were short. Short short short. There was cheek hanging out. Lots of cheek. I think my mouth actually fell open when she walked away from me. My oh my.

See? The reference desk is important. To all of those librarians who seem to think the reference desk is useless, it isn't. Sure, you may not get the same in-depth reference questions you used to and your in-depth knowledge of some obscure print index may not be as useful as it once was... but we need the reference desk. The questions may be different, but there are still questions, and there are still important questions. But almost more importantly, we need the reference desk for the stories. What good is a reference librarian without good patron stories? Huh?

Oh, and completely off topic: Rockstar Supernova. I want to hate this show. I do. And I did at first, but after watching it with some friends last night I may have been converted. Tommy Lee is a trainwreck waiting to happen. My god, he's crazy.