I swear, in some other dimension, I am a young adult librarian. I think I had my first homework help reference transaction today over the phone.
Anyone doing YA reference, let me know if this is typical or not.
Note: the following account is semi-fictionalized but based on true story. True Story!
I don’t need any help!
A One Act, One Scene Play
Cast of characters:
Tangognat: T
Little Sister: LS
Tangognat’s Mom: Mom
Tangognat arrives home to hear a message from her mom stating that she has a reference question
Tangognat phones home.
Little Sister: Hello?!!!!!!
T: Hi, It’s Tangognat.
LS (crestfallen that T is not one of her friends from high school): Oh….Hi….. It’s ok. We don’t have a question anymore.
Mom in background: Is that T? Let me talk to her.
LS: But we don’t need to!
Mom: Give me the phone. Hello! LS is working on a project. She needs statistics about radio stations.
LS yelling in background: Not anymore, I found something already, everything is fine!
Mom: I think that someone wants to do a very superficial paper-
LS yelling in background again: Yes, I do want to write a superficial paper! I don’t care!
Mom: Getting some information after typing a couple words in google, instead of using some better sources.
T: Umm. She might want to look at the Statistical Abstract of the United States. You can get to it at www.census.gov.
LS still yelling in background: I have enough to write the paper, I don’t need to look at anything else!
-stomping noises-
Mom: Hold on, I’ll get a pen.
T: She could try searching the FCC web site or maybe googleunclesam instead of regular google. If those don’t work, let me know.
Mom: OK, I wouldn’t have thought of the FCC
T: She doesn’t seem to be into the whole research thing.
Mom: No.
LS: muffled indignant shrieking
T: thinks that this was not a great reference transaction, as she was not able to run some quick searches to see if the requested statistics actually were at these sites, and using the online Statistical Abstracts is hard unless you open the index in a seperate browser window, and she wishes she could have told her sister this but she probably wouldn’t listen anyway, so that’s the way it goes.
The End
Edited To Add:
Tangognat deeply regrets any pain and suffering she has caused her Youngest Sister by portraying her as a “shrieky embittered pre-teenesque character”. For truly, although she is sometimes shrieky and embittered, the sister in question is also very smart, witty, and charming, especially for one of teenage years.
8:05 am on September 19th, 2003 1
I don’t appreciate it that you portrayed me as the shrieky embittered pre-teenesque character, even if it was hilarious.
9:38 am on September 19th, 2003 2
But you *are* shrieky and embittered. Just think–if you keep this up, you could grow up to be…a librarian!
In other news, it’s international Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arr!
4:09 pm on September 19th, 2003 3
I resent D the Elder’s implication that I am shrieky and embittered!
D the Younger, I’m sorry, I should have e-mailed the blog entry to you before posting it since it did portray you as rather one sided and it exaggerated some of your personality traits.
Would you accept reparations in the form of comix? I think I have spare issues of Hopeless Savages and Hellboy I could send you.
D the Elder, our maternal parental unit was lamenting that she never sees you since you got cable in your apartment. You might want to stop by and scam a meal or do your laundry over at the house : )
Avast, Ye Swabbies!
4:10 pm on September 19th, 2003 4
That’s a hoot! And sounds pretty typical to me. Of course, if she’d actually been in the library, your mom would’ve come briskly up to the desk before realizing that Little D was skulking in the background 10 feet away, pretending to look at books. She would’ve rounded her up and there would’ve been a lot of “Tell the lady what you need.” from your mom and looking-at-feet by Little D.
(And ahoy there, matey!)
12:21 am on September 20th, 2003 5
Actually Tangognat, D the Elder and LS are all smart, witty, and charming at any age. Since I am their mother, I am totally unbiased. LS is not that shy and has been observed approaching library personnel on her own even before her sister became a certified librarian. Shiver me timbers!
12:25 am on September 20th, 2003 6
LGF = Library GadFly. LS is not a pre-teen. Otherwise, the play is accurate. Isn’t it irritating that Tangognat, LGF, and the rest of the Librarian world are moving heaven and earth (or at least dollars and cents) to acquire, curate, archive, and permit access to all the information ever generated, and LS and her ilk fail to take advantage of our resources? At least if we’re going to fail to use information from the past, let it be how to scourge, how to maim, or how to make acid paper that will fall apart in less than a century.
4:16 am on September 20th, 2003 7
I remember one public-library reference desk transaction which went something like this:
Miniskirt-clad, ponytail-bobbing, heavily made-up suburban mother: “My daughter would like to see what you have about cheerleading and workouts.”
Daughter: (slumps, scuffs floor with toe.)
Librarian: I see. Well, Miss, are you interested in books, or videotapes, or some other kind of materials?
Mother: “She wants to be a cheerleader, so we’ll take everything you’ve got.”
Daughter: (Surreptitiously edges away from mother, glances yearningly toward internet terminals.)
Librarian: Let me check the catalog and see what we can find.
Mother: (Grabs daughter’s hand firmly while smiling brightly at Librarian.) “Oh, that workout video looks good….”
10:34 am on September 20th, 2003 8
Ha Ha Ha, Thanks for confirming my assumpion, Little Librarian and Felix, that the whole dynamic of that reference transaction with my family (minus the emotional baggage) would be pretty much what I’d be doing in a public library. Thankfully no one in my family would ever want to research being a cheerleader. And we don’t tend to wear much makeup because we are naturally radiantly beautiful : )
LGF is D the Younger’s professorial father. Now, most of my immediate family has commented on this entry. Obviously, I need to set up a Wiki for my family : )
To respond to LGF’s post, I must point out that I do know D the Younger’s age, she was the one who characterized the way her behavior was portrayed as “preteenesque” I’m glad that he’s backing up the accuracy of my post though. She must have been yelling very loudly!
I think that the problem is (to use the passoverish metaphor of the 4 children) that most people who use the library are in the position of being “One who does not know how to ask”
If they don’t already know that the library has tons of resources, and that these resources differ from what they’d get by staying home and googling, it is a little hard to take advantage of the library. It is a problem of library marketing, I don’t really think we’ve adjusted in any meaningful way to a world where when people have a question, they think “I’m gonna google for this” instead of “I’m gonna ask a librarian!”
In school at least, a professor/teacher can communicate his/her expecations about the sources that should be used in research, even if this results in a ton of students coming to the reference desk saying “Help! I need a scholarly article,” they’ll hopefully end up learning something about the resources available to them.
12:04 pm on September 20th, 2003 9
Wow, this whole thing has spawned much philosophical discussion. Dude, I’m not traumatized by your portrayal of me, but if you want to give me comic books, I certainly will except them. I think perhaps we must teach LGF how to post something and not sound like a psycho-killer. (If that’s possible) It’s a little late but: Yo, ho, ho, bring me the rum! Arrr.
1:46 pm on September 20th, 2003 10
OK, I have duplicate issues of some things lying around becaues I bought the graphic novels.
I will hunt through my collection and send you a package : )
I think it is LGF’s nature to post the way he does, since he has been a prof so long, it is part of his nature to be a tad bombastic. And since he is more familiar with the perils of library budgeting than many librarians, the idea of underutilizing library resources gets him a bit riled up.
1:58 pm on September 22nd, 2003 11
Wow. I go away for the weekend (Interpol rocked, of course), and see what happens.
I think that Tangognat should be happy that my characterization of her stopped at “shrieky and embittered” and did not extend to, for example, “prone to kicking her siblings in the head.”
6:33 pm on September 22nd, 2003 12
Word.
7:05 pm on September 22nd, 2003 13
I HAVE NEVER “kicked my siblings in the head”, as a point of fact, I was merely sparring with you to improve your snail-like defensive reflexes.
Just think about it, if someone tries to kick you in the head in the future, you will know exactly what to do!
10:02 pm on September 22nd, 2003 14
Yeah, yell in a shrieky voice “Moooommm!!” A valuable life skill indeed.