I think I might start giving out awards. This week's contenders include the following, in reverse chronological order:
Disgruntled computer user who I am not better than, despite what I may erroneously think. One of my libraries has a fairly restrictive policy on non-resident use of library computers. We have reciprocal borrowing agreements with several library systems, but those agreements don't extend to the computers, which require patrons to log in using their library card number. Last night I explained this to a middle-school-age student. She promptly returned with her grandfather, who made me repeat the policy, told me that "the guy downstairs" who gave him the card did NOT tell him that, and asked me to write down my name, apparently so he could get me fired for this omission. The amusing part was that my boss was working the desk with me, so as I was writing my name down for him, I told him that if he wanted to speak to my supervisor, she was right there. He asked for her business card, too. She explained the policy to him again, at which point he yelled at her for saying she was better than him. Apparently his ears are tuned to a different frequency than ours. I anxiously await my pink slip.
Snow White witch's sister. Difficult as it is for me, I generally try to be pleasant to people who ask me questions. Sometimes, though, I just can't stand it anymore. For the last couple of weeks, every time I work the same (possibly homeless, definitely mentally ill) woman comes in and zeroes in on me for her completely nonsensical questions. Last week it was a history of the English language. Or was it the language of English? Or should she look in a law library for that? I took her to the 400s and showed her what we had. Once she had me cornered in the stacks, she started repeating a mantra that went something like this: "Where do we start? Baked apple pie. Where do we start? With the pie, and then the type, and then the method of cooking?" After the third or fourth time I said, "You already explained that to me" and walked away. She returned in the afternoon, pointed to a book on the ready reference shelf behind me, and said, "Is that a book about [insert exact title, word for word, here]? When I said yeah, I thought it was, she started explaining the baked apple pie conundrum to me again.
This week she wanted a list of all of the countries the U.S. trades with, and a list of all of the ones we don't. This is not as easy to find as you might think, and our computer system had just crashed. I did what I could, and eventually brought her an encyclopedia article explaining the various trade agreements we have with other countries. She barely acknowledged the book because she was enlightening me about the fact that when you go to Dominick's to buy salmon, sometimes it says "Made in Taiwan." Then she wanted to know if Poland was communist or not.
Resident crusader against underage librarians. Since I do not as yet have a library science degree, I generally do not call myself a librarian. That's a good way to piss off the people who spent several years and many thousands of dollars on their MLS. (According to the Librarian's Guide to Etiquette, I can't actually call myself a librarian until I actually have a job with that title. But I digress.) Patrons, however, consider everyone who works in the building, including the maintenance man and the high-school age shelvers, to be librarians, so it's sometimes easier just to go with it. And when a patron approached me this weekend and asked, "You're not the librarian, are you?" in a tone of horror, I was more than happy to say "I'm one of them." At which point I couldn't resist asking, "Why, don't I look like one?" His disgruntled response: "Not for a few more years." (Some old windbag last week was surprised to find out that I was, in fact, no longer in high school, so I guess it could be worse.)
Lady of a thousand questions. Unlike the sorry attempts above, I did not make up this nickname. This woman is legendary at the same library that also is home to Dead Celebrity Guy and Ms. Baked Apple Pie (who has no teeth, always wears her hood up, and bears an uncanny resemblance to the witch from Snow White). The lady of a thousand questions hasn't visited in awhile, but Friday was the 13th, and damn, they all came out of the woodwork. She generally comes in with one question that turns into 20, and she asks them much faster than any of us could ever hope to answer them. On the 13th she actually let me off pretty lightly, though. First she wanted to know who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand to kick off World War I. I had actually come across the guy's name recently (Gavrilo Princip, in case you couldn't remember) and it didn't take me long to come up with an article in Encyclopedia Britannica about him. At which point she had already moved on to Eliot Ness -- what nationality was he? Britannica said American. She was not amused -- that's not a nationality, don't you know? Some random website on famous Norwegians said he was, in fact, Norwegian. Barely registered, because now she wanted to know if he had been involved in some obscure weapons bust in Chicago in ages past. God only knows, but the encyclopedia linked him primarily to Prohibition enforcement and the department of public safety in Cleveland, so I told her no. Anything to shut her up.
