#dispatchesfromthelibrary

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #21

Why do I always get the papers about gender issues? Student comes in with a monster research paper (13+ pages) with no Works Cited in sight. She proceeds to lay out her argument for why abortion is murder by quoting every scummy resource on the Internet. She even includes that old gem about how abortion gives women breast cancer. Look, I tell her. This just isn't true. How about I show you some basic sources where you can get reliable information? Start with our searchable encyclopedias online. The student looks at me, surprised. "Encyclopedia? What's that?" HEADDESK. HEADDESK. HEADDESK. Half way through the interview, I begin sneezing uncontrollably. My bullshit allergy must be acting up again.

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #23

Student: I'm looking for a copy of my nutrition textbook. Me: Okay, let's take a look. What's the title? Student: It's called [REDACTED]. *It's purple.* * * I love it when students think this is helpful. We obviously shelve things by color, so why wouldn't our OPACs be organized by color, too?

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #12

Student: I found an article for my report in your catalog, but I can't access the full text. Me: Okay, what's the title? [searches in catalog, finds article] Student: That's the one! Me: Did you click on the "View Now" button? Student: ......

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #1

*Student*: Do you guys have any glue? *Me*: [opens drawer] We have a glue stick. [offers it to Student] *Student*: Well, I just wanted to check and see if you had any. I'm gonna need it tomorrow. What the hell just happened?

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #18

Do you know which questions are great questions? The ones I don't already know the answers to.

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #16

I've had my first crier of the end-of-quarter season. Her problem was solved with a very simple search of the college's website. If only they were all so easy...

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #9

Driving with my family, listening to the radio. Nicki Minaj comes on. Dad: What the hell is a starship? Me: It's a street drug, Dad. Sister: How do you know that? Me: I'm a librarian.

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #8

Kind student (who was very much in distress last week, and received some excellent help at the ref desk) presents librarian with box of chocolates. Another student walks up with a question, but says, "please, enjoy your chocolates first!" Librarian says, "I can't eat behind the desk, but never fear! Chocolate will be entering me soon!"

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #2

Hey, you're a librarian, right? Can you find this article I used to hand out to my students, like, fifteen years ago? It was written by that short guy who worked for Clinton and it had something to do with economics and robots and symbolic thinking. Is that enough information?

[emjayecks]

Melancholic post-library-instruction survey answers

Question: What is one thing you're still confused about?

Answer: Life.

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #25

I've been working in the library, but not as a librarian. The situation is stupidly complicated. First day back in the trenches, 7:30 in the fucking morning, a student approaches the desk. She asks for a textbook, for her business class. She is describing the cover to me and I'm wondering if I'm still at home waiting for the alarm to go off, trapped in a quietly terrifying, boring nightmare. When I tell her that the textbook she's looking for isn't available at this campus, but may be at one of our other campuses, she asks for my boss's name, and my boss's boss's name. She writes down the wrong names, and I don't correct her. I then produce an older edition of this textbook, and she sighs and frets and then asks me to hold it aside for her. "Why not just check it out?" I ask, honestly not expecting the OHMIGODS obvious answer. "I forgot my ID." She put me through this whole dog-and-pony show to find the correct book for her business class, and SHE WAS NEVER PLANNING TO CHECK THE DAMN THING OUT, because we don't allow students to check books out without ID. The word for this is so cussed, it must be illegal in some random number of states.

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #20

Closing the Writing Center at 8:00pm. Since 7:00pm, inhabited only by one miserably sick librarian and crickets. Who could have predicted?

[emjayecks]

This is so hot.

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #17

In the middle of an hour-long rush at the reference desk. We're being bombarded with end-of-term research questions (some of the better: citizenship for military interpreters and the intersection of ethics and criminal justice) and pleas for help with assignments. Student rushes out of nearest classroom to fetch a librarian. "Please," she says, "I have a poster that's due tomorrow and I need to make this text fit below this picture. Can you help me format my poem about cats?"

[emjayecks]

Dispatches from the Library #15

In the Writing Center today. International student brings in a very short (paragraph or a little longer) essay about her life goals to have it looked over and cleaned up. The content of this essay is paraphrased as follows: My goal in life is to get married and have children by 30. It is so hard to find a good man that I need to make myself more attractive. Traditionally women in my culture take care of all the housework, so I will make myself be better at that even thought I hate it, so I will be more attractive to a man who will stay with me even when I’m old and fat and ugly. The End. I’m not actually teasing this girl. I’m stricken terrified. What the hell just happened? Is there some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey shit going on here, are we back in the nineteenth century? No, still 2013? Huh. Coulda sworn…