Friday, February 03, 2006

Laughs for the Stressed Librarian

There are just some days (and patrons) I could not get through if I didn’t look at the humor in the situation. Here are a few sources of humor that help me make it through those kinds of days.

Blogs
bitter librarian
http://bitterlibrarian.blogspot.com/
“The true tales of a public librarian. Advocating for victimized librarians everywhere. Names have been changed to protect the confidentiality of guilty parties.”

A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette
http://libetiquette.blogspot.com/
“A polite librarian is a good librarian.”

Library Mofo
(Warning: Contains language that may be offensive to some!)
http://community.livejournal.com/library_mofo/
“The Society for Librarians* who Say Mother****er.” Or those of us who feel like it sometimes.

Comics
Unshelved
http://www.overduemedia.com/
Daily comic strip that takes place in a public library.

Funny You Should Ask…
Each week this e-mail from Thomson Gale features a humorous reference question. Subscribe at http://www.gale.com/enewsletters/ or view the archives at http://www.gale.com/enewsletters/archive.htm. Not really a comic, but it looks like one.



Of course, we can’t actually take our frustrations out on the patron, no matter how much they ask for it. Just to make sure you are not corrupted after visiting some of these sites, take a look at the Baylor University Libraries’ “Client Service Standards and Behavioral Indicators” accessible at http://www.baylor.edu/lib/librarystaff/. This document will give you a review of good customer service behaviors.