http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2008/10/18/reference-question-of-the-week-101208/ or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk Sat, 25 May 2013 16:01:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2008/10/18/reference-question-of-the-week-101208/#comment-715 Brian Herzog Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:15:46 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=440#comment-715 @Winnie: Ha; you’re right, we are more public that I realize. At my first library job, a colleague (who lived in a town about 30 minutes from the library) stopped in our local grocery store one day after work. She was fixing dinner for her visiting parents, and needed a few things, including a bottle of wine, for dinner that night. The next day at the library, a concerned patron (who must have seen her in the grocery store) came in to warn us of our coworker’s “obvious drinking problem.” Well meaning, of course, but kind of creepy, too. How much privacy should public employees expect?

]]> http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2008/10/18/reference-question-of-the-week-101208/#comment-714 Winnie Sun, 19 Oct 2008 01:56:39 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=440#comment-714 As a small town librarian (we serve 4,000 people), getting recognised is a fact of life. Just as everyone recognises the volunteer firemen, the police, the lady from the post office, and the terrifying lady who taught you grade four and is now at the door raising money for something. A few years ago one of my collegues came in and annouced she was taking the following week off – would I take some of her shifts? Since she has an elderly mum who lives a 23 hour drive from here I thought the worse. But that was not the case. She had been walking along the mainstreet and realised that as she passed people she was mentally reciting their patron card numbers.

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