@Cari: I get that a lot, too. It’s tough – it’s nice to specialize, so there will always be someone who can help with the really tough question, but it’d also be nice if everyone could help with those questions. I guess, at least, it’s a goal to slowly build towards.

@Liam: that happens to me too – people I don’t even remember helping come back to gratuitously thank me. I like your idea of “soft power” – the strength of libraries is that we provide these services for “free” and do it friendly and helpful way, and people remember it (they also remember bad experiences, which is why customer service is so important).

Libraries work hard to do the best we can with what we’ve got, but what we need to do a better job of is communicating this struggle to patrons (and hopefully not by cutting services).

We may count the above questions as just one tick on a tally sheet, but we should also think about the cost to society should the patron go elsewhere for the answer, particularly when it comes to job searches.

Twice I have spent a couple minutes showing a patron how to attach their resume to their email and then have that patron come back and thank me for helping them get the job. If the library was not here, how much would a government program teaching that one simple skill cost? How many other people did not come back to thank me? How many other people eventually got a job using that skill, but did not know where they got it from?

This an example of what I like to call a library’s “soft power.” It is not quantifiable, like circulation numbers or program head counts, but it is very real. Just something to think about in times of budgetary slashing.

Also, the governmental bodies are transferring distribution costs to libraries without funding them. Think of the mess come tax season since the IRS is no longer mailing out forms. Even though we can order them for free, keeping track of what we need and placing orders is a time consuming (and therefore expensive) proposition.

As an aside, when New York stopped sending forms to people, they sent everyone a postcard telling them they could get their forms from the library, but they didn’t tell the libraries. Surprise!

Rant concluded