Within an hour and a half

Within an hour and a half this afternoon I:
a) had to tell off a young couple for playing peek-a-boo in the stacks, running, giggling, shrieking, and guffawing. After speaking to them, I came around the corner and
b) locked eyes with a fellow taking a swig from a mickey of something or other at one of the internet stations; who I then had to discuss library etiquette with (if only they'd bring enough to share, there'd be no problem!). Shortly thereafter

c) a twenty-something woman ran from her internet computer to a fifty-something man, dragged him back to the computer, then proceeded to sob loudly. He left after a couple of minutes and she continued weeping quietly. Followed shortly by
d) two police officers arriving to question a man also in the internet area, and then
e) a woman claiming that the "clock" on the cover of Catherine Fisher's The Obsidian Mirror was being sold at Value Village (a local used clothing and other material shop) and had been stolen from the museum in Toronto. She insisted that I had to do something about it so that the museum would be able to get its "clock" back. After a lengthy discussion I managed to convince her that the local museum would be a better place to go, as they would be able to get it back to the owning museum better than I would. Fortunately for them (sorry, Clark & Suzanne), the museum was closed at the time and she hopefully will forget about it by tomorrow.
I sometimes feel my job would be better served if I had a Master of Social Work rather than a Master of Library Science degree.

Library vignette # 1

I had to update a lady's library record in our system. "Could you give me your phone number, please?"  "Sure," she said, and gave it to me, "and can I have yours?" "No, I replied, but I'll give you my wife's"

Alzheimer's Husband Dilemma

Gave a seminar today and a lady had to bring her husband who has Alzheimer's with her as the granddaughter who was supposed to look after him didn't show up.  We got talking - she has only just started getting 1 hour a day respite care, and she can't afford to pay any more.  She can't put him in a home, because that would take all of his pension, and she wouldn't be able to live on just her pension alone. So sad.
He seemed quite happy, though - he was singing or whistling the entire time he was there.

World Naked Gardening Day

World Naked Gardening Day offending picture!

World Naked Gardening Day fell on May 4, this year. A little early, I feel, but in the spirit of the day I took my clothes off and my wife Louise took a couple of pictures of me with a rhubarb leaf strategically placed. As I am somewhat of an idiot, I then proceeded to post the picture to Facebook. Interesting what happened.
I ended up with 20 likes, 49 comments, and one share. Comments ranged from "Oh my god" to bible quotes to "what the heck were you thinking" to expressions of admiration for being so free and easy, sort of an expected mix for this sort of post.
What was unexpected, however, was a phone call that I received a couple of days later. I am chair of a local library board, and one of the board members called and said how embarrassed he had been when a friend of his had slapped the picture down in front of him and said "That's you board chair?" I was given a lecture on the proprieties of being a chair, and the responsibilities that go along with it.  (I did offer to resign, but he quickly backpedalled and said that wasn't necessary).

 In my workplace, none of the people in the department that I supervise mentioned anything, although my boss and a couple of co-managers did make joking comments. I later learned that one staff member had put the picture up with a rude comment, and the others made her take it down because they didn't want to encourage me.

Justin's take on the picture

My daughter lit into me about how disgusting the picture was and that she had reported it to Facebook as inappropriate, my older son created a meme out of it (at side) and said if |I hadn't already totally messed up his life this would have done it. My youngest son just rolled his eyes as he's come to expect his father to do silly things.

Somehow, the picture ended up in the Summer 2013 edition of Going Natural, the magazine of the Federation of Canadian Naturists (OK, I did submit it, I confess). When I announced that on Facebook, I got 27 likes and 19 comments - a number were just conversational ones, but that's still quite a number. They were all of the tolerantly amused variety.
Fast forward to October - I was invited to go sailing with a friend. Although it was cloudy and sort of miserable, there was a very brief period of sunshine.  As I don't go sailing very often, I thought it would be a great idea to take my clothes off & get a picture of nude sailing. My friend wasn't very happy about it, but did agree to take a picture as long as I put my clothes on in a hurry. That's fine, as I don't want to impose my growing fondness for naturism on others.

The cropped Facebook version

The original "keeping a look-out" while sailing naked
picture 

I decided to crop it and add it to Facebook, so that I wouldn't receive the criticism that I might otherwise have got. I ended up with 8 likes and 16 comments - pretty well all of the tolerantly amused variety, including one from the photographer mentioning how he'd kept his eyes shut for the photography session!  I was surprised, though, to receive a phone call from the very same board member, and although he talked about something else dealing with board business, I knew that he had heard about the picture and this was his subtle way of reminding me of my responsibilities.
I'm really intrigued by the reactions that people have - those that know me and tolerate my often weird sense of humour tend to just laugh at the pictures and say "what's he going to do next," while others question my judgement. I agree, I am overweight and lots of people don't find that attractive, but that's who I am.
I was talking with a couple of good friends about the board member and his reactions. My question to them - which did they think I would choose between being a board chair with suit & tie & following all the proprieties or to be free to do the naturism/nudism thing? Both quickly agreed that I would choose the naturism option.
Apparently, the older I get, the less inhibited I become. I'm never sure what's going to happen next!

Society for Ethics in Librarianship

So eons ago, back when I was a brand spanking new, idealistic librarian, I ran across the Society of Ethics in Librarianship. It was based in Britain, and cost £10 to join. Anticipating scintillating conversation with like-minded colleagues, I got an international money order and sent it off.
Here I sit, 30 years later, still waiting to hear back from them.
I'm assuming the letter was lost in the mail, any other explanation would shatter my naive belief that there are ethics in the Society of Ethics in Librarianship.
Crap.

Most difficult reference questions

I've been a reference librarian for the better part of 3 decades now, and am sometimes asked to tell about the most difficult reference question that I've ever had. Some that were difficult in the pre-internet age are a breeze now, others still take time to winnow through much information, much of it containing errors, propaganda of one type of another, or prevarications. However, of all the questions that have been difficult, one from near the beginning of my career still stands out head and shoulders above the others.
It began, as so many of my questions have done, with the phone on the reference desk ringing. "Reference Department, may I help you?" I answered, as on so many, many occasions over the years.
"If I ask you a question about a disease will you tell me exactly what it is and what happens?" said a youngish male voice on the other end of the line.
"As long as I can find information on it I will," I relied, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"I'm 15 years old and I'm sick with a disease. I think it's called ______ (I honestly cannot remember what it was this many years later). My parents and my doctor won't talk to me about it, but I overheard my parents mention it when they didn't know I was there."
"Okay, let me check on it," I replied, and spent a few minutes looking in our standard medical sources. It didn't appear in them, so I then went to The Physician's Guide to Rare Diseases where a 3/4 page entry appeared. As I had feared, it was not good, with a survival rate of 0%, most people dying within 6-8 months of diagnosis.
At this point, conflicting emotions and philosophies whirled around in my head - anger towards the doctor and parents for putting me in this position, sorrow for the boy, uncertainty about whether to tell him or somehow fob him off with half-truths and mumbo-jumbo, dread of having to tell him, and so forth. In the end, I decided that he had called the library looking for specific information, and however uncomfortable and emotional it may be for both of us, I owed it to him, to the library, the profession, and my ethical values to tell him the truth.
When I got  back on the line with him, I read him the layman's summary of it, and then asked if he understood what I had just read. "It means I'm going to die soon, doesn't it?" he asked. "It does seem to say that," I replied, "but it is something that you should discuss as soon as you can with your parents and your doctor to make sure that is actually what you have, and there may be other treatments that are being developed that aren't listed in the book."
"I figured it was something like that," he said, "just by the way they've been acting & avoiding my questions. Thank you so much for being honest with me. Now I'll be able to talk to them about it & tell them I know what's happening, and hopefully we can get back to being normal."
As I hung up the phone, I went and took an unscheduled mental health break and thought about this question, as I have done many times over the years.  Anger at the parents and doctors is still there, there is always the question of did he have the disease and succumb to it, but always I go back to the relief in his voice when I told him what the disease was and its prognosis, and the knowledge that I did whatever small part I could to help him in what I presume were his final days. With the knowledge that he then had came a power over his disease, and a base to communicate with his doctor and parents.