I just want to make a general statement about librarians, but I want to use a semi-fictional example:
A guy asks for help on one of our computers; he's having trouble sending his resume as an attachment.
So I go over and check what's happening, but what he tells me he isn't able to do isn't really what he wants to do.
One of the things he wants to do is open an attachment, which he keeps telling me he wants to download. At which point I tell him that he's already downloaded it, and I ask if he wants to actually see what he's downloaded. Yes he does.
So I look at the file extension, .qqq. And I say, Oh, that's a "Quze" file; those only work with the OS/Q operating system. The person who sent it, uses OS/Q, but here in the library we use Windows. It says here that there is a viewer for that file, but we can't install programs on library computers, so let's check convertyourstupidfiles.org to see if we can convert that into something our computer can open.
Oh, it can convert it to a .ppt file which we should be able to open in PowerPoint. It looks like that person sent you some kind of presentation. And when we open it, it's some information about a company.
How do you know how to do this? he asks, like I just turned a lemon into a gold bar.
"Because you don't."
Librarians are the most poorly marketed asset of any organization. Not only do we need to know what we know, but we need to know what everyone else might need to know. I don't own a laptop or a PDA, but I can get yours, the one that I've just been handed that I've never seen before ten seconds ago, the one you've had for the last six months, to connect to the wi-fi in our library. I can find the job listings or the contact information on the web site that you've been scouring the pages to find without success, five seconds after you ask for my help.
But I don't need to tell you; you're a librarian, and you do it, too.
I will say it again, just in case you are someone who can do something about it:
Librarians are the most poorly marketed asset of any organization.
Now, I wanted to make that point about librarians, but I also want to finish that story which is unrelated to my point. If you feel good about being a librarian, you can stop reading now. Otherwise, continue:
As I'm helping him, I notice that he's in a job search. And the resume that he told me to attach to his email is filled with his skills, which say, "expert in database design, programming languages, up-to-date on wikis, rss, metadata...."
And then I feel like I'm in a Hitchcock movie where Hitch pulls the camera back while he's zooming in and you get that sense of irregular movement, like you know you're standing still, but your eyes say you're not. And I realize that this guy isn't just ignorant, he's a liar. Either he's lying to me or he's lying to his potential employers. Either way, the game is off and the helpful dial gets turned down to zero. But that's okay because he got what he needed.
Me, I'm a little less okay, knowing that this guy could be out there somewhere, knowing less than me, but making twice as much. And that's when I took up smoking. Crack.
