By FPL_Staff
“You must love getting to read all day!”
How often have librarians heard this throughout the years? As with any job, there are industry stereotypes and entertaining “other assigned duties.”
- Be able to find printer toner for any printer in the building at any given moment
- Become a suitable substitute for IT when the computers are misbehaving
- Talk to technology including encouragements, reprimands, and threats (as a last resort)
- Assist guests with research projects Due Tomorrow
- Ration hand sanitizer and office supplies
- Place APBs on beloved stuffed animals lost in the library
- Assume role of Water Leak Police during rainstorms
- Be prepared to get confused with school district employees
- Ensure guests do not eat earplugs mistaking them for candy
- Order earplugs that don't look like candy
- Become and interactive map of the library
- Assist guests with printing only certain pages from a 15-page PDF
- Find books based on the color of the cover
- 3D-print lightsabers
- Take on responsibilities of a researcher, teacher, community builder, mediator, therapist, pest control, janitor and, as stated earlier, IT professional
- Social media virtual superstar: class instructor, story time host, book reviewer, blogger
If you think it's a crazy request, it's not and we've probably done it before. We have a saying in the industry: You’re not a real librarian until you’ve been shushed by a patron. As Robert De Niro’s Al Capone says, “We laugh because it’s funny, and we laugh because it’s true.”
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