Oh yes. It has been done. Last Friday was my first official day (okay, two hours) on the dreaded Reference Desk. I practically had to be dragged kicking and screaming onto the reference desk. I’ve been so terrified of it, but my boss and my boss’s boss have been pushing me to do it…I think the reason why I was so scared was because that reference desk is the end all of places – if we can’t help you there, then that’s it for you – you’re totally screwed! That’s way too much pressure! I can’t have someone come to me for help, and what if I don’t know what to do? Aggh! I’ve been doing circulation for 10 years now – and I’ve always had the right to pass off anything research/reference related off to Reference, and rightfully so. Sometimes I hate doing that, sometimes I’m okay with it. Because I am the library geek and I *do* know practically where every single book lies in my library, I hate passing our patrons off to the reference desk at the other end of the building. At the same time – I have my fellow circ workers who aren’t trained to look up books and do ref work – so the issue lies in that, if they see me doing it, they think they can do it too. Which would be fine, except I’ve witnessed people doing it totally wrong – as in like, “I’m sorry, but there is no book called The Sixth Target by James Patterson, it does not exist in our catalog” – I cringe every time I hear something like that. (FYI – it’s listed as 6th Target, and because my catalog is crap, like most library catalogs, the thing doesn’t know that when I type in Sixth Target I do actually want 6th Target. Unforgiving search engines FTL.) I especially hate passing off things when I tell them to go to reference, and the patron stares over to the ref desk like it’s 90 miles away and say “nah, I’ll do it later” and walk out the door. Makes me want to just tackle them down and say hang on!!
Okay so anyway. Day 1 of Reference. Went very smoothly – I wound up in the middle of a rush for a book that some professor demanded for a class – within 5 minutes all three copies in all three libraries were gone, on top of 3 additional holds placed on the book. Crazy! Someone wanted a copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns. Done. Someone wanted to reserve a study room. Done. Someone needed a guest card to use the computers. Done. My boss, who sat next to me, got a *real* reference question – someone wanted to know if local antique and jewelry stores were rated somehow…thank goodness I didn’t get that one.
So my first day on Reference wasn’t horrible – it was smooth sailing really. It helped that I had two fabulous reference folk on either side of me too. The best part about being on the reference desk was that I could really actually help people. Circ and Ref are such totally different worlds. At the circ desk, the patrons tend to treat you like dirt. At the ref desk, the patrons are much more understanding and patient. At the circ desk, I feel unable to really help them – I’m just the one checking out their stuff and telling them they owe $.30 for a book returned in 2003. At the ref desk, I feel truly enabled to help people – and at the end of my two hours I really felt a glow from the feeling. That may change once I wind up having to deal with the patron looking at porn on the computers or the 5 kids trashing the teen room…while I’ve known it all along, being on the desk really just confirmed that I really do love helping people, in any shape or form. ^.^
The Crafty Purple Gnome 