[WEB4LIB] Re: In defense of stupid users

[Beth A Reiten]

quoting Andrew Mutch
"We get it out of our system by sharing our patron stories with our
colleagues and then we can return to the trenches to keep up the excellent 
work
that we all do. That's why when someone earlier posted about being 
distressed
about the stories heard at conference I thought, "no, that's a good 
thing"."

I have to respectfully disagree... in part... with this.  Yes, it's good 
that we have a non-public, collegial place to vent.  Yes, it's great to 
know that we're not alone.  And I love a good user story as much as the 
next public services librarian.  However, there are two problems with this 
arrangement that I have observed:

First, there are people who don't get relief from commiseration.  Rather, 
sharing intensifies the feeling of frustration. They actually stew on 
things more than if they had just gone home and taken a quiet bath and let 
it go down the drain with the water.  Granted, not everyone has this 
tendency, but not everyone is the other type, either.  And we don't always 
know which one we are...  I finally figured out that I can get sucked into 
the stewing if I'm not careful, but it took me a while.

Second, I watch people go to conference, vent and share, and then return 
to the trenches.  Some are refreshed, but there is a considerable number 
who have had that SU (stupid user) mentality reinforced, not relaxed. 
Again, not everybody reacts like this, but I know some who do.  This 
particular one seems to be more prevalent in the academic library world 
than in the public library world, from my personal observations.  Perhaps 
because academic librarians often hold a "higher" status than many of our 
users?  What a professor buddy of mine calls "the disdainful doctorate."

I have personally found some of my more useful user-story conversations at 
conferences to start with a SU story that then leads to a discussion of 
how to remove the barriers that we may have unwittingly placed in their 
way.  To enable that SU to go back to being a user in our minds, rather 
than to just label them and let them rot in that pigeonhole.  The 
conversations that distress me are the ones that are *only* rants about 
SU, that turn into one-upmanship contests.

I'm afraid I've not found any solutions to the burn-out issue, or any of 
the other things we've brought up today.  If I do, I'll let you know, if 
you'll promise to do the same!  In the meantime, thanks for the 
conversation today.  Lots of food for thought.

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Beth Reiten, Asst. Professor & Librarian
Digital Library Services
Edmon Low Library
Oklahoma State University
Phone: 405-744-9109
Email: reitene at okstate.edu




Andrew Mutch <amutch at waterford.lib.mi.us>
Sent by: web4lib at webjunction.org
05/05/2005 03:50 PM
Please respond to amutch

 
        To:     Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
        cc:     (bcc: Beth A Reiten/lib/Okstate)
        Subject:        [WEB4LIB] Re: In defense of stupid users


> <snip>
>
> >From our side of the desk, we experience as an endless steam of
> people asking the same things over and over and over, never learning,
> never advancing, never getting to new knowledge or more interesting
> questions or anything different.  Is it any wonder we occasionally
> burn out?
>
> How do we handle that?
>
> Tony Z

</snip>

Some go home and have a strong drink. But most of us go to conferences and
workshops and tell war stories of dealing with "that patron", the story 
that
invariably garners nodding heads, knowing looks and more stories along the 
same
lines. We get it out of our system by sharing our patron stories with our
colleagues and then we can return to the trenches to keep up the excellent 
work
that we all do. That's why when someone earlier posted about being 
distressed
about the stories heard at conference I thought, "no, that's a good 
thing".
Better to get those out of your system in a safe environment than to keep 
them
bottled up so that one day, you snap and go librarian on someone.

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI







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