Anyone interested in the state of libraries -- and desiring nonstop chuckles -- must read Will Manley's The Manley Art of Librarianship despite the fact that it has no dust jacket, nor a photo of the author. As Manley points out, dust jackets are an essential part of the book that most academic librarians discard with haste in what may be the most egregious form of library censorship. Those who do leave the covers on make every effort to obliterate, with stickers, property stamps, etc., anything that might possibly provide justification for a phone call from an irate octogenarian. You can search in vain for even a hint of buttock or breast on dust jackets that hasn't been mutilated in some form or another. I particularly enjoyed his chapter on the reference interview, and the summary of Professor Starke’s book entitled Why Patrons Lie published by Whitely Press, who maintains that "the reference patron is often a deeply disturbed individual crying out for attention and understanding." For example, the patron asking for information on dogs may really just want a date with the librarian, or nutritional information on wieners, or information about how to poison a neighbor's pesky barker, or what the outcome might be of breeding his cocker spaniel to a Siamese cat. There is a right and wrong way to respond to the patron about to undergo a root canal and asking for information on how they are performed. It is not considered politic to reply: "What do you need to know? I had one done last summer and it was the most pain I've ever been in. It's even worse than having a baby. They stick these long sharp files right into the nerve of your tooth. It’s like scraping the back of your eyeball with a piece of rough sandpaper. But look at it this way -- it's a good way to lose weight and you look like you can stand to lose twenty pounds.”
Of course, reference librarians suffer from all sorts of job-related maladies. One of the more serious Manley describes as "intellect retardation." It occurs when a librarian with numerous degrees is asked to answer only the most trivial of questions, e.g,. "Where is the latest Steven King book?" or "Will there ever be a sequel to Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend?" The reference librarian suffering from this disorder will tend to respond to a question on cats by suggesting the patron really wants a book on the "Symbolic role of cats in the Egyptian Book of the Dead from the second millennium, BC". They also suffer nightmares: the worst, after spending days researching data on institutional funding and finally calling with the answer only to be told by the patron that it wasn't needed any more. Or, it's corollary: “Oh thanks, but the librarian at X library found the answer for me in fifteen minutes days ago.” Burnout may be the inevitable result. Signs to watch for: "A patron asks for the latest diet book and you hand him/her a refrigerator lock. "You stop bathing and using deodorant so that patrons will respect your space needs "You start laughing hysterically when someone asks for the book Do It Yourself Plumbing. "You respond in a very loud voice in front of a lot of people, 'what specific sexual problem do you have,' in response to a patron who asks where he can find the book Human Sexual Inadequacy."
Generally, vacations are not a good idea to reduce this stress. What's required is a part-time job that is more stressful than doing reference. For example, trying to keep teenagers out of jail. Manley has several suggestions gleaned from the scholarly library literature: Cleaning out the cars of contract killers, giving retirement seminars to prisoners on death row, promoting natural childbirth at a retirement home, collecting overdue bills for a loan shark, or working as a circulation clerk at a public library. I should note that this last suggestion of Manley's is perhaps not fair, as circulation clerks have to take a great deal of training in how to be as rude as possible. It's not a skill that comes without a great deal of preparation.
This book is a stitch. But Manley also has some very important comments to make about librarians' attitudes toward themselves and their profession. Librarians must learn to laugh at themselves. We don't do that enough; let's face it, a lot of us are anal-retentive. Manley also makes a case for changing the way we regard censorship and intellectual freedom. He suggests the profession needs to regard censorship as a political battle rather than a moral contest. Pick your battles, he argues, rather than risk losing the war over trivial works. The problem is that without a high criterion -- perhaps even an unattainable one -- the profession will tend to opt for a lower standard in each case. The question for me is, "should a library reflect the parochial community it is part of and funded by, or the larger community that all of us belong to, wit the hope that perhaps education and exposure may lead to understanding and cooperation."
Manley lists twenty questions that should be asked of anyone seeking to eliminate a book from the library prevent its acquisition. They are excellent and should be part of every library school curriculum for they painlessly reveal to the erstwhile censor that if he or she can remove a book, then so can someone else remove a book they might wish to defend.
