Guest Post-- Dunneback's Two Rules of RA

As many of you knowI have Ten Rules of Basic RA Service which I use to train ALL library workers, no matter what department they work in, on how to provide this essential library service.

You may also know, especially from reading my Call to Action posts, that I don’t mince words about what is right and what is wrong when it comes to serving leisure readers.

And, despite my tireless efforts of trying to remind library workers of the correct and the wrong ways to help leisure readers, there are some very bad RA interactions happening everywhere, all of the time. I know this, and it saddens me, angers me, but also makes me work harder.

Well, while I was on vacation, one of these instances happened on Twitter. Thankfully, my friend and awesome librarian, champion of the right way to do RA, Katie Dunneback, addressed the situation immediately. And like me, she does not mince words.

With Katie’s permission I am reposting her blog post, indexing the conversation and her conclusions. Click here for the full post, but at the end of this post I did include the first paragraph to entice you to read on.

The post is instructive and hilarious; plus, she made a T-Shirt of her rules that you can buy. Please don’t be the person Katie describes. Please stop others from being this person, as Katie did. Remember, one bad RA interaction at one library, speaks poorly about all of us. From Katie’s post:

Earlier today, I saw some tweets. A good friend was trying to clarify the meaning of parameters that had been set for a discussion of “what’s the best X book”. Let’s just say the person’s responses were not the best. Especially as the person purports to be a librarian. I get wanting to be snarky and flippant. I certainly can be. But when you’re trying to have a discussion about books and start by saying (my paraphrasing here) “but you can’t include Y title AND THE LIKE because it’s shit” and then compound it by refusing to clarify what you mean by “and the like”, well, you lost me. And if you recognize this little exchange as being you, seriously rethink your role in this profession and discussing books. You pissed off a lot of readers, many of whom don’t think that book is the best example of X either.

Click through to keep reading, and to buy your own Dunneback’s Two Rules of RA T-Shirt! 

And thanks Katie for carrying the banner for excellent RA Service and calling out those who still don’t get it.