Librarian Ire

Worrying about the fate of the profession

Now they are into the e-mail. I recently had a run in with the King of Stupid.
Via e-mail. Okay I will concede spam and the stupid jokes and forwards. But to invade my cozy ivory tower with His Majesty was just too much.
There was a question about the problem of library security. You know, stolen library books that appear for sale on various internet sites.
The person wanted to know what other libraries had done in similar cases. One public librarian made the comment she had seen a book on sale on Ebay that she herself had taken a lost fee for only days earlier.
She didn't complain to either the web site or her bosses because the person in question had paid her for the book.
I was surprised at that response. And said so.
Then the K of S jumps in saying why should she complain since the book was paid for and the library no longer owned it and oh by the way you are very wrong and your opinion isn't worth jack.
Okay he didn't say the last part, but the way he phrased his e-mail it was implied.
And it's not the first time that the K of S has offended people. Most of the time we ignore him or in a few cases gang up on him with our superior knowledge and experience.
But in this case I replied to his post pointing out a few facts. Like just because you accept a lost fee doesn't mean you sold the book to this patron. And later it was discovered that, the library in particular, had been targeted by people who were shopping library shelves for specific books to sell. (Can we say arrest warrant?)
Of course that wasn't good enough for K of S. He had to send me a personal e-mail pointing out how wrong I was and how fantastically right he is.
You work in a tiny little community college. I work in a major research university. Gee, I wonder why.
If this is what's out there in my profession, I need to move to Paris and learn to paint.

posted by Nike at 8:45 PM