Newsgroups: bit.listserv.circplus
Date:         Sun, 4 Oct 1992 21:08:15 MST
              <CIRCPLUS@IDBSU.BITNET>
From:         Dan Lester <ALILESTE@IDBSU.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: A READER COMMENTS
              4 Oct 1992 03:47:08 GMT from <hiscrp@NUSCC.NUS.SG>

On Sun, 4 Oct 1992 03:47:08 GMT C R Pennell said:
>     I found this list by accident: I hit the enter bar while
>scrolling though the USENET list on our mainframe, trying to get

   Welcome.  Glad to hear from the users.

>assumption of a great many of these comments is that it is
>impossible for the user or administrator to be right and the
>circulation desk staff to be wrong. People who refuse, for whatever

   Don't think that is the real conclusion....but that some administrators
are jerks who won't support their staff when they ARE right, and that
these same jerks (remember, I AM one of the administrators, and hopefully
rarely a jerk) don't check out the full story before making a decision.

>presumably have a right not to give their SS number - so why is
>EVERYONE who exercises that right automatically labelled a "jerk".

   Well, probably because their insistence on these rights (in those
cases where they have them....in some they don't) makes extra work
for the staff.  I first heard the term from the Drivers License office
folks I know, who are in the same situation.

>There are other comments which disturb me too: that "circ is like
>combat" references to "cannon-fodder", "battle" etc.

   Some times it is....in 30 years in libraries I've been threatened
with a ten inch hunting knife...which was a legal weapon since he was
wearing it on his belt and thus was not concealed....and I couldn't prove
he had threatened me with it....also been cussed out by people who don't
bring their ID cards to check out books....the sign says "no exceptions,
don't even ask....".....they do anyway.....to say nothing of those who
have come up yelling and screaming about fines or bills...they START by
yelling in some cases...then there are those who urinate in stairwells,
masturbate on art books, leave used condoms lying around the place,
threaten or harass other patrons, crawl under the tables to look up
skirts, use mirrors to look up skirts, and so forth....and circulation is
the area that almost always gets to deal with these folks....before the
cops get there....and after....and sometimes instead of....

>never off-hand, unhelpful, rude. Sometimes an apology IS in order
>because a reader has been badly treated, and the person who should

   Absolutely right.

>     That surely is the point: that both sides have to work
>together to defuse situations which look threatening. But if people

   Yes.  However, in SOME cases the patron is totally crazy or unreasonable.

>thought) the computer simply refuses to release any more books to
>them until the overdue ones are returned. This works 90% of the
>time (and show me a system that works 100% of the time!) It is

   Yes, but even if that is the situation, and it is here, it does NOT
stop some profs or students from becoming rude and abusive...and if they
ultimately come to me, they are on occasion deferential, but on others
just as rude and hostile....and I just send them on their way, nicely,
until they are ready to behave like mature adults, in a civil manner.

>c. I'm a reader, not a librarian, so I shouldn't be commenting on
>this list anyway. But I have seen a number of different university
>library systems - in Britain, in Kenya, in Turkey and in Singapore

   You are a welcome addition to the list, either for this one contribution,
or as a regular contributor.  There are several other library lists
where it would ALSO be interesting to have some patron input.

*****************************************************************************
* Dan Lester                          Bitnet:   alileste@idbsu              *
* Associate University Librarian      Internet: alileste@idbsu.idbsu.edu    *
* Boise State University                                                    *
* Boise, Idaho  83725                 BSU and I have a deal: I don't speak  *
* 208-385-1234                        for them and they don't speak for me. *
*****************************************************************************
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU