Interrupt Me, Please!

The thing about libraries is that they almost always have desks where you can find library staff. Which, on the one hand, is great – it makes us easy to find. But the other thing about those desks is that they are sort of intimidating, and the people behind them always look busy, and sometimes they make a person wonder if maybe their question isn’t worth bothering staff with after all. Especially if you’re a child or you’re not used to using the library or you are feeling shy that day, or if you think you really should know the answer already and feel silly asking. 

Honestly, sometimes I think the problems inherent to desks outweigh the benefits, because (far from being too busy to help you) the folks behind those library desks really want you to ask them questions! Librarians love questions. That’s why we’re information professionals! You may think that the person typing away at a computer behind the Reference Desk does not want to be interrupted, but in fact they are waiting for the opportunity to help someone. Yes, they have things to do, but when library staff are on a desk shift, their priority is helping patrons and being available to answer questions. 

There was a time when library interior design seemed almost as if it was planned to intimidate. We have some fantastic old pictures of how the interiors of JCLS libraries looked in days gone by, of librarians with their hair piled up in buns, standing ramrod straight behind desks that almost anyone would have to tilt their head back to see over.  The librarians of yore were placed on literal pedestals, and library patrons were supplicants at the temple of knowledge. Or it sure looked like that. In reality, I am sure they were kind and helpful and just as invested in assisting patrons as we are now. But the message sent by the furniture could not have been more clear. 

Nowadays, library designers think really hard about how to make library staff seem approachable. The desks are still there (although they tend to be lower), but library folks think a lot about good customer service and universal design, and we encourage our staff to get out from behind the desks and roam the library. That’s because we know that it is easier to just walk up to someone and ask a question without the physical and psychological barrier of a desk between you. 

When I was working on my MLIS (Master’s of Library and Information Science) degree, I took a class called Human Information Behavior, in which we discussed the ways that people interact with information. (How we come to realize we don’t know something, how we decide what to do to fill that gap, and the various ways we go about finding the information we need.)

Humans are complicated creatures, and we often get in our own way when we’re trying to learn something new. Maybe we think we know the answer, but we’re not sure. Or we really would like for the answer to be one thing and are not ready to hear another answer, no matter how well supported the facts are. Or maybe we’re not sure how to phrase our question, or there’s something private that we’re worried about revealing if we ask the question outright. As a result of all that convoluted thinking around information seeking, we tend to hedge or ask a more general question rather than expose our specific need. Asking a question is exposing a vulnerability, after all. Nobody likes to look ignorant, and the fear of being judged and found wanting is baked in for a lot of us. So sometimes rather than revealing what we don’t know and asking for help, we just decide not to bother the nice, intimidating librarian behind the desk and try to find the answer on our own. 

And that is fine. If you want to hunt down the information on your own, more power to you. The library is yours to explore. But please remember that the staff behind the desks at your library are there to help. We don’t know all the answers, but we know a lot about where and how to look for them. No question is too small or too silly. We will ask you some clarifying questions to get to the core of your information need and then do our best to find relevant and accurate information sources, respecting the confidentiality of your question throughout. And we don’t judge.  

So if you think you’d like our help, please interrupt us. We love to dig into a thorny reference question, but we’ll just as happily look up the Dewey Decimal Number that will direct you to the Mexican cookbooks, travel guides to Greece, or biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt. We’re here to help you with the photocopier or recommend a resume template. It’s our job and our pleasure. So don’t let the big desks or the staff’s appearance of being very busy with terribly important things stop you. Interrupt us, please! For real. We mean it. That’s why we’re here.