(no subject)

[darchildre]

My library has self-service hold pickup - you walk up to the hold shelf and find your items under your name, then take them to the check out. However, if you have an interlibrary loan item on hold (an item that came from outside our library system), we keep those behind the desk. They're not ours, and often they're older items or specialty items - we like to take special care of them. So instead, we have a few empty dvd cases that say "Your Interlibrary Loan Item is in! Please pick it up at the Service Desk!" in big letters on the cover. We do this because people are used to getting their own holds and otherwise might not realize they have a special item in.

9 times out of 10, people pick up these cases and then come up to the desk to complain that they didn't put a dvd on hold. The 10th time is a person who's gotten an ILL before. I have never seen anyone actually look at the case and register what the text says.

I realize that this is a very human tendency but god, I am still so surprised every day at how few library patrons seem willing to, y'know, read.

Comments

[james]

It was always surprising (and yet not) when my partner (working for a science museum) would send out emails to teachers who were going to bring in their groups, would find those teachers would not read the email (but would reply or call with questions which were answered in the email.) Or show up the day of, not having done the prep as requested in the email.

You would think that *teachers* would understand the value of reading the instructions. But no.

(Also this reminds me I have to pick up my hold at the library. I also did not place a DVD on hold. ;-) )

[frenchroast]

Back when I was a high school teacher, the sheer amount of chatter that went on during all-faculty meetings when someone was talking (and often resulted in questions about exactly what had already been said) drove me up the wall. I'm like "do you people not realize you are doing the Exact Same Thing you constantly bitch about your students doing?" It was infuriating.

People gonna people, I guess?

[james]

I work retail so I have a very dim view of "people" as a general group. People need to stop peopleing and just go home.

[silveradept]

Nobody in a library reads, neither staff nor users. It is one of the immutable laws of hilarity or frustration.