Being a Librarian Isn't Sexy: The Attack of the Stan(s)

The Lonely but Annoying Patron Tale

Stan* isn't really his name, but we'll pretend that it is. Stan is a very lonely, but annoying man that calls the library at least once or twice a day. The staff thinks he might be agoraphobic or unable to leave his house since he has never visited our library (To our knowledge). As a circulation employee I never had the displeasure of talking to Stan before because he only calls the reference desk. During the past few months however, I've taken extra shifts at the reference desk so I won't be as poor as usual. When I took my first call from Stan I was unprepared for who was on the other line.

Stan is not a very polite man. He often cuts you off when you're simply trying to help him out. Also, Stan likes to test you on your research skills. Since I work at circ I don't get to hone in on my research skills all that much anymore, so I was a bit rusty when he called.

His first question, "Who are the Goths? I want to know more about them". (I was tempted to ask him if he meant the culture not the tribe, but I held my tongue) I stupidly used my old faithful site, Wikipedia. As I was spilling out facts, I was interrupted by Stan. "I don't agree with that, I don't agree with that at all". I was a bit taken aback, and I'm not often surprised by patrons anymore. Before I could open another browser to search a different site I was interrupted again, "You're on Wikipedia aren't you?" He told me that he was looking at Wikipedia too! I was baffled to why he was on the same website as me. Why did he need me to research for him then? I was embarrassed that I used Wikipedia, but I was rusty, I wasn't sure how to research quickly anymore. I have written many research papers in my day, but that was when I had access to college databases.

Stan followed up asking about what the price of gold was per ounce, and if I could find where the Pillar Stone was located. After 15 minutes of me trying to navigate more "knowledgeable" sites, he grew bored of me and hung up. I had no idea that my conversation with Stan was an easy one compared to others who have dealt with Stan.

When I even casually mention Stan to my co-workers, they automatically ask if I had to create a fake movie review for him. Apparently, Stan doesn't trust the critics, but does happen to trust the library staff in this case. Apparently he's really into movies from the 90's. I wonder if he's more of a Titanic or Matrix man?

Stan is out done by Phil*, a patron, who asks for every movie ever made, every actor/actress that has ever lived, and so on and so forth. Not only are those kind of lists unavailable, but any lists found are typically considered for the most part, unreliable as well.

My friend Rebecca* works at the reference desk, she has a few tales of her own about Stan, but my favorite tale is when she had to read the Scottish Deceleration of Independence aloud to Stan. Can you imagine reading the entire deceleration out loud when there are patrons milling about probably wondering what she was doing? The things I love about Rebecca is that she's sweet and has so much patience. The staff agrees that while Stan can be annoying, they think he's just lonely and needs someone to talk to. It's kind of sad once you think about it, I try to remember that when he gets on my nerves.Working at the reference desk made me realize that I need to work on having more patience with insistent patrons.

My beef here isn't with Stan exactly. It's with these kind of patrons in general. I'm fine with patrons asking questions, but when they aren't even in need of a real answer or can only disagree with you-what's the point? I wish that most of the questions directed towards us were more library related, but that's not a reasonable request anymore if your library is popular. I get it, librarians are the researchers, we're supposed to know everything. Although, I find it trivial to look up every restaurant that serves buffalo wings in the tri-state era (True story that I may tell another time). I'd much rather than look up a recipe book for buffalo wild wings.

I imagine everybody has these kind of stories, but since I've only ever worked at a library (besides my disastrous attempt to work at an ice cream shop-which lasted a whopping two days) I might be a bit biased.