So it turns out the best way to annoy your librarians is to post a headline suggesting students annoy their librarians by asking them stuff...

Ask us stuff! https://twitter.com/GdnUniversities/status/1352874461997932544?s=20

The article contains a quote that was, we're absolutely sure, just meant in a light-hearted, irreverent way.

“My most important tip – annoy your librarian,” said a Cambridge University librarian.

He meant "don't feel shy in asking us stuff because we want to help."

Library twitter got quite cross about the framing (and about @GdnUniversities using it as a headline, which they've since changed) because we don't want you to ever think you're annoying us by getting in touch.

And the evidence suggests you DO worry about this, and we don't want you to. Often our Liaison Librarians will get emails which start 'I'm SO sorry to bother you with this,' - but you needn't be, and you aren't.

Okay?

Good.

(That said, people often ask our help desk questions that aren't about the library, because we're easy to find, we're there, we're happy to help if we can. That's fine too but to get cross with our staff if they don't know the answer: less so. Anyway, we digress...)

There's another bit in the article that says 'X has been hit with a £20 fine for two books he’s been unable to return... “The uni is emailing me asking for the books back.'

Well we can't speak for other Unis but as you know, we switched off fines in March and they're still off.

We also switched off recalls, so you don't get pestered to bring back books when it's tricky to bring back books.

If you need a book and all copies are out on loan *the purchase request form is your friend!*

https://www.york.ac.uk/library/borrowing/tell-us-what-you-need/

We *want* you to use this.

Okay?

Good.

There's another bit in the article that says "If you can’t find what you’ve been asked to read, your librarian will be able to find it for you.”

This is a pretty bold claim.... We will do our best but sometimes - in fact, quite often - publishers won't sell us ebooks.

Even ones you can buy on your kindle, they won't sell to Universities. Or they will, but at absolutely unmanageable markups in price.

Think £40 for a paper copy, £1,600 for the ebook. (See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54922764 for more info on this.)

So that's why we make a lot of our Postal Loans service.

If we can't buy an ebook, we'll buy a print book and send it to you in the post.

(But you know all about Book Takeaway already... https://www.york.ac.uk/library/borrowing/book-takeaway/)

Finally, there's a bit in the article which says "Avoid using Google and get to know your library website." Yes to the second part, but the first part isn't that simple.

Search engines can be very useful, and a lot of academic disciplines require a wider variety of sources >>

<< than just books and peer-reviewed articles. The trick is to use Google (or, for example, https://duckduckgo.com/  which doesn't track anything) *well* and our Liaison Librarians can help with that...

There is some good stuff in the article too, btw.

Anyway that's a long thread for a Monday morning so here's the tl;dr - get in touch with us if you'd like your help.