I have become aware of the lack of les mots justes for certain situations when writing about libraries, so I offer the following. I hope you will find them useful, feel free to add your own.
Overdididiligence
– Spending ten minutes looking through pages of sub-divisions in
Dewey, only to find that the whole number is adequate
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Thanks to Andy Priestner who sent these invaluable additions (not sure what kind of meetings he goes to) :
Diddlesquatting - tweeting during an enquiry desk late duty cos you're too burnt out and tired for anything else
Futilorum - a long pointless meeting at which no actions are recorded whatsoever
Goadflam - a person who deliberately provokes the chair of a meeting
Oopsraffle - forgetting to award promised prizes to users who filled in the annual library survey
Twiddling - animatedly advocating the research value of Twitter
Acupuncture
– Proving to an irate and pompous patron that yes, that fine is quite correct
Ballweb
– An application which will be of little use 6 months from now
Dustbowl
– Unfortunate consequence of handling a brittle book
Emphalibbing
– Making It Quite Clear that you do More Than Stamp Books
Furstacker
– The junior member of staff sent down to the basement
Gaberdine
- A style of presentation at conferences usually adopted by those who didn't rehearse their talk
Gin
Alley – the route staff take around the library when closing down
Hollinesia
– Leaving your email vacation message switched on after you are back
at work
Introsunk
– That induction session didn't go too well
Kittiwake
– the moment you realise you've made a small error in a catalogue
record
Leerwinkle -Suspicion that this visitor to the Library is not all he seems
Mehtsar
– A less than inspiring leader
Negligee
– A management statement designed to smooth over a blunder but which
only succeeds in attracting more attention
Rupert
– a generic term for all male rare books librarians
Solo
– having to drop to all fours to reach a book from the
bottom shelf
Smuggle
– the secret pleasure of not endorsing a colleague on Linked in
Sticker – The member of staff who still doesn’t quite get all this web
stuff
Treacle
– Descriptive language used by management to cover a new process which also
renders it unrecognisable to those who are actually working on it
Tricksheet
– A set of instructions containing a deliberate error
Vistartle - The sudden appearance in the Library of a wealthy donor/senior member of management staff/group of 50 schoolchildren, about which you knew nothing
Whivvering
– The feeling you get in a meeting when a decision is reached that
you don’t agree with but you don’t know why
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Thanks to Andy Priestner who sent these invaluable additions (not sure what kind of meetings he goes to) :
Diddlesquatting - tweeting during an enquiry desk late duty cos you're too burnt out and tired for anything else
Futilorum - a long pointless meeting at which no actions are recorded whatsoever
Goadflam - a person who deliberately provokes the chair of a meeting
Oopsraffle - forgetting to award promised prizes to users who filled in the annual library survey
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Previously in How to succeed in library management:
Communication
How I work
Meetings
Strategic planning
Time management
Previously in How to succeed in library management:
Communication
How I work
Meetings
Strategic planning
Time management