Offensive patron is offensive

[wolfie]

To paraphrase one T-shirt from Hell: Jesus loves Frankie, but everyone else thinks he's an asshole.

[dalesys]

Or the Austin Lounge Lizards...

[Sandiercy]

I think I would tell the man that Jesus was a Jew then walk away.

[dalesys]

I think I would tell the man that Jesus was a Jew then walk away.

Long-Haired Radical Socialist Jew

[reimero]

My director is obnoxiously sympathetic to this guy, though she is OK with us setting limits, timewise and such. She gives him special treatment because he's got some kind of memory issue. So the letter was her response to his absolute need to have a Christian doctor, which was a puzzler to me.

Given his memory issues I think I'll take you guys up on the 'accidental' hang ups . . . .

I'm actually shocked Big Library was able to get away with pawning him off on you guys. Unless he was physically at the library acting in a strongly inappropriate manner, pushing someone off on a different library because you don't like dealing with him is a violation of professional ethics (see: http://www.ifmanual.org/codeethics with particular emphasis on VII.) Unfortunately, it happens far too often that librarians (or at least library reference staff) will take the quick, easy out rather than deal with difficult issues. I've experienced this personally (in my case, it was an involved research question, and the reference desk staffer had no clue where to go.)

Of course, if he's a "researcher", you could always feign interest and ask which peer-reviewed or professional journals have published his work...