Don't get mad at me for the way you speak!!

[Chromatix]

Google has technology that will suggest near matches for "odd" search terms. It strikes me that a phonetic near-matching system would be pretty useful for the library.

[LibraryLady]

I assume you know the old Librarian joke about the patron who asked for a book titled "Oranges and Peaches"? What the person really wanted was Darwin's "Origins of Species".

We get that all the time. A young lady recently came in and asked for a two-volume set suggested by her Professor. The title was said to be "African Antiquity". She was told our library had it but she couldn't find it in our OPAC.

Of course she couldn't find it because OPAC searches are usually not forgiving and she didn't quite hear her Prof properly. She wasn't looking for "African Antiquity". She was looking for "Africa in Antiquity". That's such an easy hearing error to make and we found the material for her quickly because it was a show at our Museum.

Sometimes I think the old card system was better. It was more forgiving of errors. Today, with everything on the Web you must know exactly what you want or open yourself up to all sorts of madness.

[malmalthekiller]

Bah, I know what you mean.

When people come up to the service desk with returns or questions about a product, and I cannot understand them, I just start getting yelled at.

Excuse me, but I'm from a small town in Northern PA, and I grew up with no diversity, sorry I'm not used to it, but I'm trying.

[Hon'ya-chan]

Ever get people that are either using a lisp or accent, and when you ask or say what you think their saying, they get mad at YOU for not listening to them correctly in the first place?

Had this lady today that got progressively mad at me when I couldn't find this book for her. She kept saying something akin to "The Vexing Book." Even when I mentioned Vexing, she got mad cause that wasn't the word she was saying, and got pissy over it. Writing it out wasn't an option she refused, said she saw it in our store and insisted on it. After she provided the authors name, it's "The Vaccine Book".

It's bad enough I get people that can't remember titles of books and give me vague descriptions.