Oh, OCLC, I think we will all be better when you have been fractured into tiny pieces and your bad decisions no longer have weight or influence on us.

Because *in what universe* do you think it's a *good* idea to show someone an error that says "Sorry, you're not allowed to access this resource" when the actual problem with the sign-in is "You didn't type in the correct PIN."

(That same error is shown to people who have done it all correctly and really aren't able to access the resource.)

Ah, yes, there is never a greater reminder about how "the cloud is other people's computers" than when the cloud service that governs your users' abilities to sign into your computers goes down. The machines themselves are fine, but the cloud-based sign-in isn't.

And people wonder why what I really want for every library is enough server space to self-host everything and competent sysadmins to keep it running and up to date. Because if we all had that, libraries could do wondrous things.

With as much as there are people in technology chasing billions to extrude slop and trying to require everyone to interact with it as either prerequisite or sum total of "customer service" or other human functions, I will point out that someone could make very comfortable millions of dollars developing software and services for the GLAM sector that follow four simple rules:

- They work.
- They are accessible.
- They are customizable.
- They do not spy on anyone using them.

2) How do people who have not been repeatedly traumatized by their mistakes having outsized consequences deal with a situation where having made a mistake about where someone is and not recognized a person, but rendered your best help to their issue, you find they complained to the library board about you being rude and gaslighting them?

These two questions are related, and while my manager said it wasn't the end of the world (true, I wasn't fired), now I wait to see what gets said as response.

All right, friends, I need outside perspective on two things:

1) Is it normal user behavior to, upon seeing the help desk is unattended, call the library phone line from inside the library to report this and demand assistance?

I want to make sure that I'm not thinking something is weird, when it's a perfectly normal practice like honkwiching, and I'm just behind the times.

For Banned Books Week, I (again) would have strong words for our administration's stance on intellectual freedom:

- "People who want to shutter libraries because we carry books they don't like have to be tolerated, lest we censor their viewpoint"
- "Parents absolutely have the right to decide what their children can or can't read"

about how much they're hiding behind a fig leaf and shouting "I'm invisible! Please don't hurt me!", but that would require that they care enough to listen to me.

I say this as a public service announcement: Consider not naming your children after characters in books where the author is still alive, because you won't know how those names will be received in the future. If you must, consider giving it as a second or middle name so it's not a constant hazard.

Love, the librarian who didn't visibly flinch at seeing someone named a child after the founder of Gryffindor and named another child after Draco's father, who was not a good person even in the books.

This is one of those things where I say, "Oh, I'll ask Fedi, they know."

How much shade should I be throwing at an organization who, when confronted with a potentially ambiguous sign-on (user name only, without domain), chooses the first name on the list of ambiguities and then proceeds to try and do a sign-on, with predictably disastrous results, rather than the sensible thing of throwing an error that says "Sorry, there's more than one of your username, please specify which one you are."?

...and, you know, *confabulation*, if we could do classes on getting the slop off our devices and on teaching people how to use their devices, since that's very clearly a need for our populations.

I had someone today saying they don't have a password for their Gmail account and they've never been prompted for one. Their conclusion: our computers were broken, because they claimed this password prompt behavior had never happened before, despite my gentle attempts to dissuade this conclusion.

Welp, either I'm a hero, or I'm leaning very heavily on the fact that I have significant system seniority to escape the worst consequences.

MPOW prompted us to send in questions related to AI, technology, and info literacy.

So I asked if they would commit to avoiding (and minimizing where unavoidable) the use of generative "AI" and "AI" that perverts LLMs, if they would declare stuff about how to use those programs better officially off-limits to staff because training data set ethics...

I've been sick for more than a week with something, I dislike it thoroughly, and I want it gone. Also, I've still been trying to do programming because my employer refuses to act on the staffing shortages their policies have created. I'm taking days off, because I'm maxed out at the leave bank, but only days where I'm not scheduled for something.

While I should be okay with canceling programs due to sick, The Organization makes their displeasure known at having their incompetence shown.

Okay, so:

If taking vacation, sick, or care time doesn't have all the following conditions, then it's not actually encouraged:

- Taking as much time as you need will not threaten your employment status
- There is enough time in your bank available to take and it is refilled at a rate that will quickly overflow your (generous) storable maximum if you don't.
- There are enough people at your workplace such that the work will flow smoothly if you are not there, including your projects

Today I had an appointment that I suspect @jessamyn understands all too well - a person coming in with multiple devices, and questions about strange things seen or the presence of notifications that don't go away if you skip the related task, and the device is very full of all kinds of programs flooding it with ads, and also occasionally doing what they're supposed to, and also that this person doesn't have a person to teach how to use and clean up any of the devices. Did what I could, but...

All while maintaining an even tone and not speaking aloud any of those curses to the person you're helping, because if you did that, they'd declare the whole thing too difficult and abandon the quest, of course. Good customer service and all that.

Some things should not be this difficult, but I mostly came to the conclusion that taking .heic by default was the problem, so Apple was to blame for the silent invective that accompanied the entire process.

So much of helping people with technology is listening to them fret about what the problem is and what they need to do, and then after that, reading the words on the screen to them so they do what it's asking them to do, and things go fine from there.

Sometimes, it's cussing out your print from home program for not accepting .heic, cursing a public computer for not printing for whatever reason it chose, and using a janky online utility to make a .jpg and uploading and printing that, instead.

The rest of the survey is also bad, but that particular question made me utter intensely profane and blasphemous remarks.

It'll disappear when they're done collecting data, but in case anyone thinks it isn't possible to suck this bad at survey design, here's the official link:

https://kcls.email.bibliocommons.com/r/9391c6dcb7ed2839498174ac3?ct=YTo1OntzOjY6InNvdXJjZSI7YToyOntpOjA7czo1OiJlbWFpbCI7aToxO2k6MTM4Nzt9czo1OiJlbWFpbCI7aToxMzg3O3M6NDoic3RhdCI7czoyMjoiNmExNjQ1ODkwYmFhNzc2OTU5NTkwNyI7czo0OiJsZWFkIjtzOjY6IjM1MzI1MyI7czo3OiJjaGFubmVsIjthOjE6e3M6NToiZW1haWwiO2k6MTM4Nzt9fQ%3D%3D&

After you're done, they say "Your response will be combined with other input and used to set priorities for technology projects at KCLS." so don't expect to be listened to if you fill it out.

Here's the question and responses:

1. How would you describe your current comfort level with AI tools?

(Radio button) Not comfortable, I avoid them
(Radio button) Somewhat uncomfortable, I have tried them, but it does not come naturally to me
(Radio button) Neutral, I can use them but do not feel fully confident
(Radio button) Comfortable, I use them regularly and feel fairly capable
(Radio button) Very comfortable, I experiment freely and learn as I go

Congratulations, it's poisoned data!

I don't know how many of the people on here teach courses about data collection and survey design, or work in it, but if you do, I have a *stellar* Do Not Do This example for you to incorporate, courtesy of a library system near me and their survey to people about LLMs and what people want the library to do about it.

The very first question of this survey (in the next post) destroys credibility and biases the results by combining two separate questions into one Morton's Fork for respondents.

It's about eight-ten years before I explode back onto the scene, and some of it really does come from having been through enough to no longer give a fuck about what others might think about it.

So if it took me this long to become a jaded mid-career who has the confidence to write and present (the confidence of the mediocre white dude), how much longer does it take for all my colleagues of color to get there and to write and present to hostile white audiences?

I'd say I was moving up, having an Official Citation and shout-outs from people who I respect greatly about things that I have done or helped with, but looking back at my timeline, after the initial burst of being new enough to not give a fuck, it took me about ten years before I could not give a fuck sufficiently to restart writing and submitting proposals. (Not coincidentally, that carries me through both the bad relationship and the boss who tried to fire me.)