So this is reference...

... and what have you done?
Another stapler given, answered reference questions... none.

I LOVE reference work. I love doing reference enquiries. It makes me feel like mighty mouse when I have a bewildered student come to the desk ready to drop out and leave the desk feeling secure in the new found knowledge that yes, the answers are there, and yes I will help them track down the info they need to form those answers.

Yes Virginia, there are databases!

I think it is moments like this we, as librarians, love - when students stop us on the stair case to say we have "single-handedly changed the direction of their studies", "stopped them dropping out", saved the day, and had a vast and measurable impact on their lives. I've had a PhD student tell me I 'changed their life'. And yes, while I appreciated that only a WAAPA student would have put it so dramatically, that was still an ego rush. I walked around all day smirking to myself: "I'm a librarian and I change people's lives".

So believe me when I say I understand the attachment librarians have to the reference desk - but there has to be a better way. I've been sitting up here on level 4 of my library for over an hour, and literally the only question I've been asked is "Can I borrow a stapler?" and, as I don't even have a stapler, I am beginning to feel a little depressed.

I want to keep the part of my identity as a librarian that says "I help people, sometimes very desperate and stressed people" but I am truly ready to drop the part of my life that involves spending hours at a desk trying to engage students that sometimes seem to think I'm just a creepy old lady who sits behind a desk and accosts them with unwanted smiles and offers of help whenever they have the misfortune to have to come up to the fourth floor.

Most of what I do up here could be done by effective signage, but we all know students don't read signs.

What is the solution peeps?