| Mar. 3rd, 2008 @ 02:09 pm You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean. |
|---|
Current Mood:  annoyed
A question for the group: What, exactly, does the phrase "visiting faculty" mean to you? To me and every other academic librarian I know, it means a professor from another educational institution who's temporarily at my institution, having either been invited or who simply asked if they could come work with our professors on research and use our resources. However, to the "visiting faculty" I just helped (NOT!) today, it apparently means "I'm some random professor who happens to be in town for no particular reason and want to use this library's resources because I R TEH VIZITEEN FACKULTEE!!!" This lady wanted to use Microsoft Word, but the university's IT department controls computer access (except for the library's databases) and all our network applications require an ID and password which are limited to current students, faculty, and staff, oh and also actual, approved visiting faculty who've been assigned a guest login from the department they're visiting. Of course when I told her all she needed to do was ask the department she was (allegedly) visiting to give her the guest login info, her reply was, "I'm only in town a couple more days!" Evade, much? She didn't believe the library has absolutely no authorization whatsoever to create guest accounts for anyone, even "visiting faculty" whose husbands work for the government, which is neither here nor there in my opinion, so I don't know what she expected to gain by telling me. I should have sent her to the nearby public library which gives everyone equal access to all their resources, whether they're visiting faculty with governmental spouses or mentally troubled folks looking for the latest in brain-penetration-ray-deflecting tinfoil hat designs.
Edit 3:12 p.m.: I neglected to mention my other reason for being suspicious: Real "visiting faculty" generally don't travel with someone who appears to be their 85-year-old mom. |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
library_mofo
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sleepy
