While at work this afternoon, I walked into the bathroom to use the facilities. I was dressed for work as I usually am, in a shirt and tie, with my name tag that says “Librarian.”

There was a library patron in there washing his hands (one of our regular internet users). He notices me come in and asks “So, do you clean the bathrooms here too? It’s always so nice and clean.”

For a few seconds, sarcastic (and perhaps smart-ass) answers flooded into my brain. I am glad to report however, that I summoned a great deal of self-restraint and gave him a polite answer. Since the question deserves a proper response, I thought I would do so here.

Although librarians might deal with a plugged up faucet on occasion, we usually do not have cleaning responsibilities. Most librarians have masters degrees and have attended college for at least six years before we entered the profession. The School of Library and Information Studies I attended did not offer any courses in bathroom cleaning. I know your dealings with librarians mostly involve having us help you access your Hotmail account, but you might be interested to know that our main responsibilities are helping patrons get started on their research, recommending books for them to read, answering reference questions and ordering books and other materials for the library.

Would you ask your dentist, minister, or even car mechanic if they clean the bathrooms where they work? To help you understand the absurdity of your question, let’s turn things around. The most interesting reference question I had today was from a patron who wanted to know how much space dust the Earth picks up in a year. Would you ask a cleaning person to help you find the answer to such a question?

In case you’re interested, every year about 30,000 tons of cosmic dust falls into our planet’s atmosphere as it orbits through space. It is estimated that 3,000 tons of that falls to the Earth’s surface. No wonder the library’s cleaning staff works as hard as they do.