As a day job, I work as a clerk at the local library. We have something called Reader’s Advisory, which is one of the stats we keep to show our usefulness to the community and therefore justify our existence and budget and financial requests. Specifically, Reader’s Advisory is when we recommend books or movies or TV shows or other items in our collection to our patrons. This sometimes comes from us knowing our regular patrons and their reading/viewing habits well enough that when we see a new item come in, we automatically recommend it to them. Or in the case of certain patrons (or former coworkers) we just put it on hold for them.

Most often a Reader’s Advisory comes from patrons asking us to recommend something. They’re looking for cozy mysteries or beach reads or werewolf fiction or ’80s comedies or sci-fi shows or whatever. It’s our job to recommend specifics. This is part of my job that I’ve struggled with because rarely do people ask me to recommend stuff I regularly indulge in, like queer romances or books on decomposition. I’ve made great strides in the past couple of years, but it’s still something that gives me split-second brain freeze when people ask me to recommend something.

I said all of this just to point to the subject line and say that I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to recommend reruns to people, at least not that I can remember and not in the context I described above in which I’m asked to recommend specific types of reruns like cop shows or sitcoms or cozy mysteries featuring a priest. I tend to force those recommendations onto unsuspecting people who wander into my sphere and dare to broach the subject (like my coworker April mentioning that she didn’t like CSI: Miami when it first aired and me championing it to the extent that she said she’d give it another try just so I would shut up). But nobody has specifically asked me to recommend a certain kind of show for them to watch.

Honestly, it’s probably for the best. I’m not sure how I would respond to having that much influence. My brain would probably fritz with the possibility of turning people on to David Cassidy: Man Undercover or Tales of the Gold Monkey or Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Also, even though I’ve not seen all of the reruns in the world, I still have strong opinions. Very strong opinions. There are some shows I’d be more likely to push and some I’d be reluctant to promote due to my own preferences. Not very objective of me.

However, I do believe that my library clerk training has prepared me for the unlikely occurrence that someone might come to me for a recommendation. Even if I haven’t seen every rerun in the world, I do know a great deal about many of them. So, I have the knowledge necessary to make informed recommendations. But working in the library has taught me the neutrality required to make good recommendations. I have to recommend what the patron is looking for, not what I think they should read or watch or what I like or prefer.

Will I be able to utilize this training when I’m not getting paid to be neutral?

Well, I suppose someone will have to ask me what I recommend so we can find out.