Beyond all of our technobabble in the Biblioblogosphere, which dear friends you know I love, is a voice so pure that I’m more often than not moved by the words. I get chills. This voice shares exactly what it’s like in many public libraries today — working reference and interacting with people.
There is absolutely nothing I could have said to her that would have made any difference at that point. Something personal would have been completely inappropriate and unprofessional, not to mention obviously unwanted. In Reference Interview seminars, we are taught to end with, “Does this answer your question? Please let me know if I can help you further, “ or other wrap-up phrases. But she was so intent on getting the information from that book that I immediately ceased to exist, and those phrases served no purpose. They don’t ever cover this in library training, but sometimes, the best thing to say is nothing.