A couple of weeks go, I attended a short conference for academic librarians in the Pacific Northwest, which was organized and hosted by the Washington chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries. Until recently, I was a member-at-large on the executive board of the organization, and one of my roles at the conference was to get one of the concurrent sessions started. This meant herding everyone to their seats after a snack break, and directing their attention to the speakers.
The room we were in required the use of a microphone in order to be heard. I spoke clearly and evenly into the microphone as I tried to call the room to order, but apparently it wasn’t loud enough because someone in the first few rows said, “They can’t hear you.” And that was when I did it.
I shushed a room full of librarians.
And it worked.
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