True confessions time!

I've often thought it was a pity that we don't often have the opportunity to tell the stories of what went wrong. You know, the cautionary tales. The embarrassing stories. Don't those have the same educational power as the success stories? And if not, at least some amusement value for everybody other than you?

So here's your chance. Today's topic is dumbest thing I ever did in the archives stacks.

Restrictions: we're aiming for humor, here. Please don't tell me about the horrible accident that injured five people. I have a friend who was permanently crippled when a microfilm cabinet fell on her. Granted, she wasn't doing anything stupid (the fact that it wasn't bolted to the wall was a mistake not of her making) so that story might not qualify anyhow, but let's keep it somewhat light, shall we? That isn't remotely funny. Oh and keep it relatively clean too? I'd prefer not to change the setting on my blog to "adult content" or to have it forcibly changed on my behalf.

I've got a doozie for you, and I'll lead off with that after I've received a few responses so I won't be the only one who is going to be admitting to goofiness.

Here's the confessional part: I will keep your name off of it unless you tell me you're okay with my going public with it. Use my home email address (arlene underscore schmuland dash 1 at yahoo dot com) to contact me and since neither it nor my blog are associated with my job, that should be enough to keep me from being subjected to Cronon-esque FOIA requests. However, beyond that, your anonymity is up to you. If you give enough detail about your escapades or the layout of the institution that former coworkers are going to be likely to recognize it, that's on you, not me. I'm a little confused at the moment about how I've set up the comments on this blog so I think they're unmoderated (where I'll leave them unless necessity proves otherwise) so don't use the comment function to get in touch with me.

Oh, and make sure the story is about you, okay? No stories that might embarrass other people unless you have obtained buy-in from those individuals. And if you have a co-worker with a spectacular story you think needs to be heard, you need to convince that person to tell it to me. Not that I'm going to be able to fact check you here, but let's all be ethical archivists and let people tell their own stories.

Now, off to my email to hopefully watch the submissions pouring in. For the edification of all of us.

And if you do have that NC-17 story to tell me? Go for it. I might not be able to post it, but I can use the laugh.