Finding This Book Is A Psy-Op

During undergrad, I worked at the front desk in the library at my university.

One day a patron came up and asked for SIOP books. However, she only said it as an acronym, pronouncing it “sigh-op,” she didn’t tell me it stood for the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol, which is a teaching strategy for English language learners. Having recently been discharged from the military, I heard this as psy-op, as in psychological operations. 

I started searching the library’s catalog for psy-op, psy-ops, psychological operations, and various other subjects that might get her books about (what I thought was) her topic.

After several minutes of fruitless searching, I gave up:

Me: “We have a few books that touch on psy-ops, mostly in the context of World War II and Vietnam, nothing more recent.”

Patron: *Looking at me oddly.* “I’m pretty sure SIOP was only created in the last couple decades. What do World War II and Vietnam have to do with teaching English to elementary students?”

It’s my turn to look at her oddly.

Patron: *Frustrated.* “The professor said she put books on reserve for the class, can you look for those?”

She gave me the professor’s name and I pulled the books from the reserve shelf, finally seeing a book with SIOP in the title. I started laughing, which made the patron glare at me until I explained the confusion. Once she understood, she laughed too, and I learned a lesson about always clarifying what patrons are looking for before diving into a search.