Overall, I found this exercise to provide good real-world experience. I'm sure it is not as instructive as actually trying to provide reference service myself, but it is close. I am now more aware of the pressures facing librarians and the many environmental factors that play a role in how they perform. Observations fleshed out book theory -- so that's what an upset user looks like!
The reason we are in this field is to help people find information, and so it is great to actually get out to see the people we're trying to help. Hopefully we can continue to improve the reference interaction, providing better service, and users will feel less like they are intruding on busy librarians and more like they are receiving a valuable, customized service. If we can satisfy more users, reference work itself will be more worthwhile. Hamilton library is off to a good start in this direction.